Appalachian Community Histories – Allen, Floyd County: The Town at the Mouth of Beaver Creek
Allen sits where Beaver Creek meets the Levisa Fork, only a few miles southeast of Prestonsburg. It is one of those Appalachian towns whose history is easy to miss if a researcher searches for only one name. In old records, the place may appear as Allen, Allen City, Old Allen, New Allen, East Allen, Mouth of Beaver, Beaver Creek, Beaver Creek Junction, or Catalpa Grove.
Those names tell the story before the story even begins. Allen was not born as a large town laid out on a map. It grew at a meeting place. Water, roads, post offices, family farms, trade, coal, and the railroad all passed through the narrow valley. The community that later became Allen was shaped by the Levisa Fork on one side and Beaver Creek opening into the mountains on the other.
The Kentucky Atlas places Allen, also called Allen City, on the Levisa Fork at the mouth of Beaver Creek. It also notes the distinction that many local people still recognize. Old Allen or Allen City lies on the west side of the Levisa Fork, while New Allen or East Allen developed across the river. In a county where creeks often matter as much as town limits, that distinction is part of the local geography.
Mouth of Beaver and Catalpa Grove
Before the name Allen became fixed, the post office records point to older community names. The first known post office in the area was Mouth of Beaver, operating in the 1850s. A later post office used the name Catalpa Grove. These names matter because they show that the place was known long before incorporation and long before the modern highway signs.
Mouth of Beaver was a practical name. It described the place exactly. Beaver Creek empties into the Levisa Fork there, and in an earlier Floyd County landscape that kind of landmark could define a community. Roads were rough, houses were scattered, and the post office was often one of the clearest signs that a settlement had a public identity.
Catalpa Grove suggests another layer of memory. It likely preserved a local landmark or grove known to people who lived nearby. The name did not last as the final town name, but it remains useful for researchers because it connects Allen to the nineteenth century record trail. Anyone tracing families, land, mail routes, deeds, or local business in the Allen area should search these older names.
The Allen post office opened in 1905. By then, the railroad age had reached the valley, and the community was moving toward a new identity.
The Railroad Comes to Beaver Creek
The major turning point in Allen’s modern history came with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Kentucky Atlas notes that Allen grew after the C&O arrived in 1904. The community was also known in railroad use as Beaver Creek Junction, a name that reflected its position near the meeting of the Big Sandy line and the route into the Beaver Creek country.
For mountain communities, the railroad was more than transportation. It changed how goods moved, how coal reached markets, how people traveled, and how small settlements connected to the outside world. Allen’s location at the mouth of Beaver Creek made it a natural railroad point. The valley did not offer much flat land, but what land existed along the river and creek became valuable.
The railroad gave Allen a different kind of permanence. Earlier names had followed the creek mouth and the post office. The railroad tied the place to timetables, depots, sidings, freight, passengers, and coal traffic. A settlement that had been known by landmarks now became part of a larger transportation network.
Allen City and Incorporation
Allen was incorporated in 1913. Incorporation gave the community a formal municipal identity, but it did not erase the older names. Allen City remained a common usage, and Old Allen continued to identify the incorporated town on the west side of the Levisa Fork.
The early town would have been small, but it stood in an important place. Its history belongs to the river, to Beaver Creek, to nearby Prestonsburg, and to the families and workers who moved through the valley. It was not a county seat, but it was not isolated either. It sat close enough to Prestonsburg to be tied to county government and commerce, while also standing at the opening of one of Floyd County’s important creek valleys.
Municipal records would be especially valuable for telling the finer story of Allen after 1913. City commission minutes, ordinances, tax records, police records, water and street records, utility decisions, and annexation discussions would help show how the town governed itself. Those records would likely reveal the practical history of Allen, including roads, bridges, public services, elections, and town finances.
Old Allen and New Allen
The difference between Old Allen and New Allen is not just a matter of direction. It reflects the way Appalachian towns often grew around water crossings and valley roads. Old Allen stands with the incorporated town. New Allen or East Allen developed across the Levisa Fork.
A bridge, a road, or a rail crossing could change daily life in such a place. The river divided the settlement, but it also connected it. Families, churches, stores, schools, and work often tied both sides together more closely than a map might suggest. To outsiders, Allen may look like a small dot in Floyd County. To local people, the names Old Allen, New Allen, East Allen, Beaver Creek, and the mouth of the creek each carry a slightly different meaning.
The 1916 USGS Pikeville quadrangle is one of the most useful map sources for studying this landscape. It shows the larger terrain of Floyd and Pike counties, including the rivers, creeks, rail lines, and settlement patterns that shaped communities like Allen. Later topographic maps can show how roads, bridges, and development changed over time.
The Records Beneath the Town
Allen’s earliest story must be built carefully because Floyd County had a courthouse disaster in 1808. That does not mean the history is lost, but it does mean researchers must be cautious. Early deeds, court orders, tax lists, estate records, marriage records, and family papers may not survive evenly.
The Floyd County Clerk’s records remain essential for land ownership, deeds, plats, mortgages, wills, marriage licenses, and corporate records. These records can help identify who owned land near the mouth of Beaver Creek, how property changed hands, and when businesses or families became tied to Allen.
Court records at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives are also important. Civil and criminal cases, estate matters, chancery cases, and order books can preserve conflicts, debts, property disputes, and public actions that never appear in published histories. Fiscal court minutes may also contain details on roads, bridges, taxes, petitions, public works, and county decisions affecting Allen and the Beaver Creek area.
The strongest history of Allen will come from reading these records together. Post office records explain the names. Railroad records explain the growth. Deeds and tax records explain land. Court records explain conflict and change. Newspapers explain daily life.
The Newspaper Trail
The Floyd County Times is one of the most important primary sources for twentieth-century Allen. The paper covered local meetings, elections, accidents, crimes, school matters, business changes, public grants, community events, and debates over city government. It is especially useful because many small-town stories never reached state newspapers.
Digitized Floyd County Times issues at the Floyd County Public Library help bring Allen into view. The library’s local history collection also includes yearbooks, documents, oral histories, marriage records, Floyd County Times material, Garrett Historical Society items, and school resources. For a town like Allen, a local library collection can be as important as a state archive.
The newspapers also show that Allen’s story was not only about settlement and railroads. It was a living town with city decisions, local disputes, public improvements, tragedies, and efforts to keep services going in a small community.
Hard Chapters in Allen’s Memory
Allen has also been marked by violence that reached far beyond Floyd County.
In October 1981, wire service reports carried news of a shooting at an auto parts store in Allen. Five men were killed and three were wounded. The reports shocked readers because the violence came in a small mountain town where many people knew one another or knew the families involved. For Allen, it became one of the darkest public moments in the town’s modern history.
More than forty years later, Allen again entered state and national news. On June 30, 2022, law enforcement officers went to a home in the Allen area in connection with a domestic violence case. Gunfire followed. Floyd County Deputy William Petry, Prestonsburg Police Captain Ralph Frasure, and Prestonsburg Police Officer Jacob Chaffins died from injuries connected to the shooting. A police K9, Drago, was also killed, and other officers were wounded.
These events should not be allowed to define the whole history of Allen, but they are part of its public memory. Small towns carry grief differently than large cities. Loss is not abstract. It belongs to neighbors, families, churches, departments, and roads people still travel every day.
Why Allen Matters
Allen’s importance is not measured by population. In 2020, the city had only 182 residents. Yet its history reaches into several major themes of Floyd County and Appalachian history.
It is a river town and a creek town. It is a post office story, a railroad story, and a municipal story. It reflects the way small communities formed at practical places, then changed as transportation and industry changed. Its older names show the importance of local geography. Its railroad name, Beaver Creek Junction, shows the importance of the C&O in eastern Kentucky. Its records show the importance of courthouse research, maps, newspapers, and local archives.
Allen also reminds us that Appalachian history is not only found in the largest towns or the most famous coal camps. Sometimes it is found at the mouth of a creek, where a post office once changed names, a railroad line came through, and a small city held onto its identity through more than a century of change.
Sources & Further Reading
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Allen, Kentucky.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-allen-city.html
Floyd County Clerk. “Floyd County KY Clerk.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://floydcoclerkky.gov/
Floyd County Clerk. “Deeds.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://floydcoclerkky.gov/deeds/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “County Courthouse Disasters in Kentucky.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Courthouse-Disasters.aspx
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Requesting Records from the Archives.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Records-Requests.aspx
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Research Guides.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Research-Guides.aspx
Kentucky Department for Local Government. “City of Allen.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kydlgweb.ky.gov/Cities/16_CityView.cfm?City_ID=4
Kentucky General Assembly. Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Frankfort, KY, 1913. https://books.google.co.ao/books?id=hVgyAAAAIAAJ
National Archives and Records Administration. “Appointment of Postmasters, 1832 to September 30, 1971.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837 to 1950.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
United States Postal Service. Sources of Historical Information on Post Offices, Postal Employees, Mail Routes, and Mail Contractors. Washington, DC: United States Postal Service Historian, 2025. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/pdf/sources-of-historical-information.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “Floyd County: Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection. Morehead State University, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/63/
Rennick, Robert M. “Floyd County, KY Post Offices.” Floyd County Historical and Genealogical Society. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~kyfchgs/postoffice.html
Morehead State University. “Pikeville 1916.” Robert M. Rennick Topographical Maps Collection. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_maps_all/918/
United States Geological Survey. Pikeville Quadrangle, Kentucky, 15 Minute Series. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1916. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/KY/62500/KY_Pikeville_709533_1916_62500_geo.pdf
United States Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Maps: Preserving the Past.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
Alvord, Donald Clayton, and Charles E. Holbrook. Geologic Map of the Pikeville Quadrangle, Pike and Floyd Counties, Kentucky. Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-480. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1965. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/gq480
United States Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis
Floyd County Public Library. “Floyd County History Collection.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.fclib.org/floyd-county-history-collection/
Big Sandy Regional Library. “Newspaper Indexes: Floyd County Times.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://bigsandy.libguides.com/localnewspaperindex
Newspapers.com. “Floyd County Times Archive.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.newspapers.com/paper/floyd-county-times/5040/
KYGenWeb. “Floyd County KY Genealogy and Family History.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/
KYGenWeb. “Floyd County Towns and Cities: Place Names.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/county/list-towns-cities.html
KYGenWeb. “Land Records.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/land/index.html
FamilySearch. “Floyd County, Kentucky Genealogy.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Floyd_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
Scalf, Henry P., and Floyd County Sesquicentennial Committee. “150 Years of Progress: Floyd County Sesquicentennial, 1800 to 1950.” Morehead State University County Histories of Kentucky, 1950. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/27/
Jillson, Willard Rouse. The Big Sandy Valley: A Regional History Prior to the Year 1850. Louisville, KY: J. P. Morton and Company, 1923. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001264668
Jillson, Willard Rouse. The Big Sandy Valley: A Regional History Prior to the Year 1850. Louisville, KY: J. P. Morton and Company, 1923. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/county/files/book-the-big-sandy-valley.pdf
United Press International. “A Gunman Burst into an Auto Parts Store Friday.” UPI Archives, October 16, 1981. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/10/16/A-gunman-burst-into-an-auto-parts-store-Friday/9402372052800/
United Press International. “Mountain Town Shocked by Shooting Outburst.” UPI Archives, October 17, 1981. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/10/17/Mountain-town-shocked-by-shooting-outburst/9178372139200/
United Press International. “Killing of 5 Stuns Kentucky Mountain Community.” UPI Archives, October 17, 1981. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/10/17/Killing-of-5-stuns-Kentucky-mountain-commmunity/9251372139200/
Kentucky Supreme Court. Bevins v. Commonwealth, 712 S.W.2d 932. 1986. https://law.justia.com/cases/kentucky/supreme-court/1986/712-s-w-2d-932-1.html
Kentucky State Police. “Update: Kentucky State Police Investigates Officer-Involved Shooting in Floyd County.” July 1, 2022. https://www.kentuckystatepolice.ky.gov/news/p9-7-1-2022
Associated Press. “Kentucky Man Charged in Officers’ Deaths Found Dead in Cell.” AP News, February 28, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/cad318dcabf0032ea3732511ee96fe0d
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Kentucky.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-states/kentucky/
Author Note: Allen is one of those Floyd County places where a creek mouth, a post office, a railroad junction, and a small city all overlap. I wanted to trace the town through its older names, local records, maps, newspapers, and public memory so the community is not reduced to only one era or one tragedy.