Citizens learn about group’s plan for county’s future
Pine Mountain Partnership wants you to do one thing.
Imagine.
And its report on economic development released to the public last week give a starting point for Letcher County residents to begin their imagining. The report lays out $207.6 million in needs in the county and shows where nearly 10 percent of that has already been committed.
At four meetings in Neon, Jenkins, Isom and Whitesburg last week, members of the public-private partnership added to that vision and told residents what purpose each of the proposals in the report serves, including the proposed Thunder Mountain Shooting Reserve, Raven Rock Resort, Neon ATV Park, and a newly announced Homeplace concept at Linefork.
“None of these things you’re going to hear about today are going to be operated for profit,” Pine Mountain Partnership Executive Director Jeffery Justice said, “but we want to use these as catalysts to get people to open their own for-profit business and be inspired to take those and increase the economic development vitality of Letcher County.”
The projects still to be done include several that are under development by the nonprofit EKY Heritage Foundation, and others that are just beginning to be planned. While grants have been awarded for many of the projects, none of the money has arrived here for use. It has to be spent first, and then reimbursed by the federal government.
Missy Matthews, a founding member of the EKY Heritage Foundation and chairwoman of the Letcher County Tourism Commission, said smaller projects already done and the larger projects being planned are not hers, but those of other Letcher County residents. The largest of those, the 1,800-acre Thunder Mountain Shooting Reserve, will break ground this year.
While the project was originally planned for Sandlick, it will now be built on a mountaintop removal strip mine site at Millstone. The site offers a panoramic view of Pine Mountain from Whitesburg to Pound Gap, something Matthews said, “nobody can duplicate.”
Thunder Mountain Reserve will be ATV friendly and will largely use Abandoned Mine Lands Money to develop. Matthews said it will include picnic areas, a 300-capacity outdoor club house, rental cabins, an RV park, an amphitheater, and shooting ranges for shotgun, rifle and pistol, and 3-D archery. With an estimated cost of $30 million, the foundation currently has $4 million in grant money committed to the project.
Letcher County Central High School has had a national champion archery team, there is a national champion archer in the Jenkins Independent Schools, and there are several adults in the county who are champions in shooting sports, particularly in the west end of the county, who travel on a national circuit to compete. Unfortunately, many of those events are in west states.
“We want to attract events on that national circuit,” she said, but added that is not the only kind of event that could be held there.
“There used to be a car show in Letcher County that got so big they ran out of places to put the cars and it became an obstacle,” Matthews said. “I would love to see this filled with cars where people could come around and look all day.”
The Thunder Mountain site includes a view of another 844-acre site the nonprofit owns near Pound Gap that was owned by coal companies from 1911 until a year ago, when the foundation bought it. Since there was no coal on it, it has never been mined and never been clearcut. That makes the area perfect for the kind of resort Matthews said the EKY Heritage Foundation wants to build.
“We want to protect the property as it deserves to be protected, but we also want to maximize our cultural heritage,” she said.
In addition to Thunder Mountain, attractions proposed in the county include:
• Raven Rock Resort — Partially funded with $8.7 million. That resort will include a lodge with meeting rooms, rental cabins, vaulted toilets for hikers, and over 50 miles of hiking and biking trails. The total cost is expected to be $20 million.
“Realistically, we could start construction on this project in 2028,” Matthews said.
The Pine Mountain Trail already crosses the property, she said, and the sign-in sheets for the trail show them it’s already a popular tourist attraction, even without a lodge and cabins.
“Forty thousand people pass over this property in a year with nothing done to it,” Matthews said.
• Goose Creek ATV Resort at Neon — Unfunded. This 400-acre park would be developed by the county and by the City of Fleming-Neon. The park will have camping and RV parking, and will connect to trails that are already used by ATV riders, most of whom don’t currently have permission to ride there. EKY Heritage Foundation is trying to secure easements for as many of those trails as possible so they can be opened to the public. The estimated cost of the resort is $5 million.
“There are over 200 miles of these trails in Letcher County, and they’re outlaw trails,” she said. “If you don’t have easements they are illegal.”
She said the advantage for landowners is easements protect them with insurance and offer them a way to make money.
“If the trail goes through your property, it opens up a business opportunity for you,” she said. “West Virginia has showed us that.”
No construction money is needed for trails themselves because they’re already there.
Matthews said the Federal Emergency Management Agency reached out to the National Park Service and told it to contact the county about Goose Creek, and it will design the resort along with the senior class of the University of Kentucky Landscape Architecture School.
• Tanglewood Trail — Partially funded. This trail would be a joint project of the county and the City of Whitesburg. It will connect the existing Tanglewood Trail along the old railroad right-of-way in Whitesburg to a mountain trail leading to Little Shepherd Trail on the summit of Pine Mountain, and it will include an extension of the valley portion of the trail as far east as the bridge at Letcher County Central. The city has been awarded a $150,000 grant for the lower section of the trail. The tourism commission is also talking to the Letcher County Board of Education about a steel bridge next to the central office. Current plans are to floor the bridge for walking only, and use the old roadbed on the opposite side of the North Fork of the Kentucky River to extend the trail to the Food City/Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation area. A retired landscape architect for the National Park Service has also worked on the design for the mountain part of the trail.
• Daniel Boone Hotel — Unfunded. This is a project of the City of Whitesburg, but Pine Mountain Partnership is working with it. The 9224-square foot building was last used as a hotel in 1974. The city used a $1.5 million Appalachian Regional Commission grant to gut the collapsed interior, and build a new roof and new floors, but nothing else has been done because no money is available. Matthews said it will take about $8 million to finish, so it’s being broken into smaller projects. The first thing being sought is a $200,000 grant to replace the windows in the building. The plan is currently for retail, a restaurant, and a bar on the bottom floors and hotel rooms on the second and third floors.
• Fishpond Lake – Fully funded. The Letcher County Tourism Commission received a grant of $193,317 in 2019, but construction was delayed first because of the pandemic and then because of the 2022 flood. The project is expected to be done this year and be finished by September 2024. This will include RV parking, signage, a gate, and security cameras, a new playground, relocation of power lines, a bathhouse, and picnic tables.
• Homeplace — Unfunded. This Appalachian Homesteading project is still in the early planning stages and would include farm to table experience, wildfire management education and other educational opportunities at Lilley Cornett Woods, and renovations of Campbells Branch Community Center and the old Kingdom Come School with either rooms for visitors, or classrooms.
Matthews told residents who attended the meetings that she has a “powerful question” for them to think about to give feedback to the Partnership.
“ The year is 2039 and you’re reading an article about a thriving community in central Appalachia that has defied all odds – a model community for rural Appalachian towns to learn from. The community is Letcher County, Kentucky. What does the article say?”