Appalachian Community Histories – King Bee, Pulaski County: Singing Schools, Church Gatherings, and a Rural Post Office
In the countryside of Pulaski County, Kentucky, between the communities of Hogue and Mangum, King Bee developed into a rural settlement whose history was closely connected to its church, school, post office, and the families who lived along Kingbee Ridge. Although the community never became a large town, its surviving records provide an unusually detailed account of everyday life in the early twentieth century, when religious gatherings, singing schools, spelling contests, and visits between neighboring families helped sustain the social life of rural Kentucky.
King Bee’s documented history begins before the establishment of its post office in 1922. Newspaper reports from 1919 already describe the community as a gathering place, while subsequent accounts identify local ministers, music instructors, and families whose activities connected King Bee with Hogue, Mangum, Mount Zion, and Science Hill. These reports offer a picture of a community that had established its identity well before receiving official recognition from the United States Post Office Department.
The settlement eventually acquired its own post office, which operated under the name Kingbee for approximately sixty years. Historic maps also preserved the location of Kingbee School, while cemetery records and family histories document the generations who maintained their connections to the area long after its earliest newspaper correspondents stopped recording their weekly activities.
Kingbee Ridge and the Origins of the Community
King Bee developed along Kingbee Ridge, in the countryside west of Science Hill. Its geographical position placed it between Hogue and Mangum, two neighboring communities whose residents frequently appeared in the same newspaper reports. Kentucky Route 1676 later provided a recognizable route through the locality, connecting its farms and settlements with the surrounding county.
The precise date when King Bee acquired its name remains uncertain. Its earliest history is better documented through references to individual families and community gatherings than through an official founding record. Robert M. Rennick, a historian of Kentucky place names and post offices, identified Kingbee Ridge as the locality served by the community’s eventual post office, but contemporary newspapers establish that the name was already in use several years before that office opened.
One of the earliest identified newspaper references appeared in The Somerset Journal on September 26, 1919. Correspondence from Hogue reported that several residents had attended a spelling event at Kingbee on the preceding Friday night. Although the brief notice did not identify the organizers or participants, it establishes that King Bee was already a recognized gathering place where residents from neighboring communities came together for educational and social activities.
The following month, the October 3 edition of the newspaper mentioned Mrs. Alex Dick of King Bee when reporting that her daughter, Mrs. Virgil Baugh of Mount Zion, had spent the previous week visiting her. In November, the newspaper recorded another family connection when Sam Roy visited his son Millard Roy of King Bee. These small reports are valuable because they identify families associated with the settlement before the creation of its post office and demonstrate how closely its residents were connected with the surrounding countryside.
Although the community’s nineteenth-century development is not well established by these newspaper accounts, its location among older farming settlements suggests that King Bee’s identity emerged within an existing network of families, churches, and rural roads. The surviving records do not establish whether the settlement was first known by another name or precisely when Kingbee Ridge acquired its designation.
Church Services and the Religious Life of King Bee
Religion occupied an important place in King Bee’s early documented history. During the opening decades of the twentieth century, the community regularly hosted preaching services and religious meetings that attracted residents from neighboring settlements.
On January 30, 1920, The Somerset Journal reported that several people from Hogue had attended church at King Bee on the preceding Sunday. The same correspondence mentioned that Louida and Lola Dick had spent the weekend visiting relatives there, illustrating how church attendance and family visits frequently occurred together.
The following month, correspondence from Mount Hope reported that Reverend Waters had fulfilled his regular preaching appointment at King Bee. The February 27 account provides evidence of an established pattern of religious services rather than an isolated gathering, although it does not identify the denomination or describe the church building.
Religious activity continued throughout 1920. In October, the newspaper reported that a large crowd had attended the concluding service of a series of meetings conducted by Reverend Charles Randolph at King Bee. The account appeared in correspondence from Mangum, demonstrating that the congregation attracted visitors from outside the immediate settlement.
Later that month, Reverend Elbert Waters conducted services at King Bee on Sunday and Sunday night. These reports identify multiple ministers associated with the community and suggest that its religious gatherings formed an important part of the wider social network connecting King Bee, Hogue, Mangum, and Mount Hope.
The community’s religious life was not limited to the ministers mentioned during 1920. On April 15, 1921, The Somerset Journal reported that Sister Bruner had preached at King Bee on Friday and Saturday nights. The reference is particularly interesting because it documents a woman serving as a preacher in the community during the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, the surviving notice does not identify her full name, denominational affiliation, or the congregation with which she was associated.
These newspaper accounts preserve an important part of King Bee’s history that would otherwise be difficult to reconstruct. They reveal an active religious community whose gatherings brought together people from several neighboring settlements, while also identifying ministers and visiting preachers whose activities extended across the surrounding countryside.
Singing Schools, Spelling Contests, and Community Gatherings
Alongside its religious services, King Bee became a gathering place for singing instruction and other community activities. Singing schools were an established part of rural Kentucky’s educational and religious traditions, providing opportunities for participants to develop their musical abilities while strengthening connections between neighboring families.
The September 1919 spelling event provides one of the earliest documented examples of King Bee’s social activities, but the newspaper reports from 1920 offer a considerably more detailed account of its musical life.
On September 24, 1920, correspondence from Hogue reported that Silas Meece had begun a class of vocal music at King Bee on the preceding Saturday night. The announcement provides a definite starting point for one of the community’s documented singing programs and establishes that the instruction attracted enough local interest to warrant mention in the county newspaper.
Within two weeks, residents of Hogue were attending the singing sessions at King Bee on Saturday nights. By October 15, correspondence from Mangum described the singing program as progressing successfully under the leadership of Professor Bud Meece. The newspaper used the names Silas Meece and Bud Meece in its accounts of the instruction, although the available notices do not independently establish whether these were two names for the same instructor.
The program continued throughout October. On October 22, correspondence from Mangum reported that several residents had attended the singing at King Bee during the preceding week. The following edition announced that Professor Silas Meece had concluded his instruction on Sunday, while another report stated that Reverend George Thompson intended to teach a new class in the near future.
The singing school did not disappear when Meece’s program ended. In early November, The Somerset Journal announced that Thompson would begin his instruction at King Bee, and by December residents of Mangum and Hogue were once again attending singing gatherings at the community. The December 10 edition reported that the current program was expected to conclude on the following Sunday.
These notices reveal the importance of King Bee as a meeting place for people living across several rural neighborhoods. Residents traveled between communities to attend singing instruction, religious services, and social events, maintaining relationships that extended beyond the boundaries of individual farms and settlements.
The newspaper’s attention to these gatherings also preserves a valuable record of the cultural life of Pulaski County during a period when many educational and religious activities depended upon locally organized instruction and community participation.
Families, Farming, and Everyday Life Along the Ridge
The history of King Bee is closely connected to the families whose names appeared repeatedly in the correspondence of Hogue and Mangum. Among those identified in the newspaper reports were members of the Dick, Roy, Blevins, Adams, Waters, and Meece families, whose relationships and activities help reconstruct the community’s early twentieth-century social geography.
The reports document frequent movement between neighboring settlements. Residents visited relatives, attended church, participated in singing programs, and maintained connections with family members who had moved elsewhere. These personal notices also reveal the importance of individual households as gathering places, with weekend visits and extended family relationships forming an essential part of rural community life.
The agricultural economy of the surrounding countryside appears throughout the newspaper correspondence. In October 1920, reports from Mangum described farmers threshing buckwheat, harvesting corn, and producing molasses. One notice recorded the sale of a cow for eighty dollars, while others documented the movement of families between farms and the purchase or construction of homes. Although these reports concern the wider area rather than King Bee alone, they provide contemporary evidence of the farming economy in which its residents participated.
Connections beyond Pulaski County were equally important. Newspaper reports from neighboring communities mentioned residents traveling to Cincinnati and Indiana for employment, while an October 1920 account from Mangum recorded two men leaving to work in the coal mines at Lynch in Harlan County. These movements reflected the broader employment opportunities available to rural Kentuckians during the period, when families maintained their homes in agricultural communities while some members sought work in distant cities and industrial districts.
The same newspaper reports also preserve evidence of the difficulties experienced by local families. Illness, house fires, and deaths appeared alongside the announcements of marriages, births, and social visits. Together, these details provide a more complete picture of life in the communities surrounding King Bee than any single institutional record could supply.
Oscar Dick and the Establishment of the Kingbee Post Office
King Bee’s history entered a new phase on November 27, 1922, when the United States Post Office Department established a post office under the name Kingbee. Its first postmaster was Oscar Dick, whose role placed him among the individuals most directly associated with the community’s official recognition.
According to Robert M. Rennick’s research, Dick originally proposed the name Ray for the new post office. The Post Office Department ultimately established it under the name Kingbee, preserving the designation already associated with the ridge, church, and school.
The reason for the proposed name Ray has not been established by the available published account. Rennick also discussed a possible linguistic explanation for the name Kingbee, drawing upon the work of Missouri place-name scholar Robert Lee Ramsey. Ramsey had interpreted the same name in Missouri as an American expression associated with superiority or high social standing. However, this interpretation does not establish the origin of the Pulaski County name, which was already in use before Oscar Dick submitted his postal application.
The establishment of the post office gave King Bee an official place in the postal geography of Kentucky. For residents of the surrounding countryside, the office provided a local point for sending and receiving correspondence, maintaining personal relationships, conducting business, and communicating with family members who had moved away.
Kingbee’s post office remained in operation for approximately sixty years. During that time, the country experienced major changes in transportation, communications, and rural postal service, yet the office continued serving the community until its closure in 1983.
Kingbee in the Commercial Directories of the 1920s and 1930s
Kingbee’s existence during the years following the establishment of its post office is also documented in contemporary commercial directories.
The January 1926 edition of the Rand McNally Bankers Directory listed Kingbee among Kentucky’s communities without their own banking facilities and identified Science Hill as its accessible banking point. The listing provides evidence of the community’s continued recognition in a national commercial publication and connects it with a larger settlement that offered financial services to the surrounding countryside.
Additional editions of the directory continued to identify Kingbee during the later 1920s and early 1930s, including publications issued in 1929, 1932, and 1934. These entries are especially useful because they independently confirm the community’s place within the county’s economic geography after the newspaper reports of its early religious and social activities.
The directory listings do not establish that Kingbee possessed its own commercial district or describe the businesses operating within the settlement. Instead, they illustrate the relationship between a small rural postal community and the nearby town of Science Hill, where residents could access banking and other commercial services.
Kingbee School and the Community on the 1954 Map
One of the most important surviving geographical records of King Bee is the United States Geological Survey’s 1954 Science Hill topographic map. Prepared using aerial photographs taken in 1951 and field verification completed in 1954, the map preserves the community’s location during the middle of the twentieth century.
The map identifies Kingbee, Kingbee Ridge, and Kingbee School, providing evidence that the settlement maintained a recognizable geographical identity and a local educational institution several decades after its post office opened. It also documents the surrounding roads, streams, wooded hillsides, and neighboring communities that formed the landscape of northern Pulaski County.
The identification of Kingbee School is particularly significant because surviving newspaper notices provide much more information about the community’s religious and musical activities than about its formal public education. The map establishes the school’s existence in the mid-twentieth century, although additional county school records would be needed to determine its opening date, enrollment, teachers, and eventual closure.
The map also provides a geographical connection between the King Bee described in the newspapers of 1919 and 1920 and the community that continued to appear in official records during the following decades. Together, these sources document a settlement whose institutions and identity persisted well beyond the period covered by its earliest surviving newspaper references.
Cemeteries, Family Connections, and the Later Generations
The history of King Bee also survives through its cemeteries and the records of families associated with the community. King Bee Cemetery and King Bee Baptist Church Cemetery preserve burial records that can help reconstruct local family relationships, while older burial grounds in the surrounding countryside provide additional evidence of the area’s settlement history.
A later biographical record offers a particularly useful connection between the community’s early twentieth-century history and the families who continued to identify Kingbee as their birthplace.
Gertrude Dick, the daughter of Lewis and Charity New Parton, was born at Kingbee on February 17, 1936. She later married Earl Dick and worked as a beautician after graduating from Ambers Beauty College. Her obituary, published by Pulaski Funeral Home following her death in December 2007, records that she died at her residence in Dillsboro, Indiana, and was returned to Pulaski County for burial in King Bee Cemetery.
Her life illustrates the geographical connections maintained by many families from rural Appalachian communities. Although she eventually lived outside Kentucky, Kingbee remained part of her recorded identity, and her burial returned her to the community where she had been born.
Such family records are especially valuable for understanding King Bee after the period when its community activities appeared regularly in The Somerset Journal. Obituaries, cemetery registers, photographs, and surviving gravestones provide opportunities to recover the lives of residents whose experiences may not have appeared in county histories or other published accounts.
The Closing of the Kingbee Post Office in 1983
Kingbee’s post office closed in 1983, ending approximately sixty-one years of postal service under the community’s name. The closure marked the end of the institution that had formally placed Kingbee within the federal postal system in November 1922.
By the final decades of the twentieth century, rural postal service throughout Kentucky had changed considerably from the system under which small communities obtained individually operated offices. Improved transportation, expanded delivery networks, and the consolidation of some postal operations had reduced the number of independent offices serving rural settlements.
The available published account of Kingbee’s postal history does not establish the specific circumstances behind its closure. Nevertheless, the end of the office represented an important transition in the community’s documented history, removing an institution that had served as an official point of identification for several generations.
The disappearance of a local post office did not necessarily mean the disappearance of the community itself. Kingbee’s identity had developed before the establishment of its postal service, and its history remained connected to the ridge, the school, the church, the surrounding farms, and the families whose records preserved the settlement’s name.
Preserving King Bee’s Place in Pulaski County History
King Bee’s surviving history illustrates the importance of small rural communities whose contributions to county life were rarely measured by population, commercial development, or political influence. Its earliest documented activities were spelling contests, religious services, family visits, and singing schools, ordinary events that reveal how residents sustained their community through shared institutions and personal relationships.
The newspaper correspondence from 1919 through 1921 is especially important because it records the community before the establishment of its post office. The accounts identify local families, visiting ministers, music instructors, and gatherings that connected King Bee with Hogue, Mangum, Mount Zion, and other neighboring settlements. They also preserve the names of individuals whose contributions might otherwise have disappeared from the historical record.
The establishment of the post office in 1922, its appearance in contemporary directories, and the identification of Kingbee School on the 1954 topographic map provide additional evidence of the community’s continued existence throughout the twentieth century.
King Bee’s history also demonstrates the value of recovering the experiences of places that never became incorporated towns or major commercial centers. Their stories are often scattered among brief newspaper notices, postal records, historical maps, and family documents rather than preserved in a single published history.
For King Bee, those records reveal a settlement that served as a meeting place for neighboring families, sustained religious and educational activities, and maintained a recognizable identity across multiple generations. Although its independent post office disappeared in 1983, the history of Kingbee Ridge remains part of Pulaski County’s wider story, preserved through the families and institutions that made the community their home.
Sources & Further Reading
The Somerset Journal. September 26, 1919. Hogue community correspondence documenting a spelling event at Kingbee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/9_26_1919.htm
The Somerset Journal. October 3, 1919. Mount Zion correspondence mentioning Mrs. Alex Dick of King Bee and her daughter, Mrs. Virgil Baugh. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_3_1919.htm
The Somerset Journal. November 7, 1919. Community correspondence documenting the Roy family of King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/11_7_1919.htm
The Somerset Journal. January 30, 1920. Hogue correspondence documenting church attendance and family visits at King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/1_30_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. February 27, 1920. Mount Hope correspondence documenting Reverend Waters’s regular preaching appointment at King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/2_27_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. September 24, 1920. Community correspondence documenting Silas Meece’s vocal music class at King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/9_24_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. October 8, 1920. Community correspondence documenting religious meetings conducted by Reverend Charles Randolph at King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_8_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. October 15, 1920. Mangum correspondence describing the singing school conducted by Professor Bud Meece at King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_15_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. October 22, 1920. Community correspondence documenting singing activities and agricultural life in the King Bee and Mangum area. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_22_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. October 29, 1920. Community correspondence documenting the conclusion of Silas Meece’s singing instruction and religious services conducted by Reverend Elbert Waters. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_29_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. December 3, 1920. Community correspondence documenting family activities and singing gatherings in the vicinity of King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/12_3_20_3.htm
The Somerset Journal. December 10, 1920. Community correspondence documenting attendance at singing activities in King Bee. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/12_10_1920_3.htm
The Somerset Journal. April 15, 1921. Hogue correspondence documenting Sister Bruner’s preaching at King Bee and visits involving the Blevins family. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/4_21/4_15_1921_2.htm
United States Geological Survey. Science Hill Quadrangle, Kentucky. 1:24,000. Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey, 1954. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/KY/24000/KY_Science%20Hill_709710_1954_24000_geo.pdf
United States Geological Survey. Science Hill Quadrangle, Kentucky. Revised edition. 1:24,000. Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey, 1961. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/KY/24000/KY_Science%20Hill_803978_1961_24000_geo.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Pulaski County, Kentucky, Part 2.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 38, no. 4 (August–September 2007): 58–67. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP38-4.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “Pulaski County: Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky, no. 388. Morehead State University, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/388/
Works Progress Administration and Robert M. Rennick. “Pulaski County: Post Offices & Place Names.” County Histories of Kentucky, no. 284. Morehead State University, 1939. The catalog date refers to the historical WPA material; Rennick’s research was added later. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/284/
Rand McNally & Company. Rand McNally Bankers Directory: Accessible Banking Points to Non-Bank Towns. January 1926. Digitized by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/rand-mcnally-bankers-directory-105/january-1926-598588/content/fulltext/rmbd_192601_12_accessiblebanking
Rand McNally & Company. Rand McNally Bankers Directory: Accessible Banking Points to Non-Bank Towns. July 1932. Digitized by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/rand-mcnally-bankers-directory-105/july-1932-598417/content/fulltext/rmbd_193207_15_accessiblebanking
Rand McNally & Company. Rand McNally Bankers Directory: Accessible Banking Points to Non-Bank Towns. Final 1934 edition. Digitized by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/rand-mcnally-bankers-directory-105/final-1934-edition-598421/content/fulltext/rmbd_1934final_14_accessiblebankingpoints
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records.” Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. Washington, DC: National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
United States Geological Survey. “topoView: Historical Topographic Maps.” Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/topoview
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Pulaski County, Kentucky, Cemetery Listings.” USGenWeb Project. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/cemetery/cemeteries.html
PeopleLegacy. “King Bee Baptist Church Cemetery, Science Hill, Kentucky.” Cemetery and burial records. https://peoplelegacy.net/cemetery/king_bee_baptist_church_cemetery-4i7j01/
Pulaski Funeral Home. “Mrs. Gertrude Dick.” Obituary, December 21, 2007. https://www.pulaskifuneralhome.com/obituaries/173853
Pulaski County Public Library. Historical Newspaper Collections. Digital newspaper archive. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Author Note: King Bee’s history survives in the small details of everyday life, from singing schools and church services to the families who gathered along the ridge. If your family has connections to King Bee or you have old photographs, school records, or stories about the community, I welcome your contributions to preserving its history.