Anyone here ever been to my hometown?

[kentuck]

If you go, drive thru the Pine Mountain State Park and sit on the Chained Rock...

[Journeyman]

1. They have that big a theft problem there, they have to chain the rocks down? . . .

Though I must admit, it looks like a beautiful place.

[kentuck]

2. :-)

Supposedly to keep it from rolling off the mountain. It's a big chain but I don't know if it would hold that rock? Each link weighs 7 pounds and it took 20 mule teams to haul it up the mountain...

[Matariki]

50. What you don't know is that it's holding down the hatch on the hall of the mountain trolls

[kentuck]

52. But I did know they could never get it around you...

You are good!

[hrmjustin]

3. Wow what a place to live.

I live in NYC so it would be completely different from what I am used to but it would be interesting to live there.

[kentuck]

5. Just hang a right and drive up to Harlan County...

Most folks have heard of that place.

[hrmjustin]

8. I saw the movie made in 1976 about Harlan county.

[kentuck]

9. There was an earlier one with Robert Mitchum...

called Thunder Road.

[spanone]

4. ...and the name of your hometown is.....?

been to louellen, ky....up your way?

[kentuck]

7. The Gem City of the Cumberlands...

Pineville.

[kentuck]

10. Sounds familiar.

Do you know what county that is in?

[spanone]

11. had to look...it's in harlan county....

https://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&q=louellen,+ky&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ei=OnN9UdGYN4jO9ASVmoHoAw&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAg

[dballance]

6. Looks Beautiful. Never Been There But Have Been to Land Between the Lakes.

Kentucky and TN, where I'm from, have some great state parks and natural areas.

[Go Vols]

12. Been thru there a number of times

going to Evarts,Ky. to ride ATV's.

[kentuck]

15. Do you come thru Cumberland Gap?

and go up 119?

[Go Vols]

17. yep

[kentuck]

18. Where do you live in TN?

close to Harrogate or Lafollette or New Tazewell?

[Go Vols]

26. I am a little further than that

I live fairly close to the Jack Daniels Distillery.

[kentuck]

28. Yeah, that's a good drive...

But there are a lot of good ATV trails in the mountains around Evarts and Lynch.

[Go Vols]

30. We go to Evarts

a couple of times a year for a week or so.We tried Middlesboro last time and rode Wilderness Trail Off Road Park,was much better riding off park tho where they haven't destroyed the mtns. via mining.

[kentuck]

34. Good luck with that!

Some of the prettiest mountains in the world, in my opinion, and they have scraped like nuts off a sundae...

[AzDar]

13. I have...many times. I seem to recall staying at a Chained Rock Motel (?) , too.

Mom's side of the family hail from the hollers outside Hyden (Middle Fork, Bad Creek).

[kentuck]

16. Yes, that was closer to Middlesboro.

on the other side of Log Mountain.

[redwitch]

14. My paternal grandfather was from Kentucky.

I apparently have many relatives there that I have never met. Distant cousins mostly.

[kentuck]

19. This is Daniel Boone territory.

When I was a kid, my Dad worked in a coal mine for a guy named Wheeler Boone, a direct descendant of Daniel, and his son, Bobby, was a long-time attorney in Pineville. Many of the people that came thru Cumberland Gap still have descendants in the area.

[Honeycombe8]

20. Why do have chains on the rocks? nt

[kentuck]

21. Different reasons...

Some say for tourism. Others say to prevent the big rock from rolling down into the city. I think it's been there about 75 years or longer?

[tularetom]

22. It has a lot more going for it than mine

It's main claim to fame is that Charles Manson lives there. (He doesn't get around much I hear).

And that J. G. Boswell, for many years the nations largest recipient of crop subsidies, is headquartered there.

[kentuck]

24. Everybody's hometown has it own unique qualities...

I think.

[Worried senior]

31. Not mine.

[kentuck]

36. Six Degrees of Separation...

My wife's brother-in-law was the construction supervisor a few years ago when they built handicapped ramps, etc for the older inmates inside the prison...

[A Little Weird]

23. Yes!

Although I really wasn't in town that much. But I enjoyed some mighty fine catfish at Pine Mountain State Park and some nice hiking in the area.

[kentuck]

27. At the Lodge in the Park...

is a very nice restaurant.

I was there making reservations for dinner with my Mother the day that the Branch Davidians set themselves on fire and burned up their children...

[Initech]

25. I've been through lots of areas of Kentucky but I don't know where that is.

[byeya]

29. You're within a nice drive of Blair Mtn, WV, which should be a National Monument

I lived in the southern Apps for 35 years - yeah the area had two names with "Gap" being one of them - and it's a beautiful part of the USA with some indivdualistic people living there.

[kentuck]

35. Big Stone Gap, Virginia is real pretty also...l

Just across the mountains from Harlan County.

[byeya]

40. Big Stone Gap(Scott County I think) is beautiful. From where you are, you're only a couple

of mountains away from Hiltons, VA, the home of the Carter Family Fold where they play good music Saturday nights. The Carter Family museum is open on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

[kentuck]

41. About the same distance to the Renfro Valley ...

which preceded the Grand Ole Opry... Just north off Interstate 75

[byeya]

44. Wow! I hadn't thought, or heard, about that for years. I used to listen to WCKY at night growing up

because I liked their mix of country music more than WSMs(this was in Baltimore before I started moving around the country)

[kentuck]

46. That was out of Cincinnati...

with Wayne Raney? I listened to that also.

[byeya]

49. Wayne Raney doing his gospel and selling his harmonicas. I think he had a brother who imitated

a dobro guitar with a rubber and metal device he put in his mouth to get the Hawaiian guitar effect.

Wayne, at least, was still making the rounds of Fundy churches in the late 1970s in northern NC and who knows where else.

Wayne wrote the classic Thank You Dear God For Victory in Korea


WCKY was around 1600 on the dial - way up there

[kentuck]

51. He also had that classic:

Why Don't You Haul Off and Love Me..

[byeya]

53. Yes. And I have an album with Linda Ronstadt doing Wayne's" We Need a Whole Lot

More of Jesus and a Lot Less of Rock n' Roll

Lonnie Glosson was the harmonica player for Roy Acuff and was a partner with Raney in hawking those harmonicas.

[kentuck]

55. Roy Acuff...

with Bashful Brother Oswald on dobro. He was born and raised about 50 miles south of my hometown, in Maynardville, TN. I remember going by his old homeplace when I used to drive the old highway down to Knoxville...

[byeya]

56. Well that's kind of wonderful - Roy Acuff was a real legend. Great Speckle Bird is a favorite

Always on the Grand Old Opry which got heard everywhere because WSM was a clear channel

[RKP5637]

32. Beautiful!!! n/t

[Buns_of_Fire]

33. Beautiful place.

After I de-winterize the RV, I might just amble up there and camp for a while. With any luck, my GPS won't route me through Anchorage.

[antigone382]

37. At present, I'm about an hour and a half Northwest of you, by car.

We do have some scenes quite similar to that over here, though. In a week I get my bachelors' degree and then I'm headed back Middle Tennessee where I danged well belong. Warts and all, Southern Appalachia is a magical place to be from and I'm glad other DUers understand the beauty that exists here.

[kentuck]

38. Richmond?

EKU?

[antigone382]

39. Very close, but not quite...;)

A little south, and a LOT more progressive (with no offense intended to the good people of EKU).

[byeya]

42. Of course Boone County, WV, is the home of the late, great Hasil Adkins whose persistance

finally made him a very influential musician. The Cramps did a lot to bring Hasil to the world's attention. Hasil was unique.

I lived 11 miles from Galax, VA, the home of the reputedly oldest and biggest Old Timey Fiddlers Convention.

[winter is coming]

43. No. But I did ride the skylift at Jenny Wiley State Park.

Still haven't seen Ruby Falls.

[kentuck]

48. Ruby Falls is in Chattanooga, near the Georgia border...

I actually visited it one time. They had different colored lights shining on the waterfall and were playing orchestral music. It was neat!

[SoCalDem]

45. I am hearing the theme song for "Justified"

Looks like very pretty countryside

[kentuck]

47. He'll never leave Harlan alive...

By Steve Earle, I think?

[pangaia]

54. Hot Damn.. what are the odds..?

In 1973 I bought a house in Freeville NY, outside Ithaca. I was 30. There was a young girl visiting the family I bought the house from.. i forget what the relationship was. Maybe 12-13 years old?
She was from Pineville, KY !! Why do I remember? No idea.
I don't remember her name. She and the son of the previous owners help me clean up, move stuff, etc.. A real dear.

[kentuck]

57. As a child I remember all the rumors about Norma Jean Baker being born in Pineville..

But according to a book by Mona Miracle, her mother was the half-sister of Norma Jean and went to Pineville HS... Norma Jean's mother, Gladys, was married to Jasper Baker of Pineville at one time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berniece_Baker_Miracle

[kentuck]

58. About four miles down the road was the place of the huge mine explosion in 1945

which killed 25 coal miners and covered by all the major news outlets in the nation... I know the guy that is narrating this and we were later neighbors with Joe Hatfield, one of the surviving miners... The song at
the end of second video is by previously mentioned Roy Acuff..

[kristopher]

59. Had an uncle lived around London

Just outside of Dan'l Boone National Forest. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I was born in Pikeville myself; but as much as I hate coal dust, I don't own up to it unless I have to.

Did that rock inspire Harry Chapin?

[kentuck]

60. Here is a nice tour that you can ride from the bottom of the mountain to the top on this video...

...then you can follow the trail down the mountain a piece to the Chained Rock... You can change the view to HD..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=YBCznHsIpOc