What will it take to improve the economy — Tom Eblen

What will it take to improve the economy

by Tom Eblen

What will it take to improve Breathitt County’s economy? It is an old question, with no easy answers. 

The economic troubles of Jackson and Breathitt County are similar to those being faced by thousands of small towns and rural areas across America. Appalachian communities face extra pressures because they often are isolated from metropolitan areas and carry the environmental scars of industries that were once their lifeblood. 

Breathitt County’s decline may feel especially bad because, at the height of the lumber and coal booms a century ago, it had the strongest economy in Eastern Kentucky. A Courier-Journal writer in 1895 called Jackson the “Atlanta of the mountains.” That may have been a stretch, but for much of the 20th century Jackson was the Pikeville of the mountains. Jackson’s beautiful old buildings — both those restored, and those decaying — are daily reminders of that fact. 

Before the railroad reached Breathitt County in 1890, coal and timber were relatively small industries because the only way to get goods to market was to float them down the always-fluctuating Kentucky River. Most Breathitt County residents were subsistence farmers. Jackson was a county seat of about 100 people. The closest thing the town had to an industrial plant was the grist mill my great-great grandfather, John Henry Haddix, ran at the Panhandle. 

Railroads opened the region’s timber and coal to large-scale harvest. The sawmills at Quicksand were said to be the world’s largest hardwood lumber producer in the early 1900s. And in the three decades before the Great Depression, Breathitt had 30 coal camps employing between 20 and 125 miners each. Even into the 1950s, Island Creek Coal and Pond Creek Pocahontas employed as many as 800 men in their Breathitt County mines. 

The railroad itself generated a lot of economic development, as did merchants who prospered by serving railroad, lumber and coal workers. As I wrote in an earlier column, they provided a good living for my great-grandparents and their eight children, who ran a barber shop and boarding house, the Haddix Hotel, in South Jackson. 

Some of that wealth was created by outside interests, such Cincinnati businessmen E.O. Robinson and F.W. Mowbray. They harvested 15,000 acres of timber in Breathitt, Knott and Perry counties, some of which is now Robinson Forest. But unlike in many Eastern Kentucky counties, local entrepreneurs developed significant coal and timber resources in Breathitt. That kept more of the wealth in the mountains, rather than sending profits away to distant cities.  

One good example was the Combs family, whose Lexington-based Combs Lumber Co. became one of Kentucky’s largest construction firms in the early 1900s. The Combs harvested Breathitt County timber for use in hundreds of Kentucky buildings, including many homes in Lexington.  

I live in a Combs Lumber Co. house, built in 1906 when company president Thomas Combs, who was born in Breathitt County, also served as Lexington’s mayor. Whenever I go to the basement or attic and see the hefty framing lumber, I think of the giant, old-growth trees that once covered Breathitt County’s hills. 

Once all the virgin timber was cut, once the coal companies moved on to richer seams elsewhere in Eastern Kentucky after the railroad was extended, Breathitt Countians began looking for the next economic engine that could restore prosperity. It has yet to be found. 

Breathitt County’s economy has always depended on the land — crops that grow in it, animals that forage on it, trees that could be cut from atop it and coal that could be dug from beneath it. The next chapter of that economic history has been harder to write. Aside from some niche crops, the modern farm economy doesn’t favor landscapes like Breathitt’s. There appear to be few natural resources left that can be sold in great quantity outside the region.  

Outside the region. That’s a key point. Small towns and rural areas have a big economic disadvantage compared with cities. They aren’t big enough for businesses to generate much wealth by simply serving the local market. They must produce goods that can be sold elsewhere to bring wealth into the community. For Breathitt County, that was once timber and coal. For many other small towns, it was manufacturing, which since the 1980s has increasingly left America’s shores because corporations can earn bigger profits by paying foreign workers less. 

Kentucky has long courted outside corporations, throwing millions of dollars worth of incentives and tax breaks at them in return for creating jobs. Bragging about creating lots of jobs in one transaction makes politicians look good. Trouble is, often those jobs either don’t materialize or disappear when the corporations get a better offer elsewhere. For every long-term industrial recruiting success story in small-town Kentucky, there have been dozens of failures. 

A more sensible, but less flashy method of economic development is training and investing in local, homegrown entrepreneurs.  

Perhaps the best example of that philosophy is the work being done by Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. in London, which over the past 50 years has created 25,000 jobs in Eastern Kentucky and helped more than 800 homegrown businesses secure more than $425 million in operating capital.  

Other notable efforts include the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, a 40-year-old organization based in Berea. It focuses not only on developing local entrepreneurs, but in improving local leadership and civic engagement to strengthen communities. 

Breathitt County’s future likely will depend on the ingenuity and creativity of its people, rather than the abundance of its landscape. How can that ingenuity and creativity be developed and fostered? How can you help make it happen? 

Tom Eblen is a journalist, writer and photographer recently retired as metro/state columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader.  He is descended from Samuel Haddix, one of Breathitt County’s earliest settlers. 

This column is brought to you by Our Breathitt, a community arts and health experience bringing together artists and Breathitt Countians from across Kentucky. Project is organized with IDEAS xLab (an artist-led nonprofit), and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Starting in August 2019, five collaborating writers, each with their own perspectives and ties to the county, will offer weekly columns and audio stories for radio and podcasts. Contact us at 859-397-1317 to join this conversation by leaving a voicemail with your response to the questions we raise and adding thoughts of your own! You may hear your responses incorporated into future posts and narratives! You can also email at ourbreathitt@gmail.com. We hope you will mark your calendars and join us at the Our Breathitt Summit, October 11-12 in Jackson, Kentucky. Information at www.ideasxlab.com/ourbreathitt.