Appalachian Community Histories – Meece, Pulaski County: The Meece Family, Jugornot Hollow, and a Forgotten Rural Post Office
Southeast of Somerset, Kentucky, where the countryside opens into the valleys and hollows surrounding Buck Creek, a small rural community once maintained its own post office under the name Meece. Its history was tied to the families who settled the surrounding countryside, the country roads that connected neighboring communities, and the post offices that served rural Pulaski County during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Meece was never a large incorporated town, and its history was not defined by a major railroad, manufacturing operation, or celebrated historical event. Instead, its story emerges through the records of the United States Post Office Department, old county maps, and the community correspondence published in Somerset newspapers. Together, those sources reveal a settlement where the Meece, Hail, Godby, Barnes, Farmer, and other families maintained close connections with neighboring communities while participating in the wider economic and social changes affecting rural Kentucky.
The most detailed account of the community’s postal history comes from Kentucky place-name historian Robert M. Rennick, whose research establishes that Meece had its own post office from June 13, 1908, until 1959. Its location changed during those decades, but the community’s history extended beyond the federal office that gave it an official place on Kentucky’s postal map.
The Establishment of the Meece Post Office in 1908
The documented postal history of Meece begins with an unsuccessful attempt to name the community Simpson. According to Rennick’s research, J. S. Cooper reportedly applied for a post office under that name, but Simpson was already being used by another Kentucky post office in Breathitt County. The proposed Pulaski County office consequently received a different name, one associated with a local family.
On June 13, 1908, the Meece post office officially opened, with Charlie M. Hail serving as its first postmaster. Approximately fourteen months later, Henry B. Meece succeeded him, placing a member of the community’s namesake family in charge of the local postal service.
Rennick identifies the original post office as occupying two neighboring sites along what is now Kentucky Route 1643, immediately east of the head of Jugornot Hollow. Although the exact buildings have not been identified in the sources examined for this article, the recorded locations place the office within the network of rural roads and settlements surrounding Buck Creek.
The establishment of the post office did not necessarily mark the beginning of the settlement itself. Rather, its appearance in federal records documents the community’s emergence as a recognized postal locality during a period when rural Kentucky families depended heavily on nearby post offices for communication with relatives, businesses, and institutions beyond their immediate neighborhoods.
Jugornot Hollow and the Surrounding Communities
Understanding the geography of Meece requires looking beyond the post office to the neighboring places that formed its rural landscape. Buck Creek and the roads extending through its surrounding hollows connected settlements such as Hail, Colo, and Meece. A 1911 Rand McNally map of Pulaski County identifies nearby Hail and Colo, illustrating the number of small named communities scattered across the countryside outside Somerset.
The unusually named Jugornot Hollow was particularly important to Meece’s postal history. Rennick recorded a local explanation that associated the name with an earlier seller of spirits who supposedly asked customers whether they had brought a container, or needed a jug. He also noted another possible explanation arising from the spelling “Juggernaut,” which appeared in an 1886 postal site-location report for the neighboring Thompsonville office. Neither explanation establishes the name’s origin conclusively, but both demonstrate how older place names can survive through local tradition and historical records.
The postal geography of the area became more complicated in 1917, when another post office opened at Ahab near the southern end of Hound Hollow, approximately midway between Meece and Hail. William F. Jones established the office, whose biblical name reportedly came from a friend’s suggestion. It served the surrounding hollow for sixteen years before closing in 1933.
These neighboring offices demonstrate that the rural communities of eastern Pulaski County were closely connected but maintained distinct identities. A family might live near one hollow, attend church in another, conduct business in Somerset, and receive its mail through a post office named for a nearby landowner or family. Meece belonged to this wider network of settlements rather than existing as an isolated community.
Everyday Life in Meece During the 1920s
While postal records establish the dates and locations of Meece’s post office, contemporary newspapers provide a more personal account of the people who lived there. By 1920, The Somerset Journal regularly carried correspondence under the heading “Meece,” reporting on local families, property transactions, church activities, marriages, illnesses, and visits from relatives who had moved elsewhere.
The February 6, 1920, edition described Grover Meece returning from Somerset to visit his mother, Mrs. Andy Meece, while Steve Hail traveled from Somerset to his farm. Other residents visited neighboring Elihu, and some families maintained connections with communities much farther away.
One report concerned the death of a child belonging to Nathan Bray in Akron, Ohio. The child’s body was returned to Pulaski County for burial in the Mount Zion graveyard, providing an early example of the family connections maintained between Meece and the industrial cities to which Kentuckians were traveling.
The May 21 edition recorded another series of community developments. John Meece had purchased property belonging to George Gregory, while Ellen and Pearlie Meece visited Mary Godby and traveled to Somerset. The same correspondence mentioned the illness of Mary Hail, visits from members of the Godby family, and the burial of Polly Haynes, who had died in Somerset.
Such notices reveal the importance of family relationships to the community. They also preserve small details of rural life that rarely appear in formal county histories. For the people who lived in Meece, a property purchase, a Sunday visit, or news of a relative’s illness was important enough to be reported alongside events from the larger towns of Pulaski County.
Ellen Meece and the Community’s Educational Life
One of the most personal accounts preserved in the contemporary newspapers concerns Ellen Meece, a young schoolteacher whose unexpected death in 1920 was reported in two editions of The Somerset Journal.
The June 4 newspaper identified her as the daughter of Mrs. India Meece and a cousin of L. E. Meece, Pulaski County’s superintendent of schools. She was also a sister of the Meece brothers, who operated a grocery store in Somerset. The newspaper reported that she had died suddenly at home and had been buried at Wesley Chapel.
A subsequent community report in the June 11 edition described Ellen as twenty-four years old and remembered her as a respected schoolteacher. Her death was presented as a considerable loss to the community, and the report identified the Wesley Chapel burying ground as her place of burial.
The account is especially valuable because it connects several aspects of Meece’s history. It documents a local educator, establishes family and commercial ties with Somerset, and identifies Wesley Chapel as a community institution associated with the area’s families. Rather than appearing only as names in census returns or postal registers, members of the Meece family emerge from these newspaper accounts as teachers, merchants, and neighbors whose lives extended throughout the surrounding county.
Singing Classes, Churches, and the Movement of Families
Religious gatherings and community singing were another part of life around Meece. On September 17, 1920, The Somerset Journal reported that George Burchfield was conducting a singing class at Jugornot, while other local news included the marriage of Jacob Jenkins and Margurette Hail, visits from relatives in Somerset, and the return of James Hail Jr. from Illinois.
The same report mentioned Lawrence Farmer and Willie Hail traveling to Cincinnati. Their journey was one of several references to travel between the community and northern cities, illustrating how even a small rural settlement maintained connections far beyond Pulaski County.
The October 15 edition provided an equally revealing account. Mary Barnes and Joe McPheron had married in Somerset and departed the following day for Harlan, where they intended to establish their home. Roosevelt Meece had traveled to Cincinnati looking for employment, while Reverend G. Shadoan had preached at Wesley Chapel.
These accounts capture several developments occurring simultaneously in the community. Church services and family visits continued at home, but individuals and newly married couples were also leaving for other Kentucky counties and larger industrial cities. The newspaper does not establish the reasons behind every departure, yet it provides direct evidence of the geographic mobility that increasingly connected rural Pulaski County with other parts of Kentucky and the Midwest.
The Relocation of the Post Office in 1936
During its first decades, the Meece post office remained associated with the sites along present-day Kentucky Route 1643, but its location changed substantially in 1936.
According to Rennick, Edward Hail moved the office approximately one-quarter mile west to the northern end of the old Jugornot Road, less than one-quarter mile from what is now Kentucky Route 769. The relocation placed the office closer to another part of the local road network while retaining the name that had identified the community since 1908.
The available published account does not explain why Hail moved the office. The surviving postal records offer an avenue for further investigation, particularly the Post Office Department’s reports of site locations. Those reports frequently contain sketches or descriptions of the relationship between rural offices, nearby roads, waterways, and neighboring postal settlements. The individual Meece forms have not been directly examined for this article.
The Closing of the Meece Post Office in 1959
The Meece post office continued operating from its relocated site until 1959, ending more than half a century of federal postal service under the community’s name. Rennick records that year as the office’s closing date, although the material examined here does not establish its precise final day of operation or the administrative explanation for its discontinuance.
The disappearance of a post office from the federal postal system should not be confused with the disappearance of the community it served. Families, churches, cemeteries, and rural properties could remain long after a postal address was discontinued, while surviving records might preserve a settlement’s earlier name even as its postal identity changed.
In Meece’s case, its history survives in several different forms. The Post Office Department’s appointment registers preserve the administrative framework of the office, while site-location reports offer a means of reconstructing its changing geography. Historical maps document the surrounding countryside, and contemporary newspaper correspondence preserves the names and experiences of people who lived there.
The National Archives identifies its postmaster appointment records and site-location reports as separate collections, both of which remain important for investigating the history of former rural post offices such as Meece.
Remembering Meece and Its Families
The history of Meece is an example of how the story of an Appalachian community can be preserved through seemingly ordinary records. Its post office opened in 1908, moved in 1936, and closed in 1959, but those dates represent only a portion of the community’s history.
The newspaper notices from 1920 reveal a place where neighbors visited one another, families maintained ties with Somerset and other Kentucky communities, young people pursued employment in distant cities, and churches and cemeteries remained important parts of local life. They also preserve the names of individuals such as Ellen Meece, whose work as a teacher and whose sudden death were remembered by the people around her.
Meece may never have possessed the population or institutions of Pulaski County’s larger towns, but its surviving history demonstrates the importance of the smaller places that helped shape the county’s development. Today its name remains associated with the countryside surrounding Jugornot Hollow and Buck Creek, while old newspapers, maps, and postal records preserve the lives of the families who once called the community home.
Sources & Further Reading
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Pulaski County, Kentucky, Part 1.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 38, no. 3 (June–July 2007): 64–73. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP38-3.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. “The Post Offices of Pulaski County, Kentucky, Part 3.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 38, no. 5 (October–November 2007). https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP38-5.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/
Rennick, Robert M. “Pulaski County: Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, no. 123. Morehead State University, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/123/
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1s3p
Works Progress Administration and Robert M. Rennick. “Pulaski County: Post Offices & Place Names.” County Histories of Kentucky, no. 284. Morehead State University, cataloged as 1939. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/284/
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” January 30, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/1_30_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” February 6, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/2_6_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” February 27, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/2_27_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” May 21, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/5_21_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” June 4, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/6_4_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” June 11, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/6_11_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” September 17, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/9_17_1920.htm
The Somerset Journal. “Meece.” October 15, 1920. Transcribed by KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/10_15_1920.htm
United States Post Office Department. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–1971. National Archives Microfilm Publication M841, roll 49, Kentucky, Powell through Woodford Counties. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
United States Post Office Department. Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950. National Archives Microfilm Publication M1126, roll 231. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Rand McNally & Company. Map of Pulaski County, Kentucky. 1911. Reproduced by My Genealogy Hound. https://mygenealogyhound.com/maps/kentucky-maps/KY-Pulaski-County-Kentucky-1911-Rand-McNally-map-Somerset-Burnside-Science-Hill.html
United States Geological Survey. Somerset, Kentucky. Topographic map, 1935. Robert M. Rennick Topographical Maps Collection, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_maps_all/934/
United States Geological Survey. “topoView: Historical Topographic Maps.” Accessed September 26, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/topoview
Pulaski County Public Library. Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library. Somerset, Kentucky. Historical newspapers, census records, court records, deeds, and tax lists. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Tibbals, Alma Owens, comp. A History of Pulaski County, Kentucky. 1952. https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_Pulaski_County_Kentucky.html?id=hUh4D_2eUFMC
National Archives and Records Administration. “Search Census Records Online and Other Resources.” https://www.archives.gov/research/census/online-resources
Pulaski County Historical Society. Pulaski County Cemetery Records. Vol. 2. Somerset, KY: Pulaski County Historical Society, 1977. Reference and cemetery directions available through KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/queries/2000/apr2000.html
Author Note: Meece’s history reminds us that even the smallest Appalachian communities have stories worth preserving, particularly those found in old newspapers, church records, and family histories. If your family has connections to Meece, Jugornot Hollow, or the surrounding Buck Creek communities, I welcome any photographs, documents, or memories that can help expand this account.