Reflections on an Appalachian Camelot: Place, Memory, and Identity in the Former Company Town of Wheelwright, Kentucky, USA

Abstract

Wheelwright originated in the mid-nineteenth century as a small family settlement named Otter Creek, in southeastern Kentucky. In 1916, Elk Horn Coal Company finalized leases for land and mineral rights in the area and the first coal was mined in the town. Over the next thirteen years, the camp grew as Elk Horn brought in more men, including African Americans and European immigrants, to work in the mine. With the coming of the Great Depression, the town was sold to Inland Steel Company of Chicago, Illinois. In the thirty-five years that Inland Steel owned Wheelwright, the town underwent significant change because of massive investments by the company. These years of change represent the peak in the quality of life and the availability of opportunity for Wheelwright, a time many former residents reflect upon as idyllic, nearly mythic. The 1966 sale of the town to Island Creek Coal Company signaled the beginning of a period of marked decline for the town, an almost inevitable bust of the “boom and bust cycle” so common in towns dependent on extractive industries for their survival. The town still exists, but the communities that were and are Wheelwright could not be more different. The remembered community lives on in the memories of those former residents who gather in Lexington, Kentucky, each year to share their stories. However, their memories have little bearing on the physical community as it exists today.