Appalachian Community Histories – Cubage, Bell County: Cubage Creek, Brownies Creek, and a Community Kept in the Records
Cubage is one of those Bell County places that survives best in scattered records. It appears in post office studies, old gazetteers, USGS maps, school lists, church histories, cemetery records, and road references rather than in one full written history. That makes its story harder to gather, but also more revealing. Cubage was not just a dot on a map. It was a creek community, a post office neighborhood, a school district, a church setting, and a family landscape tied to Brownies Creek, Cubage Creek, nearby Miracle, Oaks, Varilla, and the roads that connected the southeastern side of Bell County to Pineville and Middlesboro.
Bell County itself was still a young county when Cubage entered the written record. The county was formed in 1867 from Harlan and Knox counties, and it sits in Kentucky’s Eastern Coal Field region. The county landscape rises from valley bottoms into steep ridges, with communities often following streams, roads, and narrow settlement corridors. Cubage fit that pattern. It grew along the Brownies Creek country, where local names, creek names, and family names did much of the work that town plats and formal municipal boundaries did elsewhere.
The Name in the Creek
The name Cubage is tied most closely to Cubage Creek, a branch of Brownies Creek. Robert M. Rennick’s Bell County post office work places the Cubage post office on KY 987 and Brownies Creek, and says it was named for Cubage Creek, located nearly two miles below the later post office site and about ten miles east-southeast of Pineville. Rennick also preserved the tradition that the name may have come from “Cub Beech,” supposedly connected to a story about a cub bear killed near a beech tree.
Henry Harvey Fuson, Bell County’s best-known local historian, recorded a different tradition. In his account, W. T. Rice of Harlan said that Bill Green told him about a party of pioneer hunters on Cubage Creek. One of the men, named Cubage or Cubbage, had his feet frostbitten and had to remain there until he could travel again. According to that version, the creek took its name from him. Fuson did not present the story as proven fact. He treated it as a local tradition, which is the safest way to handle it today.
Both versions matter because they show how Appalachian place names often traveled by memory before they settled into official spelling. Cubage and Cubbage appear side by side in records. The community is usually Cubage, while the school and cemetery are often written Cubbage. That split spelling is part of the record rather than a mistake to be cleaned away. In a place where creeks, schools, cemeteries, and post offices carried the community name across generations, both forms help tell the story.
The Post Office Trail
The strongest early proof of Cubage as a named community comes from postal records and postal directories. Rennick’s post office study states that the Cubage post office was established on May 17, 1879, with Andrew Wilder as postmaster. The National Archives explains that post office appointment records from 1832 to 1971 were kept in Record Group 28 and generally arranged by state, county, and post office name, with information similar to earlier appointment records. Those federal records are the right place to verify Cubage’s full postmaster trail, its site changes, and its final closure date.
A late nineteenth-century Kentucky gazetteer gives Cubage a more lived-in description. It listed Cubage in Bell County as a post office on a weekly mail route, twelve miles east of Pineville and seventy miles from Livingston, which it identified as the nearest railroad approach. The same entry named Andrew Wilder as postmaster and listed Jones Lewis and Peter Miracle with flour mills. That small directory entry is important because it shows Cubage as more than a name. By the time it was printed, Cubage had a postmaster, a mail route, mills, and enough local identity to appear in a statewide business directory.
The post office was one of the institutions that made a rural Appalachian community visible to the outside world. It placed the community into federal paperwork. It gave residents a mailing identity. It connected farm families, churches, schools, merchants, and kin networks to county seats, newspapers, courts, and distant relatives. In Cubage, as in many Bell County settlements, the post office record is one of the surest ways to prove that the community had a practical center even if it never became an incorporated town.
School and Community Life
By the late 1930s, Cubage also had a clear place in Bell County’s school system. Fuson’s history, drawing on information from Bell County school officials, listed Cubage among the county high schools for the 1939 to 1940 school year. The county table gave Cubage three high school teachers, two elementary teachers, sixty-eight elementary pupils, forty-five high school pupils, and a building value of $5,000. That is one of the strongest published records for the educational life of the community.
Fuson’s teacher lists also preserve names tied directly to Cubage. Bill Knuckles, Walter Miracle, and Albert Slusher appear as Cubage high school teachers or Cubage School teachers, while other teachers and schools in the same county list carry Cubage as a post office address. These details matter because they show the school as part of a larger rural network. Cubage was not isolated from Bell County education. It was one of the places where countywide school organization met local families, roads, and creek settlements.
Map evidence helps tie the written school record to the land. USGS-based map listings place Cubbage School in Bell County and show it near Cubage Creek, Right Fork Cubage Creek, Coal Stone Branch, Cowans Branch, and the Cubage populated place. The same map view places Cubage Creek and Cubbage School almost together, which fits the way the school name, creek name, and community name remained linked.
Churches on Brownies Creek
Church history gives Cubage and the Brownies Creek country an even deeper record. Fuson wrote that the Primitive Baptist Church of Christ at Browney’s Creek was one of the oldest organized churches in Bell County, with a continuous organization dating to 1836. He recorded that the church was constituted by Thomas Weaver, Henry Wilson, and John Dickinson, with James Miracle selected as clerk. Later church information came from J. M. Wilder, who served as clerk in the late 1930s.
Fuson also listed Browneys Creek Baptist Church, organized in 1880 on the headwaters of Browneys Creek. In his church chapter, he gave Rev. Will Fee as a longtime pastor and listed the last reported membership as seventy-three. This entry adds another layer to the religious map of the creek country, showing that the Brownies Creek area supported more than one church tradition.
Cubage Baptist Church appears in Fuson’s church history as well. He wrote that it was organized July 19, 1936, when Wasioto Baptist Church extended an arm for the new organization. Rev. Henry Hubbard held a revival, sixteen converts were baptized, ten others joined by letter, and the church was constituted with twenty-six members. For a small rural community, that record is more than a church note. It names a local moment when families, neighboring churches, and traveling ministers helped create another institution in the Cubage area.
Roads, Creeks, and the Shape of the Place
The road history of Cubage follows the water. KY 987 and Brownies Creek remain the key modern references for the area. Recent Kentucky Transportation Cabinet materials still describe Brownies Creek at the junction with KY 987, showing the continuing importance of the creek road pattern in the area.
The USGS and Kentucky Geological Survey record the physical setting behind that road pattern. The USGS publication “Geology of the Varilla Quadrangle, Kentucky-Virginia,” by Kenneth John Englund, Edwin R. Landis, and Henry L. Smith, was published in 1963 as Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-190 at 1:24,000 scale. Kentucky Geological Survey materials later adapted the Varilla quadrangle mapping into county-level geologic and land-use planning work. These sources place Cubage within the larger mountain and coal-bearing landscape of southeastern Bell County rather than treating it as a free-floating name.
That landscape shaped daily life. Streams determined where roads could run. Narrow valleys determined where houses, schools, churches, and mills could stand. Ridges separated neighborhoods that looked close on a map. In that kind of country, a post office, school, church, and cemetery could give a community its center even when the settlement never had a courthouse square, depot, or incorporated government.
Families and Cemeteries
Cubage’s family history is scattered through census records, marriage notices, death certificates, cemetery records, and church references. The surnames connected to the area include Wilder, Miracle, Wilson, Boatright, Cupp, Hoskins, Cox, Parsons, Lee, and others. These names appear across Bell County histories, school lists, church accounts, cemetery records, and local newspaper notices. A 1922 Middlesboro Daily News marriage-license notice, for example, listed Liburn Spurlock and Senora Wilson of Cubage among the couples who had received licenses in Pineville.
Cemetery records also keep the Cubage name visible. Find a Grave lists Cubbage Cemetery in Cubage, Bell County, Kentucky, and other local cemetery leads include Red Bob Wilson Cemetery, Cupp Family Cemetery, and Boatright Cemetery. These should be treated carefully, since cemetery websites can mix photographed stones, user-submitted family information, and transcriptions. Still, when checked against death certificates, obituaries, census schedules, and county records, they can help reconstruct the community’s family map.
What Cubage Leaves Behind
Cubage’s history is not the story of one single event. It is the story of a place held together by creek names, church minutes, school statistics, post office ledgers, road maps, and family cemeteries. Its earliest strong documentary trail runs through the post office. Its name tradition runs through Cubage Creek. Its school record becomes visible in the 1939 to 1940 county school report preserved by Fuson. Its church history reaches back through Brownies Creek and into the older Baptist life of Bell County.
That is why Cubage matters. Small Appalachian communities are often easiest to overlook when they do not leave behind a famous battle, a major coal company, or a well-known public figure. But the records of Cubage show the everyday structure of rural Bell County life. People sent and received mail there. Children went to school there. Churches organized there. Families buried their dead there. Roads and creeks carried the name forward.
Cubage remains a reminder that Appalachian history is often found in fragments. A postmaster’s name, a creek on a map, a teacher list, a church founding date, a cemetery location, and a family notice in a local newspaper can become, together, the outline of a community.
Sources & Further Reading
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Bell County, Kentucky.” Morehead State University Kentucky County Histories, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1382&context=kentucky_county_histories
United States Postal Service. “Postmaster Finder.” USPS. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/
United States Postal Service. “Postmasters by City.” USPS. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/postmasters-by-city.htm
National Archives. “Post Office Records.” National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
National Archives. “Appointment of Postmasters, 1832 to September 30, 1971.” National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
National Archives. “Records of the Post Office Department.” Guide to Federal Records, Record Group 28. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/028.html
U.S. Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System.” USGS. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis
U.S. Geological Survey. “Domestic Names.” U.S. Board on Geographic Names. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/domestic-names
U.S. Geological Survey. “Download GNIS Data.” U.S. Board on Geographic Names. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/download-gnis-data
U.S. Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Maps: Preserving the Past.” USGS National Geospatial Program. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
U.S. Geological Survey. Varilla, KY-VA, 1:24,000 Topographic Quadrangle, 1954. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/KY_Varilla_804056_1954_24000_geo.pdf
Englund, Kenneth J., Edwin R. Landis, and Henry L. Smith. “Geology of the Varilla Quadrangle, Kentucky-Virginia.” U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-190, 1963. https://www.usgs.gov/publications/geology-varilla-quadrangle-kentucky-virginia
Carey, Daniel I. “Generalized Geologic Map for Land-Use Planning: Bell County, Kentucky.” Kentucky Geological Survey, 2007. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/mc181_12.pdf
Rice, Charles L., and Russell G. Ping. “Geologic Map of the Middlesboro North Quadrangle, Bell County, Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 87-413, 1987. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ofr87413
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. “Bell County Kentucky State Primary Road System.” November 2024. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/SPRS%20Maps/Bell.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Highway and Transportation Maps, 1937.” Kentucky Department of Highways. https://kdla.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/SO_b2cae633-8047-40b1-8b83-9fce3c6e4719/
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, District 11. “Closure of Bridge on KY 217 Over Brownie’s Creek with Junction of KY 987 in Bell County Begins Thursday, April 10.” April 9, 2025. https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/KYTC/bulletins/3db303e
United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Crossville Series.” Official Soil Series Descriptions. https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/C/CROSSVILLE.html
Childress, James D. Soil Survey of Bell and Harlan Counties, Kentucky. United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, 1992. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101758828
Fuson, Henry Harvey. History of Bell County, Kentucky. New York: Hobson Book Press, 1947. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102947598
Fuson, Henry Harvey. History of Bell County, Kentucky, Volume I. KYGenWeb transcription. https://kygenweb.net/bell/area/bell_history1.htm
Fuson, Henry Harvey. History of Bell County, Kentucky, Volume II. KYGenWeb transcription. https://kygenweb.net/bell/area/bell_history2.htm
Fuson, Henry Harvey. “Chapter XVI: Churches.” History of Bell County, Kentucky. KYGenWeb transcription. https://kygenweb.net/bell/books/History_Bell_1/Chapter_XVI.htm
R. L. Polk & Co. Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory. Louisville: R. L. Polk & Co., 1880s. https://archive.org/stream/kentuckystategaz31rlpo/kentuckystategaz31rlpo_djvu.txt
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Bell County, Kentucky.” University of Kentucky. https://www.kyatlas.com/21013.html
FamilySearch. “Bell County, Kentucky Genealogy.” FamilySearch Research Wiki. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Bell_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
FamilySearch. “Marriage Records, 1867-1976, Bell County, Kentucky.” FamilySearch Catalog. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/120555
FamilySearch. “The 1870 Bell County Census.” FamilySearch Catalog. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/468349
Library of Congress. “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.” https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/about-this-collection/
Library of Congress. “The Daily News, Middlesborough, Kentucky.” Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86060451/
Library of Congress. “The Middlesborough News, Middlesborough, Kentucky.” Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86069452/
Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. “The Pineville Sun.” University of Kentucky Libraries. https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/300004985
TopoQuest. “Cubbage School, KY.” TopoQuest Map Viewer. https://topoquest.com/map.php?coord=d&datum=nad83&lat=36.69768&lon=-83.54458&map=24k&mode=zoomout&size=m&zoom=128
Find a Grave. “Cubbage Cemetery.” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2267778/cubbage-cemetery
Find a Grave. “Cemeteries in Cubage, Kentucky.” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/USA/Kentucky/Bell-County/Cubage?id=city_50594
Find a Grave. “Taylor-Wilder Cemetery.” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2324161/taylor-wilder-cemetery
Kentucky Historical Society. “Cemeteries in Kentucky Database: Bell County.” Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections. https://www.kyhistory.com/digital/collection/LIB/id/384/
LDSGenealogy. “Bell County, Kentucky Cemetery Records.” LDSGenealogy. https://ldsgenealogy.com/KY/Bell-County-Cemetery-Records.htm
Genealogy Trails. “Bell County, Kentucky Marriage Announcements.” Genealogy Trails. https://genealogytrails.com/ken/bell/news_marriageannounce.html
Bell County Fiscal Court. “About Bell County.” Bell County, Kentucky. https://bellcounty.ky.gov/Pages/about.aspx
Author Note: Cubage is a reminder that many Appalachian communities survive in scattered records rather than one complete history. When post office files, maps, school lists, church notes, newspapers, and cemeteries are placed together, they show a real Bell County community built along creeks, roads, families, and faith.