What the sign says… This is in Blackey KY (37.14033, -82.98019). A 200′ long box truss over the North Fork of the Kentucky River.
Here’s the date plate:
This is the only partially-intact building left in Leatherwood KY, once headquarters for the Blue Diamond Coal Company. This was a theatre/recreation building. As late as 1995, Google Earth shows all the buildings here as being in place and apparently undisturbed. Check here for a picture of what Leatherwood looked like in the 60s. Here’s what most of the buildings look like now:
These were company buildings. The many houses that made up the actual community of Leatherwood have long been razed.
The buildings date from the 1920s (maybe. I read a posting that equipment from the Virginia Bonny Blue mine was sent to the “then new” Leatherwood mine in 1946). Oh, what is leatherwood?
This is the Earhart or Rhea School, built around 1905. It is on private property. I took this picture from the road. It’s just off Highway 394 near Bluff City.
Tip of the hat to Sheila Hunt at the Sullivan County Historical Society for providing the information on this tidy little school.