Appalachian Community Histories – Haynes Knob, Pulaski County: Sulphur Springs School, and Pole Ridge Road
In May 1920, a man named L. E. Meece was traveling along Haynes Knob in Pulaski County, Kentucky, when he encountered a rattlesnake measuring more than five feet long. According to The Somerset Journal, Meece killed the snake and later displayed it in his office, where it attracted considerable attention. The brief newspaper account offers one of the surviving glimpses of everyday life around Haynes Knob during the early twentieth century, when the surrounding ridges, roads, and hollows formed a network of small rural communities outside Somerset.
Although Haynes Knob never developed into a large town, its history survives in unexpected places. Newspaper reports from 1920 identify the area as a recognized geographical landmark, government maps document the surrounding countryside, and a Kentucky Court of Appeals decision preserves the history of a rural schoolhouse and the road that once connected it to neighboring families.
Together, these records reveal a community whose history was shaped by its landscape, its school, and the transportation routes that linked isolated households to the wider county.
A Rural Community in the Hills of Pulaski County
Haynes Knob lies southeast of Somerset in Pulaski County, among the rolling ridges and narrow hollows associated with the Rush Branch area. The knob itself rises to approximately 1,299 feet, with nearby communities including Meece, Northfield, and Alcalde. The surrounding landscape is marked by winding roads, wooded hillsides, and the small valleys that historically influenced where families established homes and traveled between settlements.
The origin of the Haynes Knob name has not been firmly established in the surviving records examined for this history. Pulaski County cemetery records identify a Haynes Cemetery, and the Haynes surname appears in historical genealogical material, but the existence of these records does not establish whether the knob was named for a particular family or landowner. Establishing that connection would require additional evidence from early deeds, surveys, and land grants.
By the early twentieth century, however, Haynes Knob was sufficiently familiar to local residents that county officials could use it as a landmark when defining election precincts.
Haynes Knob in the Newspaper Records of 1920
Two issues of The Somerset Journal published in 1920 offer particularly useful evidence of Haynes Knob’s place in Pulaski County history. The first, dated May 21, reported the encounter between L. E. Meece and the unusually large rattlesnake, while the second, published September 24, reproduced official descriptions of the county’s election precincts.
The September report included the boundaries of Rush Branch Precinct No. 14, which incorporated Haynes Knob into a much larger geographical description of the surrounding countryside. The boundary began at Somerset’s city limits and proceeded through a series of roads and individual properties before passing the old Collier mine, continuing toward Haynes Knob, and following an established line to Pumpkin Hollow Church. The designated voting place was near Alcalde, identified in the newspaper transcription as Alcalda.
This precinct description is significant because it preserves the names of residents, properties, and community landmarks that county officials considered sufficiently familiar to define a political boundary. Among those mentioned were Bracher Gragg, Everett Murphy, John Kenney, Cy Collier, H. G. Bray, and Enoch Brinston, whose properties helped establish the precinct’s limits.
The reference to the old Collier mine also illustrates how former industrial sites could remain important landmarks long after their original activities had ended. The newspaper does not establish the mine’s precise operating history or place it directly on Haynes Knob, but its inclusion demonstrates that residents understood the surrounding landscape through a combination of roads, family properties, churches, and recognizable geographical features.
The Establishment of Sulphur Springs School
One of the most important institutions associated with the Haynes Knob community was Sulphur Springs School, which operated from 1932 until 1957. Its history might have remained difficult to reconstruct had it not become central to a later dispute over access to Pole Ridge Road.
In February 2016, the Kentucky Court of Appeals issued its decision in Warner v. Richardson, a case concerning a road crossing private property in the Haynes Knob community. The court’s opinion recounted that Pole Ridge Road appeared in Pulaski County records as early as 1920 and that part of the property containing the road had been deeded to the Pulaski County Board of Education in 1932 for Sulphur Springs School.
During the school’s twenty-five years of operation, Pole Ridge Road provided a means of transportation for teachers, students, and administrators. Families living in the surrounding countryside depended upon this connection to reach the school, making the road an important part of the community’s educational infrastructure.
The court’s account establishes the school’s operating dates and its relationship to the road, although it provides little information about the teachers who served there, the number of children who attended, or the school building itself. Those details remain subjects for further research in the original school-board records and the historical collections maintained by Pulaski County Schools.
Sulphur Springs School closed in 1957, bringing an end to its documented role as a center of public education in the community. Its closure would later become important to determining whether Pole Ridge Road had retained its former public status.
Pole Ridge Road and the Changing Community
The history of Pole Ridge Road provides an unusually detailed record of how rural transportation routes could change after the institutions they served disappeared.
When Sulphur Springs School operated, the road carried teachers, students, and other members of the public. Decades after the school closed, adjoining landowners continued to use the route to access their properties, but the extent to which it remained a public road became a matter of disagreement.
The dispute eventually reached the courts after Harley Richardson placed a gate across a portion of Pole Ridge Road that crossed his property. Tommy and Raymond Ridner initiated a lawsuit seeking to have the obstruction removed, while Robert Warner, John Loyd, and Betty Sue Loyd subsequently joined the proceedings as neighboring property owners.
The Pulaski Circuit Court determined that Pole Ridge Road had once become a public road through common-law dedication, but that it had subsequently been abandoned by the general public. In reaching this conclusion, the court considered evidence that public use had largely ceased following the closure of Sulphur Springs School in 1957, even though neighboring property owners continued using the route.
The dispute also raised questions about whether the county had historically maintained Pole Ridge Road. Although the road once provided access to a public school, the Court of Appeals determined that the evidence presented was insufficient to establish the former county maintenance required under the applicable statute. The court distinguished the unimproved portion of Pole Ridge Road from the short section connecting it to Rush Branch Road, which was maintained by the county.
In its February 19, 2016 decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s judgment. The Ridners and Loyds retained private easements that permitted them to access their properties, while Warner’s claim to a prescriptive easement was rejected because his original testimony had not established the required period of use. Judge Kelly Thompson dissented, arguing that Warner’s access rights and the nature of the road’s original public dedication deserved further consideration.
Although the proceedings concerned access to private property, the testimony and findings preserved an important part of Haynes Knob’s history. Without the dispute, the connection between Pole Ridge Road and Sulphur Springs School, including the dates when the school operated, might have been considerably more difficult to establish through readily accessible public records.
Haynes Knob on Historical Maps
Government maps provide another means of understanding the development of Haynes Knob and its surrounding communities. The United States Geological Survey published its Somerset Quadrangle topographic map in 1935, during the period when Sulphur Springs School was operating. The map belongs to the survey’s fifteen-minute series and records the region’s topography and transportation network. A digitized copy is preserved in Morehead State University’s Robert M. Rennick map collection.
Comparing historical topographic surveys with later maps helps place the surviving documentary references within the physical landscape. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Somerset road map, completed in 2004, identifies Haynes Knob Road, Rush Branch Road, and Sulphur Springs Hollow Road, preserving several of the place names associated with the earlier community.
These maps are especially useful when investigating old rural schools and the roads that served them. While a court opinion can establish that a road once provided access to a school, historical surveys and property records may help determine how its route connected individual farms and neighboring settlements.
The Haynes Knob Fire Department and Modern Infrastructure
Although Sulphur Springs School closed in the middle of the twentieth century, Haynes Knob continued to appear in records concerning public services and rural infrastructure. One example is the Haynes Knob Volunteer Fire Department, which serves as a modern institutional connection to the community’s name.
Pulaski County’s December 12, 2017 voucher register records a quarterly allocation of $9,090 to the Haynes Knob Fire Department. The same register documents a $4,770 reimbursement grant associated with the department’s 2017–2018 equipment needs, alongside other county allocations and departmental incentives. These financial records provide evidence of the county’s continuing investment in fire protection for the area.
The Pulaski County Fire Commission continues to identify Haynes Knob Fire as one of its departments, with its station located on Haynes Knob Road near Somerset.
The community’s elevated landscape also became important to modern water and communications infrastructure. During its March 8, 2018 meeting, the Southeastern Water Association’s board of directors approved a request allowing the Pulaski County Fire Commission to install a repeater antenna on the Haynes Knob water tank. The authorization was subject to technical approval and supervision during installation, illustrating how existing infrastructure could be considered for use in supporting emergency communications.
Water service continued to feature in the area’s public records. In a March 2024 filing with the Kentucky Public Service Commission, Southeastern Water Association identified its Haynes Knob Road tank as one of two tanks where it anticipated installing a mixing system that year. The proposed improvement formed part of the association’s broader effort to maintain adequate chlorine levels while reducing the amount of water needed for routine flushing. The filing documents the proposed work but does not, by itself, establish when installation was completed.
Preserving the History of Haynes Knob
The surviving history of Haynes Knob is scattered across records that were created for entirely different purposes. A newspaper’s account of a rattlesnake encounter preserves the community’s name in 1920, an election precinct description identifies its place among the properties and landmarks of rural Pulaski County, and a much later court opinion reconstructs the history of a school and the road that connected it to local families.
Important questions remain unanswered. The precise origin of the Haynes Knob name has yet to be established, while the identities of many Sulphur Springs School teachers and students, the appearance of the school building, and the circumstances surrounding its closure warrant additional investigation.
The Pulaski County Clerk maintains land records dating to approximately 1799, although its online records begin in 1990. The original 1932 school property deed is therefore a particularly valuable document for further research. Pulaski County Schools also maintains procedures for requesting historical school records, including attendee lists for former one-room and two-room schools operating before 1964. These collections may preserve additional information about Sulphur Springs School and the families whose children attended it.
Haynes Knob’s history is not the story of a large industrial town or a single defining event. Instead, its surviving records document the changing life of a rural Pulaski County community through the places that connected its residents: the ridge that gave the area its name, the roads that linked neighboring properties, the schoolhouse that served generations of children, and the public institutions that continued serving the area long after the school closed.
Sources & Further Reading
“Some Rattler.” The Somerset Journal (Somerset, KY), May 21, 1920. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/5_21_1920.htm
Pulaski County Court. “Reapportionment, Names, Numbers, Boundaries and Locations of Voting Places of the Voting Precincts in Pulaski County.” The Somerset Journal, September 24, 1920. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/9_24_1920.htm
Warner v. Richardson, Nos. 2013-CA-002042-MR and 2013-CA-002043-MR. Kentucky Court of Appeals, February 19, 2016. https://law.justia.com/cases/kentucky/court-of-appeals/2016/2013-ca-002042-mr.html
United States Geological Survey. Somerset Quadrangle, Kentucky. Topographic map, 1:62,500. 1935. Robert M. Rennick Maps, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_maps_all/934/
United States Geological Survey. Somerset, Kentucky. Historical topographic map, 1:24,000. 1954. https://store.usgs.gov/product/864660
United States Geological Survey. Somerset, Kentucky. Historical topographic map, 1:24,000. Surveyed 1973, printed 1987. https://store.usgs.gov/product/864658
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Department of Highways, Division of Planning. Somerset: 2000 Federal-Aid Urban Area, Pulaski County, Kentucky. Road map, April 8, 2004. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/Functional%20Classification/FAUA_Somer.pdf
Pulaski County Fiscal Court. Voucher Register, December 12, 2017. Somerset, KY: Pulaski County Government, 2017. https://www.pulaskigov.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Voucher-Register-12-12-17.pdf
Southeastern Water Association. Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, 2018. Filed with the Kentucky Public Service Commission, Case No. 2021-00126. https://psc.ky.gov/pscecf/2021-00126/avilines%40gmail.com/04192021062537/Item_1h_-_Com_Mtgs_2018.pdf
South Eastern Water Association. Response to Commission Staff’s First Request for Information. Case No. 2024-00005. Kentucky Public Service Commission, March 18, 2024. https://psc.ky.gov/pscecf/2024-00005/tina.frederick%40skofirm.com/03182024121549/SEWA_Response_to_Staffs_First_Request_2024-00005.pdf
Works Progress Administration and Historical Records Survey. “Pulaski County.” 1936. County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/56/
Pulaski County Public Library. Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library. Somerset, KY. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Pulaski County Clerk. “Land Records.” Pulaski County, Kentucky. https://pulaski.kycountyclerk.us/land-records/
Pulaski County Schools. “Records Request Procedures.” Pulaski County, Kentucky. https://www.pulaski.net/community/records-request-procedures-2-392-1
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Kentucky State Archives Microfilm Guide. Frankfort, KY. https://microfilm.ky.gov/
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky Land Office.” Frankfort, KY. https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/Pages/default.aspx
National Archives and Records Administration. “1930 Census: Enumeration District Maps.” Washington, DC. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1930/enumeration-districts-maps.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “Start Your 1940 Census Research.” Washington, DC. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/start-research
Kentucky Historical Society. Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections. Frankfort, KY. https://kyhistory.com/digital/
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Pulaski County, Kentucky, Cemeteries.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/cemetery/cemeteries.html
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Pulaski County, Kentucky, Lookups.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/lookups.html
National Park Service. Pulaski County Multiple Resource Area, Kentucky. National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, ca. 1983. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64000251_text
Tibbals, Alma Owens. A History of Pulaski County, Kentucky. 1952. https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_Pulaski_County_Kentucky.html?id=hUh4D_2eUFMC
Ramey, Clarice Payne. History of Pulaski County. Master’s thesis, University of Kentucky, 1935. https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Pulaski_County.html?id=PSYInwEACAAJ
Rightmyer, Don. “Where in Kentucky Is: Finding Kentucky Place Names in Family History Research.” Kentucky Historical Society. https://history.ky.gov/kentucky-ancestors/where-in-kentucky-is
Author Note: Haynes Knob’s history survives in newspaper accounts, county records, and the story of a rural schoolhouse that once connected families across the surrounding countryside. If you have photographs, family memories, or historical records of Sulphur Springs School and the Haynes Knob community, I welcome your contributions to help preserve this overlooked piece of Pulaski County’s past.