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section of the region, even though railroads have begun to penetrate. 
There the primitive saddle and sleds drawn by oxen are still in use. 
Except for lumbering, the streams are used but little. The North, 
Middle and South forks of the Kentucky River penetrate into the interior. 
They join at Three Forks, near Beattyville. Thence to Carrollton are 350 
miles of good waterway. In 1853 some five locks were completed by Ken- 
tucky at a cost of $4,000,000, which assured good navigation for 300-ton 
steamers for a distance of over 100 miles. The Federal Government made 
improvements at the close of the Civil War. Since then the waterways 
have been declining. In 1887 there were passing Three Forks annually, 
50,000,000 feet of lumber, in logs. 
Railroad building began in 1856, but made no headway until between 
1870-90. The progress has been slow and confined to marginal counties 
until recently. Within the past five years it has penetrated the North Fork 
Kentucky River to McRoberts, a few miles west of Pine Mountain, and up 
the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River, by way of the gap at Pineville. 
The railroads have been built for the coal and lumber, and not primarily 
for general traffic. Since the advent of railroads, the conditions which 
have made possible “the mountaineer’ have been passing away. 
But in general the region is still landlocked. 
Population. 
In 1910 the total mountain population was 561,881, representing an 
increase of 18 per cent. over that of 1900. (Kentucky: 2,289,905; 6.6 per 
cent.) There was an average of 43.4 people per square mile (Kentucky: 
56:9; Indiana: 74:9). The density is greatest along the main river 
routes and in mining sections. The people continue to be distributed as 
clans in valleys, which are surprisingly heavily populated. Of necessity 
the people depend upon the lower slopes of the hills to an extent equal to 
or greater than on the limited bottom lands, their “shoe-string farms” 
being found strung along little gullies as well as in broader valleys. A few 
farms are on the mountain sides, especially on benches or “coves” of 
somewhat gently sloping land, formed above some massive sandstone ledge. 
The average size of the mountain family is about 5.2. (Kentucky: 4.6; 
Indiana: 4.1.) The rural population increased 17.1 per cent. in the last 
decade. There was no urban population (towns of 2,500 or more) in 1870. 
In succeeding decades, as Ashland and Middlesboro developed as centers of 
coal mining, it numbered 3,280; 7,466; 17,428; and 24,004. These two 
