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1929 Map of Big Stone Gap

Name: 1929 Topographic Map of Big Stone Gap
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1929
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1929

About this map

Cluttis Post Office and Johnsons Mill Post Office serve as central nodes for the coal-mining and timber communities straddling the Kentucky and Virginia border in the late 1920s. This survey, directed by Thomas L. Watson and Willard Rouse Jillson, captures the industrial infrastructure of the Central Appalachian coalfields. A complex network of railroads, including the L & N RR, Interstate RR, and the Southern Railway, threads through the deep gaps of Black Mountain and Stone Mountain to reach mountain settlements like Appalachia, Keokee, and Lynch.

The landscape is defined by its educational and spiritual centers, such as Robbins Chapel and the Seminary School, which anchor the rural population between the river valleys of the Cumberland River and Powell River. In the southwest, the village of Dryden and the Hortons Summit Sunbright Station indicate the vital role of transport and local trade before the further modernization of the Cumberland Plateau.