At first glance, the newly dedicated walking trail that winds through the beautiful scenery at the Barren Fork Heritage Trail looks like a nice place for a leisurely stroll. A closer examination reveals that walking the trail leads you on a hike through history.

Thursday morning U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Fred Noack presided over a dedication ceremony for the .65 mile-long trail nestled adjacent to the Barren Fork campground behind the Ranger Station in Whitley City.

Forest Service employee Laurie Smith helped the Forest Service obtain a $25,000 recreational grant through the Governor’s office and construction began in 2006. Forest Service workers and students from the Pine Knot Job Corps Urban Forestry Division and inmates from the USP McCreary worked to clear the trail and lay the concrete path.

Scattered along the trail are various historical markers depicting the coal camp and providing a brief narrative history of the camp. Photographs donated by relatives of the original inhabitants, local historians and the McCreary County Pubic Library are displayed on the markers allowing walkers to get a better idea of life in the area more than century ago.

Randy Boedy, Forest Service Archeologist, has been researching the camp for the past few years and helped gather the photographs and information that helped bring the camp’s history back to life. Since most of the company records were lost, Boedy relied on the knowledge of former residents and their relatives to develop the narrative history of the camp.

According to Boedy, Barren Fork was a thriving community that boasted upwards of 700 residents at its largest and was one of the earliest coal camps in McCreary County. Incorporated in 1879 by out of town investors, the Barren Fork camp stared mining operations in 1880 and a settlement was established on the lands surrounding the camp. Originally nestled in a small valley called the drainage, the camp was relocated to the top of the ridge in 1912 where it remained until the mine shut down in 1935 when the owners refused to bow to the miner’s demands to unionize.

The camp featured a schoolhouse, camp store and power plant, as well as several single-family homes and boarding houses where miners spent their off-hours.

Edna King Vanover, Dorothy Smith, Leo Lynch and Oliver Perry, four residents of the camp, were on hand for the dedication ceremony and officially opened the trail with a ribbon cutting ceremony. As they strolled past the sites of old homesteads and other landmarks, they reminisced about the location of various buildings and talked about the families they remembered from their childhood.

The camp closed operations in 1935 and the U.S. Forest Service purchased the land the following year. The majority of the buildings and rail tracks were removed and scrapped, but evidence of the community can be seen scattered about the lush growth that has accumulated in the past 70 years.

Among the trees and vegetation keen-eyed visitors can still spot traces of the old camp. Squared-off blocks mark the foundations of a few houses, a concrete trench marks the spot where an old scale used to sit and, though the rails have long since vanished, the old rail bed is clearly visible and has been incorporated into the walking trail itself.