The old company store remains in the coal community of Stearns in southern Kentucky. (Bob Downing/Akron Beacon Journal/MCT)
Blue Heron is a ghost town in more than one way.
Haunting voices of miners and company officials tell visitors what life was like in the old coal camp at Mine No. 18 on the banks of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
You can learn about Blue Heron in what federal officials call "ghost structures," open-air metal-shelled facilities on the sites of now-gone buildings.
Such an approach was taken in the 1980s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that developed Blue Heron and the National Park Service that manages it as part of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
Federal policy says buildings that have disappeared should only be rebuilt if you have detailed plans that show what they looked like.
In the case of Blue Heron, that was not possible. The isolated company mining town that had opened in 1937 and had housed hundreds of residents over the years was abandoned in 1962. Some buildings were removed. Others fell into decay. No original buildings were still standing by the 1980s. It was an old ghost town.
That led to the development of the 13 open-sided structures that include the audio tapes and old photographs that describe life in Blue Heron.
But the real story of Blue Heron comes not from written records, but from oral history of its occupants.
Blue Heron was part of the Michigan-based Stearns Coal and Lumber Co. In the early 1900s, Justus Stearns, one of the last lumber barons on the Great Lakes, bought 130,000 acres of virgin forest in southern Kentucky.
The town of Stearns became the center of an empire that covered 200 square miles of timber and mining operations. At its peak, the company employed 2,200 miners at its camps.
Today you can drive to Blue Heron and take an easy walking tour. Or you can ride the Big South Fork Scenic Railway that runs from Stearns and descends 600 feet into the gorge to reach Blue Heron.
The entire camp, from the superintendent's house and the company store to the bath house to old residences, is a self-guided, open-air museum.
The main structure in Blue Heron was and still is the tipple that sorted coal and dumped it into waiting rail cars.
It was a state-of-the-art facility when it opened in the late 1930s. The coal was transported to Stearns, a once-booming company town, via the old Kentucky & Tennessee Railroad and then shipped to markets in Cincinnati and Chattanooga.
Electric tram cars hauled the coal from Blue Heron and surrounding mines and dropped it into the tipple's 120-ton hopper. The pedestrian bridge atop the tipple, once used by coal-filled trams, provides a bird's-eye view of the old camp and the nearby river.
Your tour will take you by one of the mine entrances with its reconstructed facade and interpretive exhibits. At the newly built train depot, visitors will find a model of Blue Heron from the 1950s along with more old photographs and interpretive panels.
Close to Blue Heron is another attraction: Barthell, a privately owned and restored coal camp. It was the first of 18 camps started in 1902 by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Co. It closed in 1952.
The Koger family that rebuilt Barthell offers guided tours, overnight lodging in re-created miners' houses and country meals in a restaurant. You can tour the old mine as well as reconstructed camp buildings with their 1910 look.
Barthell -- seven miles west of Stearns off state Route 742 -- is open daily except Mondays from April through November. For more information, write to Barthell Coal Camp, P.O. Box 53, Whitley City, KY 42653, 606-376-8749 or 888-550-5748, barthellcoalcamp.com.
Haunting voices of miners and company officials tell visitors what life was like in the old coal camp at Mine No. 18 on the banks of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
You can learn about Blue Heron in what federal officials call "ghost structures," open-air metal-shelled facilities on the sites of now-gone buildings.
Such an approach was taken in the 1980s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that developed Blue Heron and the National Park Service that manages it as part of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
Federal policy says buildings that have disappeared should only be rebuilt if you have detailed plans that show what they looked like.
In the case of Blue Heron, that was not possible. The isolated company mining town that had opened in 1937 and had housed hundreds of residents over the years was abandoned in 1962. Some buildings were removed. Others fell into decay. No original buildings were still standing by the 1980s. It was an old ghost town.
That led to the development of the 13 open-sided structures that include the audio tapes and old photographs that describe life in Blue Heron.
But the real story of Blue Heron comes not from written records, but from oral history of its occupants.
Blue Heron was part of the Michigan-based Stearns Coal and Lumber Co. In the early 1900s, Justus Stearns, one of the last lumber barons on the Great Lakes, bought 130,000 acres of virgin forest in southern Kentucky.
The town of Stearns became the center of an empire that covered 200 square miles of timber and mining operations. At its peak, the company employed 2,200 miners at its camps.
Today you can drive to Blue Heron and take an easy walking tour. Or you can ride the Big South Fork Scenic Railway that runs from Stearns and descends 600 feet into the gorge to reach Blue Heron.
The entire camp, from the superintendent's house and the company store to the bath house to old residences, is a self-guided, open-air museum.
The main structure in Blue Heron was and still is the tipple that sorted coal and dumped it into waiting rail cars.
It was a state-of-the-art facility when it opened in the late 1930s. The coal was transported to Stearns, a once-booming company town, via the old Kentucky & Tennessee Railroad and then shipped to markets in Cincinnati and Chattanooga.
Electric tram cars hauled the coal from Blue Heron and surrounding mines and dropped it into the tipple's 120-ton hopper. The pedestrian bridge atop the tipple, once used by coal-filled trams, provides a bird's-eye view of the old camp and the nearby river.
Your tour will take you by one of the mine entrances with its reconstructed facade and interpretive exhibits. At the newly built train depot, visitors will find a model of Blue Heron from the 1950s along with more old photographs and interpretive panels.
Close to Blue Heron is another attraction: Barthell, a privately owned and restored coal camp. It was the first of 18 camps started in 1902 by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Co. It closed in 1952.
The Koger family that rebuilt Barthell offers guided tours, overnight lodging in re-created miners' houses and country meals in a restaurant. You can tour the old mine as well as reconstructed camp buildings with their 1910 look.
Barthell -- seven miles west of Stearns off state Route 742 -- is open daily except Mondays from April through November. For more information, write to Barthell Coal Camp, P.O. Box 53, Whitley City, KY 42653, 606-376-8749 or 888-550-5748, barthellcoalcamp.com.
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