1940 Map of Lee Valley

About this map

Clinch Mountain and the parallel Poor Valley Ridge define the northeast-to-southwest grain of this 1940 landscape, which spans the border of Hancock and Hawkins Counties. The map reveals a deeply rural community structured around the narrow valleys of Big War Creek and Poor Valley Creek. A network of country schools and churches serves small settlements like Lee Valley and Wilder, including Duck Creek Sch and War Creek Ch. The settlement pattern follows the drainage, with family names preserved in sites like Morrell Cem and McGinnis Cem. A prominent Lookout Tower sits atop the high ridge between Flat Gap and Big War Gap, overlooking a terrain dominated by timber and subsistence agriculture before the post-war modernization of the region's rural roads.