Appalachian Community Histories – Acorn, Pulaski County: A Post Office, a Country Store, and the Families of Burdine Valley
In the eastern countryside of Pulaski County, Kentucky, the small community of Acorn developed around the farms, country roads, churches, and family businesses that sustained generations of rural Kentuckians. Although it never grew into a large town, its history survives in postal records, early twentieth-century newspapers, cemetery inscriptions, historical maps, and the memories of people whose families lived there. Among the most important were the Mayfields, whose general store and connection to the local post office helped make Acorn a recognizable community in the closing years of the nineteenth century.
Acorn’s story is particularly revealing because contemporary newspapers preserved unusually detailed accounts of its everyday life. The Somerset Journal recorded the movements of farmers, the purchase of timber, the organization of Sunday schools, the departure and return of people seeking employment in northern cities, and the small celebrations and tragedies that brought neighbors together. These scattered reports, combined with later recollections of the Mayfield family’s mercantile business, reveal a rural community closely connected to the wider economic and social changes taking place across Kentucky and Appalachia.
The Origins of Acorn and the Establishment of Its Post Office
The documented history of Acorn as a named community begins with the establishment of its post office on March 20, 1896. Robert M. Rennick, whose extensive research into Kentucky place names and postal history preserved the origins of hundreds of small communities, located the original office south of Burdine Valley in eastern Pulaski County. Mary Mayfield became its first postmaster, establishing a connection between the Mayfield family and Acorn’s postal service that continued into the twentieth century.
The origin of Acorn’s unusual name was the subject of several local traditions collected by Rennick. According to one account, Jacob N. Mayfield was considering names for the new post office when an acorn fell from a tree and struck him, inspiring his choice. Another version suggested that he thought of the name while feeding acorns to his hogs, while a third attributed it to a stranger who noticed the abundance of acorns and the unusually large oak trees growing in the area. Although the three accounts differ, each associates the community’s name with the oak trees that characterized its surrounding landscape. None has been conclusively established as the original explanation.
In 1900, Mary Mayfield relocated the post office approximately one mile south of its original site. Such movements were not unusual in rural Kentucky, where post offices frequently operated from general stores or private residences rather than purpose-built government buildings. Their locations could change when a postmaster moved, a business relocated, or another resident assumed responsibility for distributing the community’s mail.
By 1939, G. M. Mayfield was serving as Acorn’s postmaster, and the office was serving the Burdine locality. The valley took its name from related Burdine families whose presence became part of the area’s geographical identity. Acorn’s postal history reflects the way small Appalachian communities developed around a network of family properties, rural roads, stores, and settlements rather than the formally organized streets and commercial districts associated with larger towns.
The community had become sufficiently established to appear on Rand McNally’s 1911 map of Pulaski County. Its inclusion alongside other small settlements, including Public, Shopville, and Skip, demonstrates that Acorn had acquired a recognized geographical identity within the county by the early twentieth century.
The Mayfield Store and the Road Through Burdine Valley
The Mayfield family’s general store was one of the most important institutions in Acorn’s history. Operated by Jacob Nelson Mayfield, the business became known as J. N. Mayfield Mercantile and later as Acorn Mercantile. For families living on surrounding farms, the store provided access to merchandise that could not easily be produced at home, while also functioning as a gathering place where neighbors exchanged news, conducted business, and discussed matters affecting their community.
A contemporary reference to the store appeared in the October 10, 1919, edition of the Somerset Journal, which identified J. N. Mayfield as an Acorn merchant and reported that he had traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee, on business. The notice provides evidence that the store was connected to commercial networks extending beyond Pulaski County. Although Acorn was a small rural settlement, its merchants maintained relationships with the larger towns and cities that supplied goods to southeastern Kentucky.
An especially valuable account of the business appeared decades later in an interview with Mayfield’s granddaughter, Doris G. Petercheff. Published by Bill Mardis in the Somerset Commonwealth Journal on July 5, 2007, the interview was subsequently reproduced in the Congressional Record after Senator Mitch McConnell introduced a tribute to Petercheff.
Remembering her childhood in Acorn, Petercheff described a store that served the everyday needs of surrounding families. She recalled that it sold virtually everything customers could not grow themselves, illustrating the importance of general merchandise businesses in agricultural communities where many households raised their own food but depended on local merchants for manufactured goods and other necessities.
Jacob Mayfield also served as a magistrate for many years. Petercheff remembered that his position brought additional responsibilities, including duties associated with marriages, birth certificates, and other legal matters before Kentucky reorganized its court system. The combination of his mercantile business and public responsibilities made his store a place where commerce, local government, and community life intersected.
The road passing through Acorn was another important part of its development. Petercheff remembered the route that became Kentucky Highway 1675 as an older road connecting Crab Orchard with Sublimity Springs, a resort near Mount Victory. She recalled stagecoaches passing through the area on their way to the springs, although this detail survives as family recollection rather than a separately verified transportation record.
The connection to Burdine Valley was equally important. Petercheff remembered that her family informally referred to the route toward Somerset as Burden Road, a local variation of the valley’s name. Such recollections preserve the language and geographical knowledge of residents who understood the countryside through family names, creeks, farms, and familiar roads rather than highway numbers.
An official description of Pulaski County’s precinct boundaries published in the Somerset Journal in September 1920 provides additional evidence of Acorn’s place in the local landscape. The description of Burdine Precinct followed older roads toward Acorn and specifically included the farm of J. N. Mayfield, demonstrating how family properties and longstanding transportation routes were used to define administrative boundaries.
Farming, Timber, and Economic Opportunities
Agriculture formed an important part of Acorn’s early twentieth-century economy. The community’s surviving newspaper correspondence regularly mentioned planting seasons, farm rentals, livestock, weather conditions, and the movement of families between agricultural properties. These reports reveal how closely the livelihoods of residents depended on the land and how changes in weather, employment, and family circumstances influenced the community.
The March 5, 1920, edition of the Somerset Journal reported that Sam Mayfield had rented his farm to Eliza Price. The same correspondence noted that Etta and Lottie Phelps had returned from Norwood, Ohio, while members of the McDonald family were suffering from influenza. In a few brief notices, the newspaper captured several features of rural life: changing arrangements for farmland, continuing connections with industrial towns outside Kentucky, and the illnesses that could disrupt families and agricultural work.
Later that month, Acorn’s correspondent reported an economic development that suggested the possibility of additional employment beyond farming. Eli Farmer and Walter Burdine had purchased oak timber from William Bullock and were preparing to move a sawmill to the property. The proposed operation illustrates the commercial value of the area’s forests, which provided opportunities for local residents to supplement agricultural income through timber cutting and lumber production.
The same March 26 report also described more ordinary agricultural difficulties. J. J. McDonald had lost a valuable sow to hog cholera, while unusually wet weather had prevented many farmers from planting their usual acreage of oats. John B. Barnes had rented his farm to Vanlo McDonald, another indication that the local agricultural economy included both landowning farmers and families working property belonging to others.
Acorn also attracted interest in the coal industry, although surviving newspaper accounts do not establish that a significant mining operation developed from the proposal. In June 1920, the Somerset Journal reported that J. N. Mayfield and Sam Mayfield were involved in a prospective coal venture that could bring economic benefits to the community if it proceeded.
The distinction between a proposed investment and an operating mine is important. The newspaper’s language reflected local expectations about what coal development might bring to Acorn rather than confirming that the project had been completed. Nevertheless, the report demonstrates that residents and local businessmen were considering opportunities in the mineral economy at a time when coal mining was transforming other parts of eastern Kentucky.
Everyday Life in the Acorn Community
The Acorn correspondence published in the Somerset Journal during 1920 provides an unusually intimate view of community life. Unlike reports focused on major political events, industrial development, or prominent individuals, these columns concentrated on the activities of ordinary residents. Their short notices recorded visits between neighboring families, births, illnesses, funerals, business trips, and the movements of people who maintained connections with relatives living outside Kentucky.
The June 4, 1920, correspondence described a community in which family gatherings and agricultural responsibilities continued alongside illness and death. The newspaper announced a basket dinner and memorial services at Mayfield Cemetery, while also reporting the death of Mrs. Elijah Woodall following an extended illness. She was buried in the Burdine Valley burying ground and was survived by her husband and nine children.
Other notices from the same period recorded visits between families living at Acorn and Skip, the arrival of a son in the household of Bob Williams, and the sale of property belonging to the deceased Flora Burdine. Farmers were also beginning to cultivate their corn, demonstrating how the seasonal agricultural calendar continued amid the personal events that occupied the community.
These newspaper columns also reveal that Acorn was far from isolated. Residents traveled to Somerset for business, maintained relationships with neighboring settlements, and frequently visited family members who had moved elsewhere. The Whitaker, Burdine, McDonald, Mayfield, Cottongim, Barnes, and Woodall families appeared repeatedly in the surviving correspondence, indicating the enduring family networks that helped sustain the community.
The reports should not be mistaken for a complete record of every resident or activity. They reflect the interests and knowledge of local correspondents, who generally concentrated on families and events familiar to them. Nevertheless, taken together, they provide evidence of the relationships, occupations, and institutions around which everyday life in Acorn developed.
Churches, Schools, and the Family Cemeteries
Religious gatherings and local schools were important institutions for Acorn and its surrounding countryside. Surviving newspaper accounts show residents attending services in nearby communities, organizing Sunday school activities, and gathering at family cemeteries for memorial observances.
In April 1920, the Somerset Journal reported that Whetstone Church had organized a Sunday school. The same column described visits between members of the Mayfield, McDonald, Cottongim, Carlton, and Woodall families, illustrating how religious activities formed part of a wider network of family and neighborhood relationships.
Later reports documented the continued importance of religious gatherings throughout the year. In September, members of the Barnes and Mayfield families attended services at Bethany Church, while a December notice mentioned a scheduled visit by the Reverend H. J. Ridner to Whetstone. Together, these reports show that residents participated in religious life across several neighboring congregations rather than exclusively within one church.
Education was another recurring subject. In September 1920, the Acorn correspondent reported that the Ridge School was progressing under the direction of teacher Ina Smotherman. By December, the school was preparing a closing-day program featuring dialogues and recitations, an event that invited families and neighbors to participate in the celebration of their children’s education. The occasion reflected the social importance of small rural schools, which served as places of instruction and gathering for surrounding families.
The importance of education also extended beyond the immediate community. A June 1920 report noted that Sam Mayfield had gone to Berea, where he had obtained a teaching position. His employment provides another example of the relationships between Acorn and the educational institutions of the wider region.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the community’s surrounding landscape included additional educational and religious landmarks. The United States Geological Survey’s 1952 Shopville quadrangle identified Acorn, Burdine Valley, Bethany Church, and two schools designated Burdine School No. 1 and Burdine School No. 2. These features preserve a geographical record of the institutions that served the rural population of eastern Pulaski County.
The area’s cemeteries provide another important source of historical information. Acorn Cemetery contains graves associated with several generations of local families, including Jacob Nelson Mayfield Sr., who died in 1946, and Mary Humphry Smotherman Mayfield, who died in 1932. Other recorded burials include members of the Woodall, Whitaker, Price, Ping, and Shiplet families, demonstrating the continuity of family connections across generations.
The inscriptions and surviving cemetery transcriptions preserve birth and death dates that complement the more fragmentary newspaper accounts. When considered alongside reports of funerals, cemetery decorations, and memorial services, they demonstrate how remembrance of deceased relatives helped maintain connections between families and the land on which earlier generations had lived.
Migration and the Connections Beyond Kentucky
One of the most persistent themes in Acorn’s surviving history is the movement of its residents between rural Kentucky and the industrial cities of the Midwest. Newspaper reports from 1920 frequently mentioned people returning from Ohio and Indiana, while others traveled west or north to visit relatives, obtain employment, or establish new homes.
In April 1920, the Somerset Journal reported that John Bullock had returned from Cincinnati, where he had been working, and that Elijah Woodall had returned from Indiana with his seriously ill wife. The following June, Ina Smotherman returned from Indianapolis, while Elijah Woodall’s travels and visits from relatives living in Cincinnati demonstrated the continuing relationships between Acorn families and those who had settled elsewhere.
These movements were part of a broader pattern of Appalachian migration, in which people sought employment in expanding industrial cities while maintaining family and social connections with their home communities. The surviving Acorn reports show that this movement was already an established feature of local life by the early twentieth century.
The September 1920 correspondence mentioned the return of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Barnes from Kansas and the departure of Willie Whitaker and his wife for Indianapolis. By December, J. N. Mayfield himself was visiting his daughter, Mrs. J. B. Barnes, in Kansas, while members of another family were preparing to travel to Texas. The distances involved illustrate how far Acorn’s family networks extended, even as relatives continued to appear in the community’s newspaper columns.
For many families, migration did not represent a complete separation from Kentucky. Relatives returned for visits, marriages connected families living in different states, and some former residents eventually moved back to Pulaski County. This pattern became particularly evident in the life of Doris G. Petercheff, whose childhood, departure, and eventual return provide an account of Acorn’s changing fortunes during the twentieth century.
Doris Petercheff and the Final Years of Acorn Mercantile
Doris Gretchetha Cottingim Petercheff was born in 1935 and grew up in the Acorn community, where her grandfather’s general store remained an important part of family life. Her parents, Thomas O. Cottingim and Mary Iva Mayfield Cottingim, left Acorn in 1941 and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where Doris attended high school and eventually married Jimmy Petercheff.
Their departure reflected the economic decisions confronting many rural Kentucky families during the twentieth century. Employment opportunities in larger cities encouraged migration, particularly among younger households seeking work and financial stability. Yet Petercheff maintained her connection with Acorn, and in 1959 she and her husband returned to Pulaski County to operate the family business.
By that time, the old J. N. Mayfield Mercantile had become known as Acorn Mercantile. The couple operated the store until 1967, when they closed the business after Doris had begun working for Congressman Tim Lee Carter. She later recalled that maintaining the store had become difficult because her professional responsibilities required the family to hire someone else to operate it.
Petercheff subsequently became involved in political organizing and campaign management in Kentucky and beyond. She worked for Congressman Carter for eighteen years and established her political consulting firm, One Acorn and Associates, in 1984. When Senator Mitch McConnell recognized her in the United States Senate in July 2007, the accompanying newspaper interview preserved her recollections of the family store and the community in which she had grown up.
Her account is particularly valuable because it connects the history of Acorn across several generations. Her grandfather’s business had been documented in the Somerset Journal as early as 1919, while her memories of the store, the roads, and her family’s move to Indiana provide firsthand testimony about its continued importance and the changes that eventually accompanied its closure.
The Closing of the Post Office and Acorn’s Historical Legacy
Although Acorn Mercantile closed in 1967, the community’s post office continued operating for several more decades. Robert M. Rennick recorded that the office was suspended on February 16, 1990, bringing an end to nearly a century of documented postal service that had begun with Mary Mayfield’s appointment in 1896. A separate historical postal directory lists the office’s dates as 1896 to 1994, which may reflect a distinction between the suspension of service and subsequent formal discontinuance.
The loss of the local post office represented an important change in a community whose early identity had been closely connected with its postal service. Rural post offices had once served functions extending beyond the distribution of letters, providing an address and a recognized place name for families living across a scattered agricultural landscape. Their histories offer particularly useful evidence for tracing the development of communities that never incorporated or developed extensive municipal records.
Acorn remains recognizable as a geographical place, and its history survives in several complementary forms. Historical maps preserve the location of the community and its relationship to Burdine Valley, while cemetery records document the families who lived and died in the area. Contemporary newspaper columns provide an account of everyday life, and Doris Petercheff’s recollections offer a personal connection to the store that had once stood at the center of the settlement.
What makes Acorn’s history significant is not the size of the community or the number of major events that occurred there. Its surviving records demonstrate how rural Appalachian communities were shaped by families, commerce, agriculture, religion, education, and the movement of people seeking opportunities elsewhere. In Acorn, the history of a post office and a general store opens a window onto the wider experience of eastern Pulaski County, preserving the lives of people whose contributions to their community might otherwise have disappeared from the written record.
Sources & Further Reading
Robert M. Rennick. “The Post Offices of Pulaski County, Kentucky,” Part 3. La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 38, no. 5 (October–November 2007): 59–. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP38-5.pdf
Mardis, Bill. “A Lifetime Devoted to the American Way.” Somerset Commonwealth Journal, July 5, 2007. Reprinted in Congressional Record 153, no. 14 (July 19, 2007): 19740. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2007-pt14/pdf/CRECB-2007-pt14-issue-2007-07-19.pdf
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). October 10, 1919. Includes a contemporary report identifying J. N. Mayfield as an Acorn merchant. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_10_1919.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). March 5, 1920. Acorn community correspondence. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/3_5_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). March 26, 1920. Acorn community correspondence concerning farming, timber purchases, and a proposed sawmill. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/3_26_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). April 9, 1920. Acorn community correspondence, including the establishment of Sunday school at Whetstone Church. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/4_9_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). May 21, 1920. Acorn community correspondence documenting family visits, migration, and local commerce. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/5_21_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). June 4, 1920. Acorn community correspondence concerning Mayfield Cemetery, Burdine Valley, agriculture, and a proposed coal venture. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/6_4_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). June 18, 1920. Acorn community correspondence concerning cemetery decorations, family movements, and Sam Mayfield’s teaching position at Berea. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/6_18_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). September 24, 1920. Acorn community correspondence documenting religious gatherings, migration, construction, and the Ridge School. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/9_24_1920.htm
Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY). December 17, 1920. Acorn community correspondence documenting the corn harvest, family visits, religious activities, and the Ridge School. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/12_17_1920_3.htm
Rand McNally & Company. Pulaski County, Kentucky. 1911. Historical map reproduced by My Genealogy Hound. https://mygenealogyhound.com/maps/kentucky-maps/KY-Pulaski-County-Kentucky-1911-Rand-McNally-map-Somerset-Burnside-Science-Hill.html
United States Geological Survey. Shopville, Kentucky. 7.5-minute topographic quadrangle, 1952. Historical Topographic Map Collection. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/topoview
National Archives and Records Administration. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971. Record Group 28, Microfilm Publication M841. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
National Archives and Records Administration. Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950. Record Group 28, Microfilm Publication M1126. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Acorn Cemetery.” Cemetery transcription and genealogical records, Pulaski County, Kentucky. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/cemetery/acorncem.html
Pulaski County Public Library. Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library. Somerset, KY. Historical newspapers and local records. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1s3p
Tibbals, Alma Owens. A History of Pulaski County, Kentucky. Somerset, KY: Moore, 1952. https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_Pulaski_County_Kentucky.html?id=hUh4D_2eUFMC
Western Kentucky University, Manuscripts and Folklife Archives. “Wheeldon, Jeffrey (FA 1256).” Finding aid for Origin of Place Names [Pulaski County, Kentucky]. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_fa_fin_aid/1270/
PostalHistory.com. “Pulaski County, Kentucky.” Historical Post Office Directory. https://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?county=Pulaski&state=KY&task=display
Author Note: Acorn’s history demonstrates how a general store, a post office, rural schools, and family cemeteries helped sustain a small Appalachian community through generations of change. Readers with photographs, family records, or personal recollections of Acorn and Burdine Valley are encouraged to share them to help preserve more of this Pulaski County history.