Taming Yellow Creek Alexander Arthur, The Yellow Creek Canal & Middlesborough,

By Maria Campbell Brent

Kentucky Archaeological Survey (jointly administered by the Kentucky Heritage Council and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky)

Education Series Number Five Lexington, Kentucky 2002

This publication was funded as a cooperative effort by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, the Common- wealth of Kentucky, the Bell County Historical Society, and the Bell County Tourism Commission Alexander Alan Arthur. He made the City of Middlesborough a reality.

Louisville Frankfort Lexington

KENTUCKY

Map showing the location of Middlesborough,Kentucky Pineville

BELL COUNTY Middlesborough A Grand Vision of a Great City

In 1886, while scouting locations Arthur went down into the valley, for a railroad, Alexander Arthur riding from one side to the other. followed the old Wilderness Road In the mountain slopes surrounding west through Cumberland Gap and the valley, he saw beds of coal. He into the Yellow Creek Valley. What knew there were deposits he saw amazed him. The valley nearby, in Tennessee. Iron ore and was shaped like a huge bowl. A coal could bring money and jobs. creek wound across the valley, its He pictured a great city in the val- channel twisting and turning like ley: a modern city, based on indus- a snake. In this land of steep-sided try, a city with wide streets lined hills and narrow valleys, the wide, by grand buildings and beautiful nearly level valley of Yellow Creek houses. Alexander Arthur decided was a surprising sight. that he would, somehow, build this city.

The Yellow Creek Valley in 1886.

1 The Gilded Age

Who was Alexander Arthur? Why than the value of agricultural did he believe he could build a goods. The United States had be- great modern city in a valley where come an industrial nation, a nation only a handful of farmhouses where factories were producing stood? more and more items of all kinds. It Alexander Arthur lived at a time was a time when the sky seemed to when the United States was grow- be the limit. Today, historians call ing rapidly and great changes were these golden years, between 1870 taking place. The turmoil of the and 1893, the “Gilded Age.” Civil War was past. People looked During the Gilded Age, many to the future. new inventions spurred economic These were years of great pros- growth. Alexander Graham Bell perity for the country. For the first invented the telephone. Thaddeus time in U. S. history, the value of Lowe invented a machine to make manufactured goods was greater artificial ice. George Pullman built the first sleeping cars for railroad travel, which came to be called “Pullmans.” Barbed wire, electri- cally powered street cars, combines for harvesting wheat, vacuum cleaners, new machines to make shoes and clothing, all made their appearance. The first skyscraper was built in 1890, in Chicago, and soon after- ward, skyscrapers began to appear in . Bicycles became a popular form of transportation. One of the last inventions of this era was the automobile, although it would not become important for some years. Many things we take for granted today were invented during the Gilded Age.

2 For the first time, coal and iron building railroad sleeping cars. J. were in great demand. Coal was P. Morgan, and others, made mil- used to produce steam power to run lions in the railroad business. There factories and it supplied the heat to was no income tax yet – all of the make steel from iron ore. Oil also money they made, they kept. became important. At first, people Most people believed that the used petroleum, which was made rich had made their vast fortunes from oil, to replace the whale oil through work, thrift and intelli- in the lamps that lit their homes. gence (a belief that the rich encour- However, as time went on, many aged!). It was a time when many more uses were found. people believed that with hard During the years of the Gilded work, good ideas, and determina- Age, most working people in the tion, anyone could become rich. United States were well off, in Alexander Arthur was one of those comparison to people in other believers. parts of the world. Jobs were easy to find. Life might be hard, but most people believed there were opportunities to do better. A few men became millionaires. John D. Rockefeller made a fortune in the oil business; Andrew Carnegie had a kingdom in steel; and Daniel Guggenheim a dynasty in mining. George Pullman made a fortune

3

Alexander Alan Arthur Alexander Alan Arthur was born in Lachine, Canada in 1846. As a young man, he traveled to Scot- many connections in the business land, married a Scottish beauty, world. Mary Forrest, and joined the Arthur was a large man who cut famous 104th Highland Regiment. an imposing figure. His eyes were a He studied engineering and worked bright, piercing blue. His wavy hair for a time in Sweden and Norway. was a sandy color, almost red, and A year or two later, Arthur and he sported an impressive mustache his wife settled in , where and sideburns. He looked much Arthur found work as a represen- like the former president, Ches- tative for an English-owned steel ter A. Arthur, who was a distant company. relative. Alexander Arthur always Arthur’s wife, Mary, died not dressed in the latest fashion, look- long after they moved to the United ing like the prosperous business- States. Some time later, Arthur man he aspired to be. Arthur was married Nellie Goodwin, a member a friendly man, outgoing and sure of an important Boston family with of himself, and not afraid to try

4 something new. He seems to have iron ore. Timber covered the valley been a restless young man, always and the mountain sides. He had on the lookout for the next oppor- never seen such a perfect place for tunity. He found people easy to get a city. along with and he seems to have Arthur returned to the railroad succeeded in whatever he tried. company headquarters full of en- These qualities would serve him thusiasm. However, in his absence, well in the years ahead, for Arthur the Richmond and Danville Rail- did not stay long in Boston. Soon, road had merged with a larger rail he was in Tennessee, working for line, the East Tennessee, the Scottish-Carolina Timber Com- and Georgia. The new board of pany. In 1886, acting as an agent of directors had no interest in build- the Richmond and Danville Rail- ing a railroad into the Kentucky road, Arthur traveled from Mor- coal fields. To build such a rail- ristown up the Tazewell Road and road meant constructing a tunnel through Cumberland Gap to inves- through the mountains under Cum- tigate the feasibility of laying a rail berland Gap, a project that would line from Morristown, Tennessee cost millions of dollars. into the Kentucky coal fields. On the first leg of his journey, Arthur rode from Morristown to the home of Dr. James M. Harbi- son, one mile from the Gap. Arthur spent several days investigating the surrounding area, noting the occur- rence of ore ledges and deposits. He saw the remains of an old iron furnace, and coal “banks,” exposed outcrops where local people gath- ered coal for heating and cooking. Along the way, Arthur filled his saddlebags with samples of coal, iron ore and other minerals. Crossing the Gap, Arthur looked for the first time on the Yellow Creek Valley. He had seen reports from the state geologist and knew that the area was rich in coal and

5 6 The American Association, Ltd.

Arthur decided he would build returned to Asheville, lawyers drew the railroad and his city without the up papers creating a new company, support of the railroad company. the Gap Associates, Inc. Although He wasted no time. Arthur quit his the young investors were very job and set out to find the money he enthusiastic about the project, they needed. did not control much money of The first place he went was the their own. The money belonged to resort city of Asheville, North their parents, who were not ready Carolina, where he was acquainted to invest large amounts of money with several wealthy young men. on a project that might not return a He persuaded them to visit Cum- profit. berland Gap with him and to see Still, nothing would stop Alex- the Yellow Creek Valley for them- ander Arthur. He was sure that he selves. could raise the money in England The group reached the small Ten- and Scotland. He had friends there, nessee settlement known as Cum- and business connections. The Eng- berland Gap on August 30, 1886 and set up their tents. That night, an earthquake shook the area. They felt the ground beneath them shake, heard trees crashing and boulders rolling down the sides of the moun- tains. No one suffered any harm and the “quake” simply added to the adventure. Arthur spent the next several days showing his would-be investors everything he had seen. The young men were soon as enthusiastic as Arthur about the project. While they were there, Arthur obtained options to purchase nearly 25,000 acres of land in the Yel- low Creek Valley. When the group

6 lish had financed many business He told them of the fortunes they ventures in the United States. Brit- would make from the coal and iron ish monies invested in American and timber. railroads, timber and steel, includ- The British money-men were ing the great steel operations in the as enthusiastic as the young men new city of Birmingham, Alabama, of the Gap Associates. Arthur had were paying handsomely. Arthur convinced them that they were knew that he could convince his on to a sure thing, but they were overseas friends to invest in his also cautious. Arthur was asking new city. The members of the Gap for a lot of money. They wanted Associates agreed to pay his way to to see the Yellow Creek Valley for England. themselves. They wanted their own In the late fall of 1886, Arthur experts to look at the timber, iron met with potential investors in Lon- and coal deposits that Arthur spoke don. He was an excellent salesman. of in such glowing terms. Arthur held his listeners spellbound Two months later, Alexander as he described the mineral wealth Arthur was back at Cumberland of the valley. He showed them the Gap, this time with a group of samples he had brought with him. English businessmen, engineers,

7 8 and geologists. Among the notables sociation, Ltd. English bankers and was the famous geologist, Sir Jacob investors began to sell stock in the Higson. In their survey of the Yel- new company. Alexander Arthur low Creek Valley, they rode even was elected president and general farther than the Gap Associates. manager. Members of the Gap They looked at the country as far Associates, Inc. happily traded in away as Barbourville, more than their old stock for stock in the new twenty miles northwest of Cumber- company. land Gap. Men on both sides of the Atlantic The visitors had never seen an told their friends and colleagues area so rich. The English engineers about the exciting new company, and geologists sent back reports told them that it was sure to make saying that Arthur had not exagger- investors a fortune. ated the mineral wealth to be found Within weeks, Alexander Arthur there. As Arthur led them across had secured all of the money he the Gap, he described the modern, needed to build his city, a city he industrial city he wanted to build. had already named Middlesbor- He spoke of the railroad and the ough. It had taken him barely a great tunnel that, with their help, year. he would dig through the mountain under Cumberland Gap. The English visitors were con- vinced. Sir Jacob Higson sent a telegraph to London, saying that “the half had not been told” about the wealth of the Cumberland Gap country and the Yellow Creek Val- ley. The British experts with Alexan- der Arthur advised their colleagues in London to create a new develop- ment company and to buy or option as much land as they could. They praised Arthur and recommended that he be made general manager of the new company. Lawyers in London drew up papers creating the American As-

8 The City in the Wilderness

Arthur had decided months before that he would call his new city in the Yellow Creek Valley Middlesborough, after the great English industrial city of the same name. Now he had the money he needed to build his dream. Arthur returned to the Yellow Creek Valley to buy land. Within weeks he and his representatives had surveyed and purchased almost 100,000 acres of land around Cum- berland Gap. Some of the land was in Tennessee, some was in Virginia and much of it, including the Yel- low Creek Valley, was in Kentucky. Much of the Yellow Creek Valley belonged to the Colson, Morrison, and Turner families, who had lived blast furnaces, the coal tipples, the in the valley for many years. These factories and more would have to families may have owned a lot be brought in by rail. Once the in- of land, but they never had much dustries in the valley were in opera- money. Arthur offered them, and tion, they would need the railroad others, more money than they had to carry the finished products to far ever hoped to see in their lifetimes. away markets. Some refused to sell, but most will- Arthur began plans for the Knox- ingly parted with their land. ville, Cumberland Gap and Louis- Now that he had the land, Arthur ville Railroad. He let a contract for began on the next phase of his the construction of the tunnel and plan – a railroad. The nearest tracks for the rail line that would connect were thirteen miles away, at Pin- Knoxville, Tennessee to the Yellow eville, Kentucky. Arthur needed a Creek Valley. Soon, hundreds of railroad to the Yellow Creek Val- men were at work with picks and ley. Materials to build the town, the shovels and dynamite, digging the

9 10 tunnel. Arthur also began construc- tion on a rail line that would encir- men from the surrounding hills. cle his new city, with spurs reach- Others were black laborers re- ing into the hollows where iron and cruited from the South. There was coal deposits could be found. plenty of work for all. Sawmills, A thent city grew up around blacksmith shops, iron forges, res- Cumberland Gap as hundreds of taurants and saloons sprang up. men came to find work. Many were More Englishmen also came to Irish and Italian immigrants, new to the valley. Some came to keep an the United States. Some were local eye on their investments. Others

10 came hoping for adventure. The supplies into the valley. Watts brothers, Edgar and Frank, Workmen finished the tunnel and came to the Gap to oversee the new tracks by September 1889 and construction of two blast furnaces a new tent city began to grow, this in the valley. Their family owned time in the Yellow Creek Valley. the Watts Steel and Iron Syndicate, By the fall of 1889 it looked like an Ltd., one of the largest in England. army occupied the valley. But this Finding little in the way of hous- army was made up of engineers, ing, they built a fifty-room hotel builders, architects, and thousands just south of the Gap, and then they of laborers. They worked under built fine, large houses for them- the watchful eye of the Middles- selves. borough Town Company, created With the railroad under construc- by the American Association, tion, Arthur turned his attention to Ltd. to oversee the development building his city. Surveyors and en- of the new city. Alexander Arthur gineers began to lay out the streets made the decisions and the Town of the new town. Workmen drove Company made sure the work was the first stake in the ground July completed. 16, 1888. Teams of mules and oxen brought wagon loads of building

Alexander Arthur and his family at their home, circa 1890.

11 As Arthur’s city grew, problems arose with Yellow Creek.

The Problem with Yellow Creek

Soon after work on the new city It wandered and looped back upon began, the surveyors and engineers itself. Smaller streams joined Yel- ran into problems with Yellow low Creek as it flowed through the Creek. The people living in the val- wide, bowl-shaped valley. Cane- ley told Arthur and the Middlesbor- brakes, thick stands of tough river ough Town Company that the creek cane, lined the banks of the streams often overflowed its banks. In fact, and creek. Patches of quicksand there had been a bad flood the year dotted the valley. In the winter and before Arthur first saw the valley. spring, heavy rains filled Yellow Water had covered the entire valley. Creek, and it was not unusual for If Arthur was to build his city in the the creek to overflow its banks. wilderness, he would have to tame This water did not drain away Yellow Creek. quickly, but stayed in the valley, When Alexander Arthur had first forming the marshland Arthur saw. looked upon the Yellow Creek If Arthur wanted to build a city, Valley in 1886, he saw marshland he would have to do something to dotted with areas of higher, dry control Yellow Creek and stop the land. Yellow Creek did not flow flooding. through the valley in a straight line.

12 The Yellow Creek Canal

Yellow Creek also posed a prob- canal to replace the winding, natu- lem when the city planners tried ral creek bed. Once they finished to lay off streets. Everywhere they the canal, the old creek bed could went, the winding creek cut off the be filled in and the new, dry land streets and building lots. Dense sold to people who wanted to build vegetation and wet land along the houses or businesses. The canal banks of the creek made it difficult would be expensive to build, but to cross on foot or on horseback, the money made from the sale of and it was impossible in a wagon. the lots, they argued, would pay for Middlesborough would be a city of the cost of digging the canal. bridges and dead ends if they could The town planners also believed not solve this problem. that they could use the canal as Arthur and the town planners part of the city’s sanitation system. came up with a solution. They Sewer pipes would lead from hous- would “improve” Yellow Creek. es to small canals. These small side They would dig a straight, deep canals, called lateral canals, would

12 13 join with the Yellow Creek Canal. city limit, forming Yellow Creek. In this way, the canals would carry They would dig new channels for all of the sewage away from the all three streams, creating canals. city and down to the Cumberland The largest canal, the Yellow Creek River. Although no one would canal, would follow city’s main build such a system today, it was street, Cumberland Avenue, to the advanced for its time. Most houses east edge of town. There, it would and businesses still had backyard cross the Louisville & Nashville outhouses, or privies. The idea Railroad and turn north, heading of indoor bathrooms and running out of the city. North of the town water was still new, and a luxury. limits, the canal would enter the Few cities had sewer systems, but natural channel of Yellow Creek, Middlesborough was to be a mod- which flowed to the Cumberland ern city in every way, including its River. sewers. Town planners outlined the route the canal would take. Two streams, Stony Fork and Bennetts Fork, flowed together just inside the west

14 Building the Canal

Within weeks, workmen cut were not the only ones working down the huge trees covering much on the canal. Irish immigrants and of the town site. The longest and African Americans worked shoul- straightest logs were trimmed and der to shoulder with the Italians, they were soon standing again, this digging the new canal. time as telephone, telegraph and Mules, more sure-footed than electric-light poles. horses and faster than oxen, pulled The Middlesborough Town scrapers and plows, gouging out Company hired the construction the new channel. They needed so firm of Allison, Shafer & Co. to dig many mules that the company had the canal and to fill the old bed of to bring them in by train from out- the creek. Soon, hundreds of men side the valley. As the men dug the were busy with picks and shov- new canal, they used the earth to els and drills, digging the Yellow fill the old creek bed. Steam shov- Creek Canal. Many of these men els leveled some of the higher spots were Italian immigrants, brought in the city limits, creating more from the poorest sections of New building lots. The men used this York City just to work on the canal. earth, too, to fill the old creek bed. Most were short, swarthy, black- Every day, Alexander Arthur haired Sicilians from the south of spent many hours on his horse, Italy, descendants of the ancient inspecting the progress made on the Romans. But the Italian immigrants canal and all of the projects under-

15 Arthur took his duties seriously. Middlesborough was his city, and he would see that it was built to his specifications. No one would cut corners. Everything would be of the best quality and construction. By the end of December 1889, workers had completed much of the new canal. Men continued filling the old creek bed as others removed more knobs and hills to create building sites. Allison, Shafer & Co. built tem- porary railroad tracks and had one way in Middlesborough. As general small locomotive hauling dirt to manager of the American Associa- the old creek bed. They soon found tion, Ltd., he was responsible for that one train of dirt cars could every decision made regarding the not keep up with the output of the new city. steam shovels, so they ordered a

16 second locomotive. The company installed electric Middlesborough News reported that lights all around the steam shovels the canal system would “afford the and along the railroad to the old most perfect system of sewerage creek bed where they were dump- ing the dirt. The big steam shovels worked all night, and so did the men. Work also continued on the sanitary system. Crews of workers dug the small, deep-sided lateral canals, designed to carry sewage, at right angles to the main canal. They dug the main canal deep enough to permit the lateral canals to enter it, insuring that the system would work properly. The small canals would also carry runoff from heavy rains into the canal, helping the city drain. The

17 The “Magic City”

As workmen dug the Yellow needed or wanted could be found Creek Canal, hundreds of other in Middlesborough: lawyers, doc- men, employed by dozens of tors, dentists, grocers, shoe makers, companies, were building the city blacksmiths, laundries, mercantile of Middlesborough. Handsome stores, newspapers and saloons. wooden buildings soon replaced On a hill, the new Four Seasons the tents. Many of the new build- Hotel took shape. When it opened ings were two stories tall, and some in 1892, the four-story hotel were three. A few, like the Ameri- had 700 rooms, and a 200-room can Association building, were spa with elaborate turkish baths made of brick or stone. The main that drew on the nearby mineral street, Cumberland Avenue, was springs. one hundred feet wide. Stores and The city built an electric light, office buildings lined the street for heat and power plant, said to cost ten blocks. The community built a quarter of a million dollars. churches, a city hall, a courthouse, Railroad cars hauled coal from banks, a hospital, an opera house the new mines to power the power and a library. Everything a person plant. Speculators built a tannery,

18 The “Magic City” grew at a rapid rate, fueled by English money. a brewery and an icehouse. They car fitted with display cases and planned to build a huge hotel with tables. He gathered samples of the 150 rooms. In a matter of months, riches of Middlesborough - hard 5,000 people were living and work- woods, soft woods, coal, iron and ing in what they were now calling limestone - and traveled the eastern the “Magic City.” seaboard. Using a magic-lantern The price of shares in the Ameri- slide show of 200 photographs, Ar- can Association, Ltd. and the thur presented his city to potential Middlesborough Town Company American investors. The trips were soared. Money poured in from a success and brought even more London. Every six months, Alex- money into the city. ander Arthur traveled to London to Just when it seemed that nothing report on the project. The investors could go wrong, tragedy struck. were pleased with the progress be- On the morning of May 31, 1890 a ing made in Middlesborough and clerk in the American Association pledged to supply funds as needed. building looked out of his window Not content with the gener- to see flames and smoke sur- ous support from London, Arthur rounding a store two blocks away. ordered a custom-built railroad A breeze carried sparks to other

19 The city’s fire fighting equipment was no match for the fast-moving fire. buildings. In a matter of hours, fire the city and they were given. In destroyed almost half of the town. a matter of months, the citizens Middlesborough was a tent city of Middlesborough rebuilt their once more. Arthur asked inves- town, better than ever. Businesses tors in London for loans to rebuild

After the fire, brick and stone buildings replaced many of the wooden build- ings.

20 “A Bad Piece of Engineering as Well as an Expensive Job”

Workmen completed the Yellow The Middlesborough Town Com- Creek Canal early in 1890. Yet, less pany decided not only to repair the than six months later, work on the canal, but to improve it. The new canal was resumed. Heavy spring canal would be wider, so that it rains had caused the canal banks could carry more water. The sides to cave in. In some places, water and bottom of the canal would be had eaten away at the sides of the lined with heavy wood planks to canal, trying to cut a new channel stop the erosion. The American or return to its old one. Criticism of Association, Ltd. distributed a the canal appeared in at least one pamphlet enthusiastically describ- local newspaper, The Daily Demo- ing the improved canal. They crat, which called the canal a “bad compared it to the canals of Venice, piece of engineering as well as an Italy, saying it would “present a expensive job.” most attractive appearance when

21 completed - what might be termed 1890, when heavy rains forced the a Venetian look.” men to abandon the job. Periods of Plans were made to improve the rain caused delays throughout the sewer system as well. The lateral winter, and little work was done. canals, while they might be ef- The rains continued, and by Febru- ficient, did not represent the latest ary 9, 1891, the canal was full to ideas in city sanitation. Alexander the top. That night, flood waters Arthur was determined that the city washed away several bridges. of Middlesborough would be up- Branches and other debris carried to-date and modern in every way. by the fast-moving water ripped The Middlesborough Town Com- apart the canal’s wooden lining. pany hired Colonel George Waring, Yellow Creek overflowed its banks Jr., a well-known sanitary engineer on the east side of town, near its from New York, to design a new junction with Little Yellow Creek, sewer system for Middlesborough. but it did little damage to the town. His new system did not use canals at all. All waste was carried under- ground in cement pipes, far beyond the limits of the city. Improving the canal proved to be a long and expensive process. Work continued until late December

22 “Our White Elephant”

The City of Middlesborough bank had no money for American was in trouble. Most of the canal investments. Some of Alexander improvements made in 1890 were Arthur’s backers had lost their washed away in the winter rains of money, and others had little money 1891. And now the city had money left to invest. The millions sent to problems as well. Middlesborough were gone, and Many of those who had invested there would be no more. Borrowed in the American Association, Ltd. money had built the city. The and the Middlesborough Town companies had no way to repay the Company had invested their money loans. through the Baring Brothers Bank Many construction projects, in London. The bank was an old, including the canal, were incom- reliable firm, but a bad business plete when the money dried up. A decision caused it to fail in the newspaper article appeared with last months of 1890. Suddenly, the the headline: “Work on the Canal

23 - Much More Expense Than Most planks to the crosspieces, forming People Have Any Idea.” The article the sides. The floor of the canal called the Canal “Our White Ele- rested on three-by-five inch boards phant,” and asked where the money that ran the width of the canal. to repair it would come from. Large boards were nailed to both In spite of the money problems, the flooring and the sides to keep something had to be done about the the lining in place. canal. In the summer of 1891, work When finished, it looked like they began again. Middlesborough had had put a huge, open wooden box already spent more than $190,000 in the canal. Laborers carefully on canal improvements the year packed dirt under the floor and before, only to have them washed along the sides of the wooden lin- away by the winter floods. To make ing. The water would run through matters worse, the rains had left the wooden box, not under it. mounds of silt and debris in the Debris carried in the water would canal that had to be cleaned out move quickly along the smooth before repairs could begin. wood canal; it would not get stuck The force of the water rushing and catch even more debris. The through the canal had twisted the wood would protect the bank from planks that lined the sides of the ca- erosion and caving. The canal nal. Others had been pushed away would stay straight. from the sides of the canal when Again, Italian immigrants made the soft earth of the bank behind up most of the work force, doing them collapsed. Laborers put these the work of moving dirt. African planks back in place. Next, the men Americans drove most of the pil- pounded pilings into the bottom of ings. Carpenters on the job were the canal using a huge iron weight mostly white. The payroll for the attached to a rope. Ten men pulled work force was $200 each day, a on the rope, raising the 125-pound huge sum at the time. weight six feet in the air. When By July 1891, workmen had im- they let go of the rope, the weight proved only 2,000 feet of the canal. fell, hitting the end of the piling Work was slowed several times and driving it into the bottom of the when the temporary canal built to canal. The men repeated the opera- carry the waters of Yellow Creek tion until the piling was sunk about overflowed, flooding the construc- five feet. tion site. Finally, sometime in Workers nailed heavy crosspieces 1892, the men finally finished the to the pilings. Then, they nailed new canal. It was thirty-five feet

24 wide at the bottom and one hun- dred feet wide at the top. Scores of workmen had lined three miles of the Yellow Creek Canal with heavy oak planks. The cost was said to be close to $300,000.

Engineers designed an elaborate lin- ing made of oak planks to protect the Yellow Creek Canal.

25 The Boom Town Busts

After the failure of Baring a ghost town. Workers left to find Brothers Bank in the fall of 1890, jobs elsewhere. Shop keepers had Middlesborough ceased to be a no one to buy their goods and boom town. The city government closed their shops. Doctors and took economy measures. Building dentists had no patients; lawyers projects were left uncompleted. had no clients. They, too, left. The American Association, Ltd. Unfinished buildings were de- fired Alexander Arthur, whom molished, piles of unused brick they charged with poor business and stone were sold. The Chicago judgement. It was reported that the Wrecking and Salvage Company iron deposits near the city were bought the huge Four Seasons thin, and that the quality could not Hotel for $9,000 and tore it down match those near Birmingham, Ala- for scrap. It had cost one million bama. People began to lose faith in dollars to build. the future of Middlesborough. They Some of those who stayed began to leave. bought fancy houses and office Worse times were ahead. In buildings for almost nothing. Even February 1893, a financial panic Alexander Arthur left Middlesbor- gripped the United States. It was ough, his fortune gone. the beginning of a depression that would last for four years. Middlesborough became almost

Alexander Arthur’s fine home in Harrogate,Tennessee was abandoned when Arthur left the Middlesborough area.

26 Middlesboro

Those who remained in Middles- in Middlesboro. New banks and borough pinned their hopes on businesses opened. Two miles of coal. The Yellow Creek Valley was the old Wilderness Road, between rich in coal, and it was in demand. Cumberland Gap and Middlesboro, The American Association, Ltd. was paved in 1908. It was the first was dissolved and reorganized as a paved road in Bell County. more modest company, the Ameri- By the early 1920s, one of the can Association, Inc. This new best roads in the area led through company focused its attention on Middlesboro. Auto touring became developing the valley’s coal mines. the rage, and tourists flocked to Small coal companies leased the the historic Cumberland Gap area mines owned by the Association. and Middlesboro. In 1926, the road Slowly, Middlesborough began through Middlesboro became U.S. to recover. The former boom town Highway 25E, and more tourists became a small, quiet coal town. came. Although tourism and new In the mid-1890s, the Post Office industry brought money to the val- changed the spelling of the city’s ley, coal remained the backbone of name, shortening it to Middlesboro. the city’s economy. Between 1910 and 1930, coal mining boomed in Kentucky, and

27 Alexander Arthur’s Return

After leaving Middlesboro, Alexander Arthur tried to regain returned to Middlesboro, a man his fortune but never succeeded. getting on in years, wanting to He founded another new city, this retire. He lived the rest of his life one in Powell’s Valley, Tennes- in the city he had inspired. Arthur see, but it did not prosper. Later, died March 4, 1912. His friends he moved to New York, and in the gave him a funeral befitting a following years, tried a number of founding father. He is buried on different business ventures. Arthur a small knoll at the highest point never stopped trying to recapture of the old Middlesboro Cemetery, the glory of those boom years in overlooking his dream city. Middlesborough. Alexander Arthur eventually

Alexander Arthur, circa 1910.

28 The Yellow Creek Canal Today

The Yellow Creek Canal made The Bypass helped, but flooding it possible for Alexander Arthur to continued to be a periodic problem build the city of Middlesboro, but in the Yellow Creek Valley. Al- right from the start, maintaining though the Bypass flooded several the canal was difficult. As min- times, the floodwall next to the ing developed in the valley, large channel kept the water from the amounts of silt were washed into city. the canal. In spite of all of the In 1999, the Army Corps of Engi- improvements, flooding was still a neers, Nashville District, started a problem. new construction project to provide To stop the flooding, the U. S. flood protection for the residents Army Corps of Engineers dug a and businesses of Middlesboro. new canal around the northern edge This project included altering the of the city. The Corps completed original Yellow Creek Canal within this new channel, known as the and downstream of Middlesboro, Yellow Creek Bypass or the Ben- permanently evacuating two busi- netts Fork Bypass, in 1939. nesses and flood-proofing sixteen

29 structures. Only time will tell if these latest improvements solve the problem of Yellow Creek. In spite of the best efforts of engineers, it seems that Yellow Creek may never be really tamed. Today, the Yellow Creek Canal remains an important feature of the city it made possible. In 1995, citi- zens designated part of the Yellow Creek Canal in downtown Middles- boro as the “Historic Canal Walk.” Workmen dredged the canal, built sidewalks and landscaped the area. The Historic Canal Walk preserves and highlights this important part Middlesboro’s heritage. Yellow Creek Canal today. Downtown Middlesboro is in the background.

30