Appalachian Community Histories – Maytown and Langley, Floyd County: The Two-Name Community on Right Beaver Creek
On the Right Fork of Beaver Creek, south of Prestonsburg, the old maps carry a small clue to a larger story. The place is Maytown in family memory, school history, and local speech, but it also appears as Langley in postal records, railroad references, and official geography. On the 1954 USGS Martin quadrangle, the name is written almost like an explanation: Langley, Maytown Station.
That double name tells the story of a Floyd County community shaped by family land, mountain roads, creek bottoms, the post office, the railroad, schools, churches, coal, and memory. Maytown was never one of the county’s large incorporated towns, but it became one of those places whose name carried weight beyond its size. To follow Maytown is to follow the way many Appalachian communities were built, not by one act of founding, but by generations of settlement, landholding, worship, schooling, work, and kinship.
Maytown on Right Beaver Creek
Maytown sits in Floyd County in the Eastern Kentucky coalfield, along the Right Fork of Beaver Creek about ten miles south of Prestonsburg. Floyd County itself was formed in 1800 from Fleming, Mason, and Montgomery counties, with Prestonsburg serving as the county seat. Its communities grew in the narrow spaces where creek valleys allowed roads, homes, schools, churches, stores, and later rail lines to fit between the hills.
That geography matters. Maytown was not a courthouse town or a county seat. It was a creek community. Its history belongs to the Right Fork of Beaver Creek, to the old roads toward Martin, Wayland, Eastern, and Lackey, and to the families whose farms and cemeteries marked the valley before modern highways made the map look simple.
The Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer identifies Maytown as a Floyd County community on the Right Fork of Beaver Creek. It also gives the basic explanation for the town’s name. Settlement began in the early nineteenth century, and the name came from the May family of settlers. That simple statement opens a much deeper family and land story.
The May Family Name
The May name runs through early Floyd County history. The Kentucky Historical Society marker for John May, 1760 to 1813, explains that three of John May’s sons stayed in eastern Kentucky and that his son Reuben settled on Beaver Creek. According to the marker, Reuben’s farm became Maytown on Beaver Creek.
That tradition places Maytown in the older settlement world of Floyd County, before the county was known nationally for coal towns, union fights, and high school basketball. The earliest story is one of land, farms, mills, family branches, and creek-bottom settlement. Later local histories and May family research connect Reuben May with the Maytown Mays and distinguish him from other prominent men of the same family name.
The broader May family also left a mark in Prestonsburg. The Samuel May House, built in 1817, still stands as one of the most important early houses in Floyd County. Samuel May was a brother in the same extended family network and became a state representative and state senator. The Samuel May House is not Maytown itself, but it helps show the early importance of the May family in the political, economic, and settlement history of Floyd County.
For Maytown, the important point is that the name did not come from a company, a railroad promoter, or a modern subdivision. It came from a family presence on Beaver Creek. The land came first. The name followed.
Why the Post Office Was Langley
Maytown’s second name, Langley, came through the postal system. Kentucky Atlas explains that because another Kentucky post office already used the name Maytown, the Floyd County post office was called Langley, also for a local family. The Langley post office opened in 1890 and closed in 2010.
That one detail explains why records can be confusing. A family might have lived in Maytown, received mail through Langley, attended Maytown High School, appeared in a newspaper as being from Langley, and be buried in a Maytown area cemetery. Older maps, school records, obituaries, and land references may use either name.
This was common in Appalachian Kentucky. A community name, post office name, railroad stop, school name, and church name did not always match. A person’s address could change on paper even when the family had not moved at all. In Maytown’s case, the local name and the postal name lived side by side for more than a century.
Langley, Maytown Station, and the Railroad
The 1954 USGS Martin quadrangle gives one of the clearest pieces of evidence for the double identity of the place. It labels the community as Langley, with Maytown Station in parentheses. That map is valuable because it captures the community in the age when roads, rail lines, schools, and coalfield infrastructure were all part of the landscape.
A 1962 Morehead State local history paper on Langley described it as a small community located on the banks of Beaver Creek and noted that Maytown developed out of a need for a train stop. The same source identified the area as served by the C&O railroad and truck transport lines.
The railroad did not erase the older Maytown identity, but it helped fix Langley and Maytown Station in the written record. Railroads needed stations, timetables, sidings, shipping points, and names that could be used consistently. Creek communities that had once been organized mostly by family and neighborhood became part of larger systems of coal, timber, freight, passengers, and mail.
Maytown was not one of the giant coal company towns like Wheelwright, but it lived in the same regional world. Nearby communities were tied to coal, rail, gas, schools, and roads. Kentucky Geological Survey maps of mined-out areas in Floyd County show Langley, Maytown Station, in the same coalfield landscape as Wayland, Garrett, Eastern, Alphoretta, Bosco, and other Right Beaver communities.
School Days in Maytown
For many Floyd County families, Maytown is remembered through school. The Floyd County Public Library’s history collection includes Maytown High School yearbooks, Floyd County Times material, oral histories, documents, marriage records, and other local history sources. KYGenWeb’s Floyd County education page also points researchers toward Maytown High School yearbooks and school photographs.
One especially valuable school source is the 1928 Maytown school photograph and student list. It preserves not only a building or a class, but a cross section of families whose children were part of the community between the railroad era and the coming midcentury coalfield changes.
The school helped make Maytown more than a place on a map. It gave the community a gathering point, a mascot, a memory bank, and a public identity. Newspapers recorded school events, graduations, sports, teachers, and local achievements. Yearbooks preserved faces and names that might otherwise have disappeared into family albums.
The Maytown Wildcats
Maytown High School became known far beyond its size through basketball. The Maytown Wildcats and the Tallent family helped put the small Floyd County community on Kentucky’s basketball map.
Pat Tallent, one of the best known Maytown players, was a two-time All-State player in 1970 and 1971 and made the All-State Tournament Team in 1969 as a sophomore. The Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame notes that Pat, along with brothers Bill, Bob, and Mike Tallent, helped make Maytown a recognized name in Kentucky high school basketball.
That matters because sports often carried the identity of small Appalachian schools into the wider state. A community that might have been overlooked on a highway map could become known in gymnasiums from the mountains to the Bluegrass. The Maytown Wildcats gave the community a name that traveled.
George Washington University’s athletic hall of fame also remembers Pat Tallent as a 6-foot-3 guard from Langley, Kentucky, and Maytown High School. That wording again shows how closely the two names were tied together. Langley was the address. Maytown was the school and community memory.
Churches, Cemeteries, and Family Ground
The deepest records of Maytown may not be in one formal town archive. They are scattered across cemeteries, deeds, obituaries, church notices, court records, school books, and newspaper pages.
KYGenWeb’s Maytown area cemetery material points researchers toward cemeteries connected to the community, including the Andrew Jackson May Cemetery, May Cemetery, Bradley Cemetery, Fraley Cemetery, Hayes Cemetery, Earl Webb Cemetery, Leonard Allen Cemetery, Sutton Cemetery, Webb and Moore Cemetery, and others. These cemeteries are not just burial grounds. They are maps of kinship. They show which families stayed, which names repeated, and which branches of the community remained tied to the same hillsides.
The Floyd County Times archive is especially important for tracing twentieth-century Maytown. Search terms such as Maytown, Langley, Maytown High School, Maytown Methodist Church, C&O Railway, Right Beaver Creek, and Maytown water system bring up references to school news, deaths, marriages, elections, roads, fires, sports, churches, and public improvements. These are the ordinary records that become extraordinary over time.
The Harder Records
Maytown’s history also belongs to the older history of Floyd County before the Civil War. One WPA slave narrative source for Floyd County includes a remembered list of enslavers and names George May of Maytown. That kind of source must be handled carefully. It is an oral memory recorded long after slavery, and it should be checked against census schedules, tax lists, deeds, probate records, court orders, and other original records.
Still, it should not be ignored. Appalachian local history is often told through pioneer families, churches, schools, coal, and basketball, but the record also contains slavery, race, labor, landholding, and unequal power. Even in mountain counties where slavery was smaller in scale than in the Bluegrass or the Deep South, enslaved people and Black residents were part of the region’s history. A full Maytown history should leave room for that evidence and should verify it with care.
Andrew Jackson May and the Beaver Creek Connection
Maytown and Langley also connect to national political history through Andrew Jackson May. The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and the U.S. House of Representatives both state that Andrew Jackson May was born on Beaver Creek near Langley in Floyd County on June 24, 1875.
May became a lawyer, Floyd County attorney, judge, and member of the United States House of Representatives. He served in Congress from 1931 to 1947 and became chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee during World War II. His later career was damaged by scandal and conviction, but his rise from Beaver Creek to national office still shows how Floyd County produced figures who moved from creek schools and county politics into federal power.
For a Maytown article, he should not overshadow the community itself. He is best treated as one branch of the larger Langley and Beaver Creek story, a reminder that small places can have long political shadows.
Reading Maytown Through the Records
The best way to study Maytown is to accept that the record is scattered. A researcher should not search only one name. Maytown, Langley, Maytown Station, Right Fork Beaver Creek, Right Beaver, Beaver Creek, Maytown High School, and the names of local families all matter.
The strongest primary sources are land deeds, county court orders, tax records, census schedules, death certificates, marriage records, cemetery stones, yearbooks, historical topographic maps, and Floyd County Times articles. The Floyd County Clerk’s deed records can help trace property. FamilySearch’s Floyd County court order books, 1808 to 1901, can help trace roads, estates, public business, mills, guardianships, and disputes. The Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office can help trace early grants, warrants, surveys, and patents connected to Beaver Creek families.
Maps are just as important. USGS topographic maps show how the community sat among roads, rail lines, creeks, cemeteries, and neighboring settlements. Geological and mined-out area maps show the coalfield setting. Cemetery lists and yearbooks show the people who made the place more than a name.
What Maytown Preserves
Maytown preserves the layered history of many Appalachian communities. It began as a family and creek settlement. It took one name from the May family and another from the Langley post office. It appeared on maps as Langley and Maytown Station. It sent children through Maytown schools, cheered for the Wildcats, buried generations on nearby hillsides, and left traces in newspapers, deeds, court books, cemeteries, and yearbooks.
Its story is not the story of a single event. It is the story of continuity. The community changed as roads improved, rail service shifted, schools consolidated, coal rose and declined, and the Langley post office finally closed. Yet the name Maytown remained in local memory because it was tied to land, family, school, and place.
For historians, Maytown is a reminder that the smallest communities often require the widest search. One has to read maps, postal records, family papers, courthouse books, newspapers, school photographs, and cemetery stones together. Only then does the two-name place on Right Beaver Creek come into focus.
Maytown was Langley. Langley was Maytown Station. And behind both names was a Beaver Creek community whose history still waits in the records of Floyd County.
Sources & Further Reading
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Maytown, Kentucky.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-maytown.html
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Floyd County, Kentucky.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-floyd.html
Kentucky Historical Society. “John May, 1760–1813.” Historical Marker Database. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://history.ky.gov/markers/john-may-1760-1813
Kentucky Historical Society. “Samuel May House.” Historical Marker Database. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://history.ky.gov/markers/samuel-may-house
Floyd County Public Library. “Floyd County History Collection.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.fclib.org/floyd-county-history-collection/
Floyd County Public Library. “Floyd County Times Digitized Archive.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://papers.fclib.org/
Floyd County Clerk. “Deeds.” Floyd County KY Clerk. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://floydcoclerkky.gov/deeds/
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky Land Office.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://sos.ky.gov/land/Pages/default.aspx
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Patent Series Overview.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://sos.ky.gov/land/non-military/patents/Pages/default.aspx
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Non-Military Registers and Land Records.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://sos.ky.gov/land/non-military/Pages/default.aspx
FamilySearch. “Floyd County, Kentucky Genealogy.” FamilySearch Wiki. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Floyd_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
FamilySearch. “County Court Orders, Floyd County, Kentucky, 1808–1901, 1903–1952.” FamilySearch Catalog. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/127258
Kentucky Court of Justice. “Request Court Records.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kycourts.gov/Pages/Request-Court-Records.aspx
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Kentucky Court Records Research Guide.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/ResearchGuide-Kentucky_Court_Records.pdf
KYGenWeb. “Land Records, Floyd County.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/land/index.html
KYGenWeb. “Education, Floyd County.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/education/index.html
KYGenWeb. “Federal Census Records, Floyd County.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/census/
KYGenWeb. “Allen Cemetery, Maytown-Langley, Floyd County.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/cemeteries/floyd-co/allen-cemetery-maytownlangley.html
Rennick, Robert M. “Floyd County, Kentucky Post Offices.” Floyd County Historical and Genealogical Society. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~kyfchgs/postoffice.html
Hayes, R. “Floyd County: Langley.” Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 1962. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1329&context=kentucky_county_histories
Perry, R. “Floyd County: May Family of Prestonsburg.” Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 1990. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1327&context=kentucky_county_histories
Works Progress Administration. “Floyd County: History.” Morehead State University ScholarWorks, 1939. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/328/
United States Geological Survey. “USGS 1:24000-Scale Quadrangle for Martin, KY, 1954.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/KY/24000/KY_Martin_709230_1954_24000_geo.pdf
United States Geological Survey. “Domestic Names.” U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/domestic-names
United States Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis
United States Geological Survey. “Download GNIS Data.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/download-gnis-data
Kentucky Geological Survey. “Floyd County, Kentucky.” Mined-Out Areas Map. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/mc178_12.pdf
Rice, Charles L. “Geologic Map of the Martin Quadrangle, Floyd County, Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-563, 1966. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_1277.htm
National Park Service. “Samuel May House.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/137f72fe-db01-44b3-afe2-5a78483eb509
ExploreKYHistory. “The Samuel May House.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/201
Friends of the Samuel May House. “What’s New at the Samuel May House.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://legacy.mayhouse.org/friends_inc/index.html
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. “May, Andrew Jackson.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=M000272
U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art and Archives. “May, Andrew Jackson.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/M/MAY%2C-Andrew-Jackson-%28M000272%29/
Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame. “Patrick Tallent.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://khsbhf.com/inductee/pat-tallent/
Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame. “1969 KY State Quarterfinal: Maytown vs. Clark County.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://khsbhf.com/1969-ky-state-quarterfinal-maytown-vs-clark-county/
George Washington University Athletics. “Patrick L. Tallent.” Hall of Fame. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://gwsports.com/honors/hall-of-fame/patrick-l-tallent/146
U.S. Census Bureau. “QuickFacts: Floyd County, Kentucky.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/floydcountykentucky/PST045225
Appalachian Regional Commission. “About the Appalachian Region.” Accessed June 14, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/about-the-appalachian-region/
Author Note: This article follows Maytown and Langley through maps, post office records, family history, schools, cemeteries, and public records. If your family has photographs, yearbooks, church records, or stories from Maytown, those local pieces can help preserve the community’s fuller history.