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town of the west. But the most spectacular development is taking place at 
Jenkins, on the headquarters of the Elkorn Creek, at the foot of Pound 
Gap, Pine Mountain, known in literature as ‘The Trail of the Lonesome 
Pine.” Eighteen months ago a branch of the B. & O. Railroad reached the 
site, where a few months prior there had been but one mountain cabin. 
Jenkins now has brick buildings three stories high; a great power plant; 
palatial residences; a splendid hospital; a concrete dam causing an arti- 
ficial lake, upon which are pleasure boats; and a town reservoir, into 
which spring water is filtered from the mountain. Indeed it is growing as 
fast as Gary, Indiana, in its early days. Most of this coal is shipped across 
Indiana to Gary. 
At a shaft mined by two mountaineers near Booneville, good cannel 
coal sells for seven cents per bushel. Cause, poor transportation. 
Essentially all of the mineral rights have been bought by outside cap- 
ital, much for $1.50 per acre, and in some cases for fifty cents. Sometimes 
the mountain people made the further mistake of giving up the farming 
rights also. 
At an early period iron and salt within the region were the source of 
considerable traffic, but not now. Oil, gas, and clays, although in progress 
of exploitation for the last two decades, do not promise to become im- 
portant. 
Forest Resources. 
The primitive forests were splendid. But since an early day, lumber 
has been shipped to an outside market; therefore, the timber area has been 
reduced, and, although it remains the chief source of wealth, the end is 
almost in sight. About thirty per cent. of the region was in wood in 1910, 
not all of which was primitive. 
The mountaineer’s way of lumbering is to cut a few choice trees and 
“snake” them down to the creek, where as logs, rafts, or railroad ties, they 
await the coming of the flood, or “tide”, to be floated down stream. Thus 
_a man can produce ten ties per day, for which he received thirty-eight cents 
apiece, this summer, near Beattyville. But lumbering corporations are 
beginning to attack the two remote corners of the Southern Appalachian 
Highlands—the Smoky Mountains and the Kentucky Plateau—and after 
the onslaught, in which stumps three and one-half feet in diameter are left 
to rot, the hills are gaunt with slash, or black from resultant forest fires. 
Consequently increased erosion is resulting on the slopes, with augmented 
