Appalachian Community Histories – Rella, Bell County: Bell Mine, KY 66, and a Coal Community Near Arjay
Rella is one of those Bell County communities whose history does not sit in one easy place. It appears in maps, post office notes, coal records, school lists, cemetery references, and family records. That kind of source trail can make a place feel hidden, but it also shows how many ways a small Appalachian community left evidence behind.
Bell County itself was formed after the Civil War from portions of Harlan and Knox counties. It was first named Josh Bell County for Joshua Fry Bell before the legislature shortened the name to Bell County in 1873. The county sits in Kentucky’s Eastern Coal Field, where mountains, valleys, roads, rail lines, timber, and coal shaped where communities grew.
The Map Holds the First Clue
The strongest starting point for Rella is geography. Map-derived sources place Rella in Bell County on the Pineville USGS topographic map, at about 1,083 feet in elevation. TopoZone lists Rella at coordinates 36.834531 north and 83.6329717 west, with the Pineville quadrangle as its USGS map area.
That matters because Rella’s story is tied to a landscape of narrow valleys, ridges, mines, small roads, and railroad points. The Pineville quadrangle does not just show Rella as a name. Later map listings tied to the same quadrangle also identify “Rella Railroad Station,” placing the community within the rail geography of the Pineville and Arjay area.
Rella was not isolated in the sense of being alone. It belonged to a cluster of Bell County places that appear together in the records, including Arjay, Glendon, Blanche, Cary, Fourmile, Straight Creek, Jenson, Kettle Island, and others. Some of these were coal camps, some were railroad stations, some were post office communities, and some were simply places where families, schools, mines, and roads came together.
Near Arjay, Straight Creek, and the Coal Country
To understand Rella, it helps to understand the nearby communities. Robert M. Rennick’s work on Bell County post offices describes Arjay as a coal town extending along KY 66 and the Left Fork of Straight Creek, beginning nearly three miles northeast of Pineville. Its name came from the initials of R. J. Asher, a coal operator, and its post office was established in 1911.
Rella’s record trail runs through that same general world of roads, rail lines, coal development, and small post office communities. In Henry Harvey Fuson’s account of Bell County industry, coal development spread from the Pineville area up Straight Creek, Four Mile Creek, Greasy Creek, Big Clear Creek, the Cumberland River, and later the Left Fork of Straight Creek toward the Red Bird area. Fuson wrote that the movement up Left Fork promised to develop a larger coal field than Bell County had known before.
That larger setting helps explain why Rella appears in scattered but meaningful records. A small place did not have to become a large incorporated town to matter. It only had to sit near the routes where coal, timber, schoolchildren, churchgoers, mail, and families moved.
The Rella Post Office Trail
Rennick’s “Bell County: Post Offices” is one of the most important secondary sources for Rella because post offices often preserved community identities long after a store, school, station, or mine changed. The Morehead State University record identifies Rennick’s work as a historical survey of Bell County post offices.
Searchable text from Rennick’s Bell County post office material says that two Left Fork post offices opened in the spring of 1932, and that the first was Rella. The same snippet says the name had not been derived and connects the office with Walter York.
That is a small note, but it is a powerful one. A post office meant more than mail. It meant a recognized place name. It meant local families could give Rella as an address, newspaper notices could name it, and government records could treat it as a real community. For places like Rella, the post office may be the closest thing to an official founding marker.
Bell Mine and the 1943 Federal Records
The clearest Rella-specific coal source appears in the Federal Register during World War II. A February 13, 1943 Federal Register entry refers to Bell Coal Company at its Bell Mine in Rella, Kentucky. The same entry identifies the Bell Mine with Mine Index No. 37 in District No. 8.
Other Federal Register entries from 1943 also name Bell Coal Company or Bell Coal Company, Inc. of Rella, Kentucky. A September 14, 1943 entry lists Bell Coal Company, Inc., Rella, Kentucky, and an October 12, 1943 entry again names Bell Coal Company, Inc., Rella, Kentucky.
These records do not give a full company history. They do not name every miner, describe every house, or tell what daily life was like at Rella. Still, they prove that Rella was tied to an operating coal concern during the wartime coal economy. During the 1940s, federal agencies watched coal production, pricing, supply, and classification closely because coal was part of the nation’s industrial and military life. Rella appears in that paper trail because its coal mattered enough to be recorded.
Kentucky Geological Survey mapping also helps place Rella in the mining landscape. A Bell County map of mined-out areas of selected seams includes Rella among nearby communities such as Arjay, Hulen, Tejay, Fonde, Jenson, Balkan, Ingram, Calvin, Cubage, and others.
Schools, Families, and Local Identity
Rella also appears in school records. Fuson’s Bell County history includes a 1939 to 1940 school list naming teachers, schools, and post offices. In that list, Mittie Asher is identified with Lower Symms Fork and Rella.
That one line opens a window into the human side of the community. Rella was not only a map label or mine location. It was a mailing place connected to a school, a teacher, and children in the surrounding valleys. In the coalfields, school names and post office names often preserve the old community map better than modern road signs do.
Family records add more traces. One Bell County obituary for Asher Mills says he was born in Rella in 1932, the son of Anderson and Mollie Asher Mills, and later worked as an elementary teacher at Arjay Elementary School.
That kind of record shows how Rella remained part of personal identity. A person might later live in Arjay, Pineville, Middlesboro, Ohio, Tennessee, or elsewhere, but a birthplace such as Rella carried the memory of where a family story began.
Cemetery records also point toward Rella’s community network. Find A Grave lists two cemeteries under Rella, Messer Family Cemetery and Warren Cemetery No. 2. The Kentucky Historical Society’s cemetery database also includes a Bell County entry for Warren Cemetery No. 2 with directions referencing Route 66 to Rella. These should be treated as leads rather than final proof, but they are important leads for family and land research.
Why the Records Are Scattered
Rella’s history is scattered because many small Appalachian communities were built from practical pieces rather than formal plans. A railroad station could give a place a name. A post office could make that name official. A mine could bring wages and movement. A school could preserve the name in county records. A cemetery could hold the family evidence. A newspaper could mention the place only when someone married, died, bought land, taught school, or appeared in court.
The Pineville Sun is one of the most important newspapers to search for Rella. Search results show Rella appearing in the Pineville Sun archive, including a May 8, 1941 issue. That does not give a complete town history by itself, but it points to the kind of local newspaper trail that often fills in the names of families, churches, schools, mines, roads, accidents, and public notices.
The deeper trail is likely in courthouse and archival records. Deed books, coal leases, tax books, road orders, school board minutes, probate files, death certificates, birth records, and railroad right-of-way records may show how Rella developed and how its families were connected to nearby Arjay, Lower Symms Fork, Straight Creek, and KY 66.
A Community Kept in the Records
Rella may not have the kind of public history that larger Bell County towns have. It was not Pineville, Middlesboro, Tejay, or Arjay. Yet its record trail is real. The maps place it. The post office notes preserve its name. The Federal Register ties it to Bell Mine and Bell Coal Company during the 1940s. Fuson’s school list places it in local education. Obituaries and cemetery sources tie it to family memory.
That is often how small Appalachian places survive in history. They appear in fragments, but the fragments fit together. Rella was a place of roads, rail, coal, schools, and families. Its story is not lost. It is simply spread across the kinds of records that Appalachian historians have to gather one piece at a time.
Sources & Further Reading
United States Geological Survey. “Rella, Populated Place, Bell County, Kentucky.” Geographic Names Information System, feature ID 508919. https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search
United States Geological Survey. Pineville, Kentucky, 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, 1954. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
United States Geological Survey. Balkan, Kentucky, 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, 1954. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
Froelich, A. J., and James Tazelaar. Geologic Map of the Pineville Quadrangle, Bell and Knox Counties, Kentucky. U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Quadrangle 1129, 1974. https://www.usgs.gov/publications/geologic-map-pineville-quadrangle-bell-and-knox-counties-kentucky
TopoZone. “Rella Topo Map in Bell County, Kentucky.” Accessed May 26, 2026. https://www.topozone.com/kentucky/bell-ky/city/rella/
MyTopo. “Historic Topographic Map Collection: Pineville, Kentucky.” Accessed May 26, 2026. https://mapstore.mytopo.com/products/historic_7-5×7-5_pineville_kentucky
United States Office of the Federal Register. Federal Register, Vol. 8, No. 31, February 13, 1943. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1943. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/fr/1943/02/13
United States Office of the Federal Register. Federal Register, Vol. 8, September 14, 1943. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1943. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/fr/1943/09/14
United States Office of the Federal Register. Federal Register, Vol. 8, October 12, 1943. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1943. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/fr/1943/10/12
United States Congress. Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 79th Congress, 2nd Session. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/crecb/1946
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Bell County, Kentucky.” Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/383/
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813126319/kentucky-place-names/
Rennick, Robert M. “Bell County: Place Names.” Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/34/
Fuson, Henry Harvey. History of Bell County, Kentucky, Volume II. Pineville, KY: Bell County Historical Society, 1947. KYGenWeb transcription. https://kygenweb.net/bell/area/bell_history2.htm
Ayres, William. Historical Sketches. Pineville, KY: Pineville Sun, 1925. Referenced in Henry Harvey Fuson, History of Bell County, Kentucky. https://kygenweb.net/bell/area/bell_history2.htm
Tipton, J. C. The Cumberland Coal Field. 1904. Referenced in Henry Harvey Fuson, History of Bell County, Kentucky. https://kygenweb.net/bell/area/bell_history2.htm
Kentucky Geological Survey. Bell County, Kentucky, Groundwater Resources and Mined-Out Area Map. Lexington: University of Kentucky. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/download/gwatlas/gwcounty/bell/BELLMO.pdf
Kentucky Geological Survey. Bell County, Kentucky. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2010. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/mc181_12.pdf
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Bell County Highway and Road Maps. Frankfort: Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/Pages/County-Maps.aspx
Bell County, Kentucky. “About Us.” Official Bell County Government Website. Accessed May 26, 2026. https://bellcounty.ky.gov/Pages/about.aspx
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Bell County, Kentucky.” Accessed May 26, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/21013.html
FamilySearch. “Bell County, Kentucky Genealogy.” FamilySearch Research Wiki. Accessed May 26, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Bell_County,_Kentucky_Genealogy
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “County Records: Bell County.” Frankfort: Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. https://kdla.ky.gov/Research/Pages/County-Records.aspx
Bell County Clerk. Deed Books, Tax Records, Court Orders, and Local Property Records. Pineville, KY: Bell County Clerk. https://bellcountyclerk.ky.gov/
Bell County Property Valuation Administrator. “Bell County PVA Records.” Pineville, KY. https://bellcountypva.com/
Newspapers.com. The Pineville Sun Archive. Accessed May 26, 2026. https://www.newspapers.com/paper/the-pineville-sun/1265/
Find A Grave. “Cemeteries in Rella, Kentucky.” Accessed May 26, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/USA/Kentucky/Bell-County/Rella?id=city_52992
Kentucky Historical Society. “Kentucky Historic Resources Inventory and Cemetery Database.” Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society. https://history.ky.gov/research/kentucky-historic-resources-inventory
KYGenWeb. “Bell County, Kentucky Obituaries.” Accessed May 26, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/bell/obits/
Coal Mining History Resource Centre and RootsWeb Contributors. “Coal Mines in Bell County, Kentucky.” Accessed May 26, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~kycoalmi/bellcomines.html
University of Louisville Digital Collections. “Bell County, Kentucky Railroad and Cumberland River Photographs.” Louisville: University of Louisville. https://digital.library.louisville.edu/
Author Note: Rella is a reminder that some Appalachian communities survive less through monuments than through maps, post office notes, school lists, coal records, cemeteries, and family memory. I hope this article helps readers see how even a small place can leave a meaningful trail when the records are gathered carefully.