Appalachian Community Histories – Tribbey, Perry County: Jakes Branch, Coal Camps, and the L&N Railroad
Tribbey belongs to the coalfield map of northern Perry County, in the country of Jakes Branch northeast of Hazard. The Kentucky Atlas places Tribbey on Jakes Branch about six miles northeast of Hazard, identifies it as a coal camp, and notes that it was also a station on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The same source records that the Tribbey post office opened in 1919 and closed in 1984. The source of the name Tribbey is not clearly known, which leaves the place with a familiar Appalachian kind of mystery, where the record tells us where the community stood but not exactly why that name took hold.
Tribbey was never just a dot beside a branch. It was a working community shaped by coal, railroad service, mail service, schools, family life, and the larger Hazard coalfield economy. Perry County itself was formed from parts of Floyd and Clay Counties, and both Perry County and Hazard were named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. The county’s own modern history page still frames Perry County as a place shaped by the Appalachian Mountains, coal, timber, and the communities that grew up around those industries.
The Creek Before the Camp
Before Tribbey became a post office name, a railroad station, and a coal-camp community, the surrounding ground already appeared in the geological record. James M. Hodge’s 1918 Kentucky Geological Survey report, Coals of the North Fork of Kentucky River in Perry and Portions of Breathitt and Knott Counties, is one of the strongest early sources for the area. Hodge described Jake Fork as entering on the right, one mile up Trace Fork, with the mouth at an altitude of 880 feet. That matters because it fixes the branch in the coal survey record before Tribbey fully appears as a named community in the post office and railroad record.
Hodge’s report was not a romantic county history. It was a field document, built around coal beds, creek mouths, openings, entries, landowners, and elevations. In the Jake Fork section, Hodge recorded thin coals, Sang Fork, and a set of coal openings farther up the branch. He also noted that Noah Smith had an abandoned entry on a right branch about two and a half miles up Jake Fork, where coal could still be seen. This kind of evidence shows that the Tribbey area was already being read through its mineral geography before the post office name became fixed in local use.
The Railroad and the Post Office
The timing of Tribbey’s appearance fits the railroad-and-coal expansion around Hazard. Postal-history research connected with Robert M. Rennick and La Posta places the Tribbey post office on Jake Fork between Bulan and Hardburly, with Henry G. Harp as postmaster when the office was established on October 2, 1919. That postal account also ties the name to the Jake Branch railroad spur and to coal-company service.
The railroad connection is central to Tribbey’s story. The Kentucky Atlas identifies Tribbey as a Louisville and Nashville Railroad station, and the postal-history lead places the station on the Jake Branch spur. By 1954, the Hazard North 7.5-minute USGS topographic quadrangle showed Tribbey in the mapped landscape east of Bulan and west of Hardburly, along the narrow valley pattern that defined the coalfield settlement line.
That geography tells much of the story. Tribbey was not built like a courthouse town or river port. It was strung into the branch country, where the movement of coal, supplies, mail, and people depended on the rail spur and the road network that followed the creek. USGS describes topographic maps as a signature product useful for viewing the landscape and tracking natural and cultural features over time, which makes the Hazard North maps especially valuable for understanding how Tribbey sat in relation to Bulan, Hardburly, Trace Fork, and Hazard.
Coal Companies and Camp Life
The mine record ties Tribbey to several layers of coal-company activity. Kentucky State Department of Mines annual reports from the 1920s place Midland Mining Company in the Perry County mine-report context, and the 1928 annual report search record connects Midland Mining Company with Tribbey. Coal-company scrip evidence also points to Midland Mining Company, Inc., Tribbey, Perry County, showing the material culture of company-store life.
Later coal-camp indexes connect Tribbey with Old King Mining Company, listed at Tribbey from 1933 to 1958 with a figure of 160 attached to the entry. That number should be treated carefully unless checked against the original Dodrill source and state mine reports, but the listing is still a useful lead because it matches other evidence placing Old King Mining Company in Tribbey’s mid-twentieth-century life.
One of the most human records connected to Tribbey is the 1944 Penn State Special Collections photograph series of coal miner John Tom Blanton’s residence. The Penn State record identifies the image as “Coal miner, John Tom Blanton’s residence, interior (Tribbey, Kentucky) (1944),” taken in February 1944 and held in the United Mine Workers of America, Historical Collections and Labor Archives. Another catalog record says Blanton lived in Tribbey, was employed by Old King Mining Company, and worked at the Old King Mine.
That photograph record gives Tribbey something maps and mine reports cannot provide by themselves. It places a named worker and family inside the coal-camp world. The record does not make Tribbey unusual. Instead, it makes Tribbey representative of many Appalachian coal places where the public record is scattered across maps, mine reports, postal records, newspapers, and a few surviving images of homes and people.
School, Families, and Community Mentions
Tribbey also appears in the education record. The Notable Kentucky African Americans Database identifies Tribbey School in a Perry County school listing, citing the Kentucky School Directory, 1961–62, page 885. That reference should be followed back to the directory itself for a fuller school history, but it shows that Tribbey remained a named community in the county’s educational landscape well after its early coal-camp period.
Newspaper references help fill in the life between the mine and the map. The Hazard Herald carried Tribbey community and society notices, including 1942 clippings titled “Frank Church of Tribbey Is Honor Guest At Party” and “Party For Mrs Church At Tribbey Tuesday.” These are small items, but they matter because coal-camp history is not only production, seams, and railroad service. It is also visiting, parties, churches, schools, household routines, and the names that appear in the local paper.
By the 1960s, Tribbey still appeared in the practical transportation record. A 1964 Hazard Herald issue reported Louisville and Nashville freight service changes and listed Tribbey among the communities where customers could ship or receive less-than-carload freight. That notice places Tribbey in a network of eastern Kentucky coalfield communities still being served through the railroad economy, even as older camp structures and company arrangements were changing.
Tribbey in the Later Map
Tribbey’s post office closed in 1984, but the place did not disappear from memory or from geographic indexing. The Kentucky Atlas continues to list it as a Perry County community, and Perry County’s own community page includes Tribbey among the named communities of the county. That kind of official listing matters for small places because it keeps them visible even when their strongest institutions, such as a post office, mine, school, or railroad stop, have faded from daily use.
Modern map and place-name references also preserve Tribbey as a mapped community in the Hazard North quadrangle area. Topographic references place Tribbey around latitude 37.3045402 and longitude -83.1443372, while the historical Tribbey Railroad Station is separately indexed nearby. These coordinates are not a substitute for local memory, but they help anchor the old community in the physical landscape of Perry County.
Why Tribbey Matters
Tribbey’s history is important because it shows how many Appalachian communities entered the record. It did not begin with a single founding monument. It appeared through coal seams, branch names, postal paperwork, railroad service, mine reports, school directories, newspaper notices, photographs, and family records. Each source gives only part of the story. Together, they show a coal-camp community on Jakes Branch that connected Perry County families to the mines, the L&N Railroad, Hazard, and the wider North Fork coalfield.
The best way to read Tribbey is not as a vanished place, but as a layered one. The 1918 coal survey records the mineral geography. The 1919 post office date marks the community’s arrival in the federal mail system. The railroad station places it in the transportation network. The mine reports and scrip point to company life. The school directory and newspapers show families, children, and community activity. The maps keep the name tied to the branch. Tribbey survives in all of those records, and that is often how the history of a small Appalachian coal place has to be rebuilt.
Sources & Further Reading
Hodge, James M. Coals of the North Fork of Kentucky River in Perry and Portions of Breathitt and Knott Counties. Frankfort, KY: The State Journal Company, 1918. https://archive.org/details/coalsofnorthfork00hodgrich
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines for the Year 1924. Frankfort, KY: State Department of Mines, 1925. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1924.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines for the Year 1925. Frankfort, KY: State Department of Mines, 1926. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/jonesminereport1925.pdf
Kentucky State Department of Mines. Annual Report of the State Department of Mines for the Year 1928. Frankfort, KY: State Department of Mines, 1929. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/general/DanielReportMines1928.pdf
United States Geological Survey. Hazard North, Kentucky, 7.5 Minute Quadrangle. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1954. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/KY_Hazard_North_803602_1954_24000_geo.pdf
United States Geological Survey. TopoView. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey. Accessed May 18, 2026. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
United States Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Maps: Preserving the Past.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
United States Geological Survey. “Topographic Maps.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/topographic-maps
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Tribbey, Kentucky.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-tribbey.html
Rennick, Robert M. “Perry County Post Offices.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 34, no. 3. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP34-3.pdf
Penn State University Libraries. “District 30: Tribbey, Kentucky: John Tom Blanton, Family of Bituminous Coal Miner.” United Mine Workers of America Photographic, Graphic, and Artifacts Collection. Accessed May 18, 2026. https://digital.libraries.psu.edu/digital/collection/umwap/id/1738/
Penn State Special Collections. “Coal Miner, John Tom Blanton’s Residence, Interior, Tribbey, Kentucky, 1944.” Flickr. Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatespecial/8371451668
Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. “African American Schools in Perry County, KY.” University of Kentucky Libraries. Accessed May 18, 2026. https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/2945
Coal Education. “Perry County, Kentucky Coal Camps.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.coaleducation.org/coalhistory/coaltowns/coalcamps/perry_county.htm
RootsWeb. “Coal Mines in Perry County Kentucky.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~kycoalmi/perrycomines.html
Perry County Fiscal Court. “About Perry County.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://perrycountyky.gov/about-perry-county/
Perry County Fiscal Court. “Communities.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://perrycountyky.gov/communities/
Perry County Historical Society. “Perry County History.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://perrycountyhistoricalsociety.org/
Randolph, H. F. Perry County: General History. Morehead, KY: Morehead State University, Kentucky County Histories. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/
Quigley, Martha Hall. “Perry County.” In The Kentucky Encyclopedia, edited by John E. Kleber. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Kentucky_Encyclopedia/8eFSK4o–M0C
Jillson, Willard Rouse. A History of the Coal Industry in Kentucky. Louisville, KY: John P. Morton and Company, 1922. https://archive.org/details/historyofcoalind00jill
Kentucky Geological Survey. Perry County, Kentucky. Map and Chart 164, Series XII. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/mc164_12.pdf
FamilySearch. “Perry County, Kentucky Genealogy.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Perry_County,_Kentucky_Genealogy
FamilySearch Catalog. “Perry County, Kentucky Deed Records, 1821–1964.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog
FamilySearch Catalog. “Perry County, Kentucky Tax Books and Tax Lists.” Accessed May 18, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog
The Hazard Herald. Hazard, Kentucky. Searchable issues. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/search?query=%22The+Hazard+Herald%22+Tribbey
The Hazard Herald. “Frank Church of Tribbey Is Honor Guest At Party.” Hazard, KY, 1942. Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-hazard-herald-frank-church-of-tribbe/189527447/
The Hazard Herald. “Party For Mrs. Church At Tribbey Tuesday.” Hazard, KY, 1942. Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/
United States. Federal Register 8, no. 212. November 2, 1943. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/fr/1943/11/02
Author Note: Tribbey is one of those Perry County places where the story survives through maps, mine records, post office dates, school listings, and scattered newspaper mentions. I wanted to treat it as more than a coal-camp name, because every branch community like this carried families, labor, memory, and a place in the wider Hazard coalfield.