Dave Tabler, Author at Appalachian History

Emma Gatewood, 67, walks Appalachian Trail solo

Emma Gatewood became “Grandma Gatewood” to her immediate family long before the rest of the world knew her by that title.

Pearls had been routinely hunted on the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers and their tributaries for many years prior to the outbreak of a ‘pearl rush.’

In the 1880s, Swiss from Canton Bern came to Laurel County, KY, to found Die Kolonie Bernstadt. Coal jobs in the county were plentiful.

“Fulton Caldwell, now a prosperous farmer and a leading citizen, was born on the Caldwell homestead in 1833,” says his 1887 biography.

“In this county Godfrey L. Cabot of Boston, MA has the largest carbon factory in the world,” stated the WV Geological Survey in 1911.