Appalachian Community Histories – Lothair, Perry County: Ashless Coal, Banking, and Annexation into Hazard
Lothair was one of the many eastern Kentucky communities shaped by coal, railroads, and the close pull of a growing county seat. What began as an early twentieth century mining place tied to Ashless Coal developed into something more substantial than a temporary camp. It gained a railroad station, a post office, local institutions, and even its own bank before later being drawn into Hazard’s orbit and annexed in 1965.
Its history matters because Lothair helps show how Perry County changed during the coal boom years. Places like it were not simply dots on a map or clusters of company houses. They were working communities where families settled, children went to school, churches organized local life, and business activity followed the mines. In the case of Lothair, the surviving record is good enough to trace that change with unusual clarity.
Coal, Rail, and the Making of Lothair
The earliest strong documentary trail places Lothair squarely in the coal economy that transformed Perry County in the 1910s. A 1919 Kentucky Court of Appeals case, Ashless Coal Co. v. Davis, identified Ashless Coal Company as operating a mine at Lothair in Perry County and described the company’s commissary and scrip system. Kentucky Department of Mines reports from the 1920s continued to list Ashless operations at Lothair, including Ashless No. 1 and Ashless No. 2, showing that the community remained an active mining point well beyond its opening years.
The railroad was essential to that rise. A postal history study in La Posta ties Lothair to an L&N Railroad station opened in 1914 and notes that the Lothair post office was established on January 27, 1915, with Andrew J. Upton as postmaster. Those dates are important because they mark the moment when Lothair became more than an informal camp attached to a mine. A station and post office meant regular movement of people, mail, freight, payrolls, and business, all of which helped fix Lothair into the working geography south of Hazard.
Postal records help confirm the same arc over a longer span. Jim Forte’s postal history listing shows Lothair as a post office from 1915 to 1957, after which it became Lothair Rural Station from 1957 to 1975. That sequence suggests both continuity and transition. Lothair remained recognized in official postal service for decades, even as it became increasingly tied to Hazard rather than standing wholly apart from it.
More Than a Camp
By the middle 1920s, Lothair had clearly developed beyond bare mining infrastructure. The 1925 Rand McNally Bankers Directory listed the Lothair State Bank, showing that the community had enough commercial life to support a local bank. Two years later, Mid-Continent Banker reported that William Kyle had been elected cashier of the Lothair State Bank. Those notices matter because they show that Lothair was not only producing coal. It was also handling deposits, credit, payroll, and the ordinary business needs of a settled population.
Newspaper evidence points the same way. In late 1926, The Hazard Herald carried a page headed “Lothair School and Community News,” which is exactly the kind of item that reveals local depth. Newspapers generally do not devote community columns to places that exist only as a name on a payroll sheet. That kind of coverage suggests a place with families, schoolchildren, church activity, and enough neighborhood identity to sustain its own local news.
The boom, however, was not permanent. In November 1928, contemporary reports said the Lothair State Bank suspended operations amid depression in the coal industry and frozen loans to coal companies. That episode fits a broader eastern Kentucky story. Communities built rapidly around coal could also be destabilized quickly when mine output fell, loans tightened, and local business confidence broke. Lothair’s banking record, brief as it was, tells both sides of the story: growth first, then vulnerability.
Lothair in Census and Community Life
By 1950, Lothair was still distinct enough to appear by name in the official federal census. The Census Bureau’s Kentucky population volume listed “Lothair (uninc.)” under Perry County’s Hazard district and gave it a population of 1,313. That is an important benchmark because it shows that Lothair was not merely a remembered mining name. Mid century federal enumeration still recognized it as an unincorporated community with a sizable population.
Other mid century traces show the same lingering identity. The May 20, 1965 issue of The Hazard Herald carried church listings for both Lothair Baptist Church and Lothair Methodist Church. On that same issue’s front page, the annexation debate made clear that local people still thought of Lothair as a community, even while city leaders increasingly treated Hazard and Lothair as one connected urban area sharing the same problems.
Cartographic and map evidence also helps place Lothair within the built landscape around Hazard. A copyright entry for a Sanborn fire insurance map described “Hazard, including Lothair, Perry Co., Ky: Apr. 1930,” indicating that mapmakers considered Lothair part of the urban-commercial area worth detailed survey. That does not mean Lothair had lost its identity by 1930. It means the opposite. It was important enough, and close enough to Hazard, to be included in a formal fire insurance mapping project.
From Separate Community to Part of Hazard
The final major turning point came in 1965. On May 20 of that year, The Hazard Herald reported renewed efforts to annex Lothair to Hazard. The article shows that the push was not merely symbolic. City and state officials discussed sewage, public health, and the fact that Lothair’s location above Hazard’s water intake created serious concerns. The newspaper also reported conflicting estimates of public sentiment, though Hazard’s mayor believed most Lothair residents favored annexation.
Britannica’s entry on Hazard confirms that the annexation happened in 1965. Read together with the newspaper coverage, that fact gives Lothair’s history a clear shape. It began as a coal community tied to railroad expansion and company mining. It matured enough to sustain banking, schools, churches, and postal service. Then, as Hazard expanded and modern infrastructure demands grew more pressing, Lothair was absorbed into the city next door.
That does not mean Lothair disappeared in memory. Perry County still recognizes it as a named community, and the historical record preserves enough pieces to show that it once stood as a place with its own rhythm and institutions. In eastern Kentucky, that pattern happened often, but each community followed its own route. Lothair’s route ran from coal camp to unincorporated town to annexed neighborhood, all within the span of a few generations.
Sources & Further Reading
Hodge, James Michael. Coals of the North Fork of Kentucky River in Perry and Portions of Breathitt and Knott Counties. Frankfort, KY: State Journal Company, 1918. https://archive.org/details/coalsofnorthfork00hodgrich
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines of Kentucky, 1924. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey digital reprint. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1924.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines of Kentucky, 1925. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey digital reprint. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1925.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines of Kentucky, 1927. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey digital reprint. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1927.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines of Kentucky, 1928. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey digital reprint. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/DanielReportMines1928.pdf
Ashless Coal Co. v. Davis, 183 Ky. 406, 209 S.W. 532 (Ky. Ct. App. 1919). https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/ashless-coal-co-v-901830035
United States Bureau of the Census. United States Census of Population: 1950. Vol. 2, Characteristics of the Population, Part 17: Kentucky. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1952. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-2/37779280v2p17ch2.pdf
“Lothair School and Community News.” The Hazard Herald (Hazard, KY), November 26, 1926. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1118631390/
“For Lothair Annexation.” The Hazard Herald (Hazard, KY), May 20, 1965. https://archive.org/download/kd9dv1cj8g5s/kd9dv1cj8g5s_text.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “Perry County – Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky 273 (2000). Morehead State University Digital Collections. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/273/
Rennick, Robert M. “Perry County – Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection 121 (2016). Morehead State University Digital Collections. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/121/
Randolph, H. F. Perry County – General History. Morehead State University Digital Collections, 1936. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=kentucky_county_histories
“La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History.” Vol. 34, no. 2. Article with Lothair postal and station history, including the 1914 L&N station and January 27, 1915 post-office opening. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP34-2.pdf
Rand McNally Bankers Directory. January 1925. Entry for Lothair State Bank, Perry County, Kentucky. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/rand-mcnally-bankers-directory-105/january-1925-598586/content/fulltext/rmbd_192501_04_kansas
“Bankers Elect New Officers.” Mid-Continent Banker 23, no. 6 (June 1927). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/nfr/mcbanker/midcontinentbanker_192706.pdf
In re Lothair Hardware Co., 18 F.2d 975 (E.D. Ky. 1926). https://flexlaw.co/case/1088663/1926-in-re-lothair-hardware-co-18-f-2d-975
Kentucky Department of Highways. Kentucky Cities and Towns, 1965. Frankfort, KY. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/Maps/1965KYF.pdf
Author Note: I am always drawn to places like Lothair because they show how a coal camp could become a real community with schools, churches, business life, and its own identity. Rebuilding that story from mine reports, postal records, census entries, and local newspapers is one of the best ways to see Perry County’s history at ground level.