Appalachian Community Histories – Combs, Perry County: From Dolen Coal Camp to a North Fork Community
Combs sits just northwest of Hazard in Perry County, Kentucky, along the North Fork corridor that has long tied together river travel, railroad movement, and coal camp development. In modern federal geography it is recognized as a census designated place, and the 2020 Census Bureau gazetteer gives it a land area of about 0.321 square miles with a population of 339. Current state and federal maps place it among nearby communities such as Hazard, Darfork, Bonnyman, and Browns Fork, which helps explain why Combs grew as part of a connected industrial landscape rather than as an isolated mountain settlement.
Where Combs Sits on the Land
One of the clearest ways to understand Combs is to begin with its geography. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s current Perry County road map labels Combs in the Hazard area along the transportation spine of the county, while the USGS Hazard North quadrangle places it in the same narrow corridor shaped by the North Fork, branch roads, rail lines, cemeteries, and mine features. That setting mattered. In eastern Kentucky, communities like Combs were often built where land, coal, and transportation could be tied together in a practical way, and the maps show that Combs belonged to exactly that kind of place.
A Place Name Rooted in a Larger Family Landscape
The name Combs had deep roots in Perry County long before the present community took shape. Local and regional histories of Hazard and Perry County tie the broader Combs family to the early settlement and development of the county, and later place name studies show just how thoroughly the surname spread across the North Fork country. In that sense, the community name was never just a label on a post office. It grew out of a county where the Combs family already formed part of the social and economic landscape.
From Dolen Camp to Combs Station
Before Combs was known by its present name, the place was associated with a coal camp called Dolen, sometimes rendered in later transcriptions as Dolan. Robert Rennick’s Perry County postal history, as reflected in later summaries and citations, identifies Dolen as a coal camp located between Domino and Lennut and owned by Emanuel M. Combs and Abijah Benjamin Combs. In 1916, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad established a station there called Combs, linking the camp more firmly to the county’s railroad economy and giving the community a transportation identity that reached beyond the mine itself.
Lennut, the Tunnel, and the Post Office
Nearby Lennut helps explain the local geography and naming story around Combs. Postal history sources note that Lennut was a coal town and post office established in 1914, and that its unusual name came from the word tunnel spelled backward because of its location at the entrance to the railroad tunnel northwest of Hazard. That matters because Combs emerged in direct relation to this same railroad and coal camp world. On July 17, 1922, according to Rennick’s postal history as quoted in later summaries, the Combs post office was established with Dewey Colwell as postmaster, only a short distance from the station. By then the newer name was taking hold, and the older camp identity was beginning to narrow into memory.
The Renaming of the Community
The renaming of Dolen to Combs was not just a postal convenience. It reflected the growing influence of the Combs family in the immediate area, especially Abijah Benjamin Combs, for whom the community is generally said to have been named. Kentucky Historical Society object records and later place name summaries connect A. B. Combs to local prominence, and secondary local references identify him as a Perry County sheriff and landholder. Rennick-based summaries further note that Abijah Combs subdivided his share of the land in 1923 into lots for homes and businesses, a sign that the place was shifting from a camp tied mainly to extractive work into a more stable community with a street and store identity of its own.
Coal Camp Growth and Community Life
That shift appears to have happened quickly. The same Rennick tradition, as preserved in later summaries, holds that the lots and businesses that followed the 1923 subdivision helped Combs grow to nearly 900 residents by 1932. Even if that figure should always be checked against additional records, it fits the broader pattern visible all across Perry County in the early twentieth century, where railroad access, mining employment, and subdivision of family land could turn a camp into a recognizable town in only a few years. Combs was one of several such places clustered near Hazard, but it kept a distinct identity because the post office, station, and family name all reinforced one another.
The Old Name Survived in Memory
What makes Combs especially interesting is that the older name never disappeared entirely. The Alan Lomax Kentucky Recordings project includes a song titled “In Dolen Town City,” and the editor’s note plainly identifies Dolen Town as the former name of Combs in Perry County. That small detail matters because place names often survive in song, story, and family speech long after official records settle on something else. In Combs, the archival trail suggests that the coal camp, the station, and the post office may have moved toward the name Combs earlier than local memory did.
Combs in the Present
Today Combs remains on the official map as a small Perry County community with a defined census footprint rather than as a vanished coal camp. The Census Bureau’s current place files and gazetteer data recognize it as Combs CDP, and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet still marks it clearly in the Hazard area. That continuity is important. Many eastern Kentucky coal camps disappeared from everyday geography after mines closed and post offices were discontinued, but Combs has persisted as both a lived community and a named place.
Why Researching Combs Requires Patience
Researching Combs also requires caution. FamilySearch’s Perry County genealogy guidance notes that disasters in 1885 and 1911 destroyed most county records, which means no single courthouse series can be trusted to tell the whole story for early landholding and settlement. That is why Combs is best reconstructed through overlapping evidence, deeds, tax books, postal records, newspapers, and maps, rather than through any one surviving county file. In a place like this, the strongest history comes from laying those fragments side by side until the community begins to reappear.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Census Bureau. “2020 Gazetteer Files: Places, Kentucky.” https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/2020_Gazetteer/2020_gaz_place_21.txt
United States Geological Survey. US Topo 7.5-Minute Map for Hazard North, Kentucky. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/USTopo/PDF/KY/KY_Hazard_North_20160607_TM_geo.pdf
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. State Primary Road System: Perry County, Kentucky.https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/SPRS%20Maps/Perry.pdf
United States Postal Service. “Postmaster Finder.” https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/
Library of Congress. The Hazard Herald (Hazard, Ky.), 1911-1975. https://lccn.loc.gov/sn85052003
Lomax Kentucky Recordings. “In Dolen Town City.” https://lomaxky.omeka.net/items/show/703
FamilySearch. “Perry County, Kentucky Genealogy.” https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Perry_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
FamilySearch Catalog. Tax Books, 1821-1875. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/156835
FamilySearch Catalog. Will Books, v. 1-2, 1901-1964. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/190009
FamilySearch Catalog. Record of Marriages in Perry County, Kentucky, for the Period from the Earliest Records to June 1932. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/573387
Perry County Clerk’s Office. “Records Center.” https://perry.countyclerk.us/records-center/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. County Records Inventory. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Inventory_County_Records.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. County Deeds, Tax Assessment Books, Wills, Land Warrants and Related Records Inventory. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Inventory_Land_Records.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Circuit Court Records. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/CircuitCourtInventory.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Perry County, Kentucky.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 34, no. 2. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP34-2.pdf
Quigley, Martha Hall. Hazard, Perry County. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2001. https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/hazard-perry-county-9780738505756
William H. Berge Oral History Center. “Interview with Elmer Combs.” Eastern Kentucky University. https://oralhistory.eku.edu/items/show/4737
Author Note: Combs is one of those Perry County places whose history survives in fragments across maps, postal records, newspapers, and family records, so I wanted to pull those pieces together carefully. Small communities like this can disappear from the wider record even when they remain deeply important to the people who know them.