Appalachian Community Histories – Bulan, Perry County: The Coal Camp at Duane on Trace Fork
Bulan is one of those Perry County communities that comes into focus only when several kinds of records are read together. Postal history, census geography, railroad references, mine reports, and local newspapers all point to the same conclusion. Bulan emerged in the early twentieth century as a coal camp and post office community on Trace Fork of Lotts Creek, closely tied to Downing, Duane station, and the mining activity that spread through that part of the county. Unlike many coal camp names that faded almost entirely from official use, Bulan kept enough identity to remain visible in federal records and postal service records well into the present.
Where Bulan Sits on the Landscape
The geography matters because Bulan’s history is really a creek and rail history as much as a town history. Later summaries of the old records place Bulan near the mouth of Jake Branch on Trace Fork of Lotts Creek, northeast of Hazard, and federal mapping kept the name visible on the Hazard North quadrangle tradition. The 1940 census map material for Perry County also treats Bulan as a recognizable place, showing it as part of the district map coverage for ED 97-12, ED 97-14, and ED 97-18. In the 1940 enumeration district descriptions, Bulan appears explicitly as part of two districts bounded by roads and highways that tied it to Ary, Pioneer, Hardburly, and the larger Hazard magisterial district. That kind of documentation is important in eastern Kentucky, where many communities were never incorporated but still had clear local boundaries in practice.
Post Office, Railroad, and the Making of Bulan
The clearest early documentary anchor for Bulan is its post office. Postal history sources identify the Bulan post office as opening on May 15, 1919, under postmaster Evan Riley Nicholson. At first it served the Downing railway station and a nearby Lotts Creek Coal Company camp. Within a few years, in 1922, the post office moved a short distance south to serve Duane railway station instead. That small move matters because it shows how tightly the community’s identity followed the coal and railroad infrastructure around Trace Fork. Even the names themselves carry that industrial flavor. A La Posta summary notes that neither Bulan nor Duane has a securely derived name and suggests that both likely came from the railroad or one of the mining companies rather than from an older farm or creek settlement. Read together, those sources make Bulan look less like an old crossroads village and more like a place shaped directly by the coal boom.
Coal on Trace Fork
Once Bulan appears in the record, coal is never far behind. Kentucky mining reports from the 1920s place Bulan among active mine locations in Perry County, and the 1928 annual report specifically includes Trace Fork Mining Company listings tied to Bulan. A Perry County case decided by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1921, Napier v. Trace Fork Mining Co., shows Trace Fork Mining Company operating in the same local orbit during the early coal camp era. Local newspaper notices add a more human layer. In May 1924, The Hazard Herald mentioned J. G. Sumner, mine foreman of the Lotts Creek Coal Company at Duane, a small notice that nevertheless confirms the ordinary daily business presence of company officials in the Bulan-Duane area. These records do not give a full social history by themselves, but they do prove that Bulan was part of a working industrial landscape of tipples, branch lines, mine offices, and camp households.
Bulan in Census and School Records
By the late 1930s and mid century, Bulan shows up in the kinds of records that reveal something more than raw industrial presence. The 1940 enumeration district descriptions name Bulan as part of two census districts, which suggests a settlement large enough or spread out enough to matter in federal census geography. The official 1950 Census search page also identifies Bulan as an unincorporated place in Perry County, and the 1950 census population tables give Bulan 1,872 people, up from 1,446 in 1940. That is a substantial community by eastern Kentucky coal camp standards. Local county compilations also remembered it. Helen F. Randolph’s Perry County history listed Bulan among the county’s communities. So did community and school life. On February 9, 1939, The Hazard Herald reported that Dudley High School of Bulan had been awarded the district tournament for Perry County. That one line is easy to overlook, but it is some of the best evidence that Bulan functioned not only as a mine location or postal point, but also as a school community with its own local identity.
“Pistol City” and the Persistence of Place
Later local memory attached one of the most colorful nicknames in Perry County to Bulan. Kentucky Atlas records that Bulan was sometimes called “Pistol City” because of its reputation for violence and the number of people said to have carried guns there in the 1920s. Whether that nickname was used by everyone or mainly by outsiders, it fits the rough public image that some mining camps acquired during boom years, when labor conflict, quick population growth, and a heavily male workforce could make a place seem hard edged even by coalfield standards. Yet the more striking thing is not the nickname but the endurance of the place-name itself. In 2011, a USPS Postal Bulletin formalized Hardburly as an acceptable last line under Bulan’s ZIP Code 41722, a small but telling reminder that Bulan remained a meaningful postal hub in that part of Perry County. Current USPS location data still lists the Bulan Post Office at 4672 KY Highway 476, and a 2022 USPS eastern Kentucky operations release also used Bulan as an active service point.
Why Bulan’s History Matters
Bulan matters because it shows how many Appalachian communities were built and remembered. The story did not begin with incorporation papers or a single grand civic narrative. It grew out of a creek valley, a railroad stop, a post office window, a cluster of mines, and the institutions that followed, especially schools and churches. In the record, Bulan appears first as a practical place, where mail needed delivered, coal needed shipped, and workers needed housed. Over time it became something more stable than a camp name. Census officials counted it. Newspapers named its school. Postal authorities kept it in service. That layered survival is what makes Bulan such a good Perry County subject. It is a reminder that some coal camp communities disappeared almost as soon as their mines did, while others, like Bulan, stayed in the record long enough to become part of the county’s lasting geography.
Sources & Further Reading
Rennick, Robert M. “Perry County – Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky 273. Morehead State University, 2000. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/273
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Perry County, Kentucky. Part II.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 34, no. 3 (July 2003). Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP34-3.pdf
United States Census Bureau. 1950 Census of Population: Volume 1. Number of Inhabitants. Kentucky. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-1/vol-01-20.pdf
National Archives and Records Administration. “Search.” 1950 Census. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?county=Perry&page=1&state=KY
United States Bureau of the Census. “1940 Census Enumeration District Descriptions – Kentucky – Perry County – ED 97-11, ED 97-12, ED 97-13.” National Archives image via Wikimedia Commons. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1940_Census_Enumeration_District_Descriptions_-_Kentucky_-_Perry_County_-_ED_97-11%2C_ED_97-12%2C_ED_97-13_-_NARA_-_5863017.jpg
United States Bureau of the Census. “1940 Census Enumeration District Maps – Kentucky – Perry County – Bulan – ED 97-12, ED 97-14, ED 97-18.” National Archives image via Wikimedia Commons. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1940_Census_Enumeration_District_Maps_-_Kentucky_-_Perry_County_-_Bulan_-_ED_97-12%2C_ED_97-14%2C_ED_97-18_-_NARA_-_5832067.jpg
Hodge, James Michael. Coals of the North Fork of Kentucky River in Perry and Portions of Breathitt and Knott Counties. Frankfort, KY: The State Journal Company, 1918. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://archive.org/details/coalsofnorthfork00hodgrich
Kentucky Geological Survey. “Coals on the North Side of the North Fork of Kentucky River in Perry and Knott Counties.” By James M. Hodge. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/s_4/KGS4RI21913pt4.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines and Minerals of the State of Kentucky, 1924. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1924.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines and Minerals of the State of Kentucky, 1928. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/DanielReportMines1928.pdf
Napier v. Trace Fork Mining Co., 193 Ky. 291, 235 S.W. 766 (Ky. Ct. App. 1921). Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www.courtlistener.com/c/ky/193/
The Hazard Herald (Hazard, KY), December 5, 1918. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1117886918/
The Hazard Herald (Hazard, KY), May 30, 1924. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1118395779/
The Hazard Herald (Hazard, KY), February 9, 1939. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1082136916/
United States Postal Service. Postal Bulletin 22326. December 15, 2011. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2011/pb22326/pdf/pb22326.pdf
United States Postal Service. “USPS Announces Temporary Operations in Eastern Kentucky.” August 1, 2022. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/local-releases/ky/2022/0801-usps-announces-temporary-operations-in-eastern-kentucky.htm
Elbon, David C. “Bulan, Kentucky.” Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-bulan.html
Randolph, Helen F. Perry County – General History. County Histories of Kentucky. Morehead State University. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=kentucky_county_histories
Perry County Clerk. “Records Center.” Accessed April 5, 2026. https://perry.countyclerk.us/records-center/
Perry County Clerk. “Online Land Records.” Accessed April 5, 2026. https://perry.countyclerk.us/records-center/online-land-records/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. County Records Inventory. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Inventory_County_Records.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. County Deeds, Tax Assessment Books, Wills, Land Warrants and Related Records Inventory. Accessed April 5, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Inventory_Land_Records.pdf
Author Note: Bulan is the kind of Perry County place whose history survives in post office records, mine reports, maps, and local newspapers. I wanted to pull those scattered pieces together carefully so the community comes through as more than just a coal camp name.