Appalachian Community Histories – Stab, Pulaski County: The Mize Family, Its Unusual Name, and Short Creek
In eastern Pulaski County, approximately ten miles from Somerset, lies Stab, an unincorporated community whose unusual name conceals a history extending well beyond the establishment of its post office in 1922. Situated near Buck Creek and the remarkable waters of Short Creek, the settlement developed in a landscape of limestone valleys, underground streams, family farms, and small rural communities. Its history is closely connected to the Mize family, whose presence in the area preceded the name Stab by several generations.
Although the community is remembered for its distinctive name, the surrounding countryside had already supported a gristmill and an earlier post office known as Lincoln. Stab would eventually inherit the postal responsibilities of that older settlement, serving local residents for more than seventy years before its post office closed in 1994. Nearby Short Creek, meanwhile, attracted the attention of generations of residents, naturalists, and geologists because of an extraordinary feature in which an underground stream briefly emerges into daylight before disappearing beneath the earth again.
The Settlement of Short Creek and the Mize Family
Long before Stab acquired its present name, the Short Creek vicinity was associated with the Mize family, whose history became closely intertwined with the development of eastern Pulaski County. The area’s limestone formations, dependable water sources, and proximity to Buck Creek provided opportunities for farming and milling, while the surrounding valleys offered routes connecting scattered households with Somerset and neighboring settlements.
According to genealogical research into the family of William Riley Mize, members of the family had established themselves around Short Creek during the nineteenth century. The account identifies William Riley Mize as a landowner in the area and credits him with constructing a mill at Short Creek in 1868. Although the precise construction date would benefit from confirmation through contemporary deeds or other records, the broader history of milling at the site is independently supported by later geological and historical research.
In September 2003, Larry C. Simpson published an account of Short Creek in The Cave Conservationist, describing the remains of an old dam and a succession of gristmills that had operated there since the nineteenth century. These mills made use of the water emerging from the limestone, turning a geological curiosity into a resource for neighboring families. Farmers could bring their corn and wheat to be ground, making the site an important part of the surrounding agricultural community.
The Mize family’s association with Short Creek extended beyond the mills. Its members were also instrumental in establishing the area’s earliest post offices, leaving a documentary record of the settlement decades before the name Stab appeared.
The Lincoln Post Office and the Community Before Stab
The first post office to serve the Short Creek vicinity was established on April 18, 1891, with Eli Farmer as its first postmaster. According to Kentucky place-name historian Robert M. Rennick, Farmer originally proposed the name Mize in recognition of his wife Mary’s family, descendants of William R. Mize, who had owned land along Buck Creek since the 1830s.
Unfortunately, another post office named Mize was already operating in Morgan County, Kentucky, preventing Farmer from using his preferred name. The new office instead opened as Lincoln, a name that Rennick believed was probably selected in honor of President Abraham Lincoln, although its precise origin was not conclusively established.
Lincoln was initially located approximately one mile east of Buck Creek. On March 15, 1892, James P. Sears relocated the office approximately one mile northwest to Short Creek, placing it closer to the locality it would serve for the remainder of its existence. The Lincoln post office continued operating until the end of 1913, when its closure left the neighborhood without that particular postal facility.
The history of Lincoln is essential to understanding Stab because it demonstrates that the community’s development was not the result of a single founding event in 1922. Rather, Stab emerged from an older network of families and settlements whose postal names changed while their connection to the surrounding countryside endured.
James R. Mize and the Origin of the Name Stab
The next important chapter in the community’s history began on November 7, 1922, when James R. Mize established a new post office to serve the locality still known as Lincoln or Short Creek. By this time, the earlier Lincoln office had been closed for nearly nine years, and the establishment of another postal facility restored a direct postal presence to the neighborhood.
Selecting a name, however, proved more complicated than simply adopting one of the locality’s existing names.
In his 2007 study of Pulaski County’s post offices, Robert M. Rennick explained that Mize initially proposed Goldleaf, but the name was apparently unacceptable to postal authorities. The family name Mize was also unavailable because it was still being used by the Morgan County post office.
According to the account Rennick preserved, Mize was asked to select a short name and ultimately proposed Stab. The name was accepted, and the post office officially opened under that designation. Rennick was unable to establish why Mize selected the particular word, leaving the most unusual part of the community’s naming history unresolved.
It is sometimes suggested that Stab received its name simply because postal authorities rejected a longer proposal. Rennick’s research provides a more detailed explanation, identifying Goldleaf and Mize as earlier choices while making clear that the reason for the final selection of Stab remains unknown.
There is no documented evidence in his published account that the community was named for a violent incident or that the word described a particular geographical feature. Without additional testimony or original correspondence from James R. Mize, such explanations remain speculation.
The Stab Post Office and a Changing Rural Community
For more than seventy years, the Stab post office served a rural neighborhood whose geography was defined by Buck Creek, Short Creek, and the roads connecting eastern Pulaski County with Somerset. The establishment of the office gave the surrounding settlement a recognized place in the federal postal system, while its unusual name gradually replaced Lincoln and Short Creek as the principal designation for the community.
Rennick documented several changes in the post office’s location during its operating years. Its later site stood just south of present-day Kentucky Route 80, east of Buck Creek and north of Short Creek. These movements reflected the shifting geography of a rural postal service in which the location of an office could change without the surrounding community disappearing.
The office finally closed in mid-July 1994, ending a postal history that had begun with James R. Mize in November 1922. When considered alongside the earlier Lincoln office, the locality’s documented postal history extends back more than a century before the closure of Stab’s own facility.
The name nevertheless survived the closing of the post office. The surrounding neighborhood continued to be identified as Stab, and the designation remained attached to roads and local institutions. An article published by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources in Kentucky Afield in 2015, for example, identified Stab Road as Kentucky Route 1675 and described the Shopville-Stab Fire Department as a landmark near Short Creek.
Short Creek and the Claim of the World’s Shortest Creek
While the community’s name has attracted curiosity, its most unusual geographical feature lies nearby at Short Creek, a remarkable example of Kentucky’s limestone landscape. The stream is associated with what geologists call a karst window, a place where an underground watercourse becomes exposed at the surface before returning to its subterranean channel.
At Short Creek, groundwater emerges from a cave beneath a limestone cliff, passes through an open wooded hollow, and disappears into another cave a short distance away. The formation has long inspired descriptions of the stream as one of the shortest creeks in the world, although that distinction is a local claim rather than an independently established world record.
In October 2015, the Kentucky Geological Survey published photographs and an explanation of Short Creek in its Kentucky Interagency Groundwater Monitoring Network Annual Report. The report identified the spring and swallow hole as being separated by approximately seventy-five feet, illustrating how the brief stretch of visible water provides a window into a much larger underground drainage system.
Other descriptions place the visible course at a greater length because the water follows a curved path between the two openings. In April 2025, Alice Mandt, the Upper Cumberland River Basin Coordinator, described the creek as flowing for approximately 200 feet before disappearing underground again. Her account, published by the Kentucky Division of Water, also noted that the water remains cold throughout the year, generally averaging between fifty-two and fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
The creek’s short visible journey conceals a substantially larger geological system. In his 2003 study, Larry C. Simpson explained that Short Creek forms the lowest segment of the Sinking Valley Aquifer, an extensive underground drainage network receiving water from numerous sinking streams. Earlier dye-tracing studies had demonstrated that water traveled for more than eight miles through connected subterranean passages before reaching the lower portions of the system.
The geological importance of Short Creek therefore extends far beyond its unusually short surface course. What appears to be an isolated stream is actually a visible portion of an extensive underground water network beneath eastern Pulaski County.
The Caves of Sinking Valley and Scientific Exploration
The landscape surrounding Stab became an important subject for cave exploration and groundwater research during the twentieth century. By the mid-1960s, members of the Blue Grass Grotto had begun surveying Baker Cave, while other regional caving organizations expanded their investigations of Sinking Valley during the following decade.
Geologist Ralph Ewers conducted research in the area during the 1970s, installing monitoring equipment in Stab Cave and a water-level recorder at Short Creek. His work included rainfall measurements and early dye-tracing investigations intended to identify connections between the region’s underground streams.
Subsequent researchers continued examining the aquifer, including scientists and graduate students associated with Eastern Kentucky University. These studies helped establish the relationship between the area’s sinking streams, caves, groundwater channels, and the exposed waters of Short Creek. By the early twenty-first century, interest in the region had expanded to include the potential effects of proposed highway construction on its underground drainage system.
The scientific investigations revealed that the apparently simple landscape surrounding Stab was part of a complicated geological environment in which surface developments could affect waterways miles away through underground connections.
Short Creek in Community Life and Local Memory
For the residents of Stab and the surrounding countryside, Short Creek has represented considerably more than an unusual geological formation. Its dependable water, wooded surroundings, and natural amphitheater have made it a place of work, recreation, and community gatherings across generations.
Larry Simpson’s 2003 account documented the site’s history as a place for baptisms, picnics, and weddings, while also describing the remains of the old mill dam that testified to its earlier industrial use. In the same account, Simpson identified Elwood and Norma Taylor as the owners of the property at that time, connecting the stream’s history with the continued stewardship of local families.
More than two decades later, the Kentucky Division of Water continued to recognize Short Creek’s cultural importance. Its spring 2025 newsletter described the location as a place of artistic inspiration, reflection, and religious gatherings, while identifying its position within the Buck Creek watershed as a priority for water-resource management. The report also noted that the creek is located on private property, an important consideration for visitors interested in observing the formation.
Short Creek’s continued recognition by state agencies, geologists, and local residents has helped preserve awareness of the surrounding community. Although Stab never developed into a large incorporated town, its name remains connected to a landmark that offers an unusual glimpse into Kentucky’s underground landscape.
Preserving the History of Stab
The surviving history of Stab demonstrates how much can be learned about a small Appalachian community by following the records of its post offices, families, waterways, and surrounding landscape. The establishment of Lincoln in 1891, its relocation to Short Creek in 1892, and the later creation of Stab in 1922 reveal a settlement whose identity evolved over several generations.
At the center of that history stands the Mize family, whose name appears in accounts of nineteenth-century milling, landownership, and the establishment of both the Lincoln and Stab post offices. Their connection to Short Creek illustrates the relationship between family history and the development of the surrounding countryside.
Questions nevertheless remain about the community’s past, particularly James R. Mize’s unexplained selection of the name Stab and the precise locations of the various buildings that housed its post office. Additional evidence may survive in federal postmaster appointment records, postal site-location reports, local newspapers, and the original place-name research collected by Robert M. Rennick.
The community’s most enduring story, however, is found in the combination of its unusual name and its extraordinary landscape. Long before Stab appeared in postal registers, Short Creek had supplied water to the surrounding countryside, powered mills, and shaped local settlement. Long after the post office closed, the creek and the community’s name remained part of Pulaski County’s geography, preserving the history of a rural neighborhood that might otherwise have been overlooked.
Sources & Further Reading
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Pulaski County, Kentucky, Part II.” 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/.
Rennick, Robert M. “Pulaski County: Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, no. 123. Morehead State University. Cataloged 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/.
Simpson, Larry C. “Short Creek, Boiling Pots and the Caves of Sinking Valley.” The Cave Conservationist 22, no. 2 (September 2003). https://www.acave.us/ccms/tc/2003%20Sept%20-%20The%20Cave%20Conservationist.pdf.
Davidson, Bart, comp. Kentucky Interagency Groundwater Monitoring Network: Annual Report, July 2014–June 2015. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey, University of Kentucky, October 2015. https://www.uky.edu/KGS/water/gnet/14-15itac.pdf.
Mandt, Alice. “It Doesn’t Take a Long Hike to Visit Short Creek!” Runoff Report, Kentucky Division of Water, April 2025, 4. https://eec.ky.gov/Environmental-Protection/Water/Outreach/BasinCoordination/Documents/RunoffReport-202505.pdf.
Hatch, Norman L. Geology of the Shopville Quadrangle, Kentucky. Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-282. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1964. https://doi.org/10.3133/gq282.
Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “Buck Creek.” Kentucky Afield. https://fw.ky.gov/Education/Documents/Buck-Creek.pdf.
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records.” Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department, including Record of Appointments of Postmasters, 1832–1971, microfilm publication M841. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices.
National Archives and Records Administration. “Records of the Post Office Department.” Record Group 28, 1773–1971. Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/028.html.
Pulaski County Public Library. Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library. Somerset, KY. Historical newspapers, census records, court records, deeds, tax lists, and local historical materials. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/.
Rand McNally & Company. Map of Pulaski County, Kentucky. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1911. Digitized by My Genealogy Hound. https://mygenealogyhound.com/maps/kentucky-maps/KY-Pulaski-County-Kentucky-1911-Rand-McNally-map-Somerset-Burnside-Science-Hill.html.
Morehead State University. Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection. Camden-Carroll Library, Morehead, KY. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/.
Morehead State University. Robert M. Rennick Topographical Maps Collection. Camden-Carroll Library, Morehead, KY. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_maps_all/.
U.S. Geological Survey. Geographic Names Information System. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis.
U.S. Geological Survey. Historical Topographic Map Collection. National Geospatial Program. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/.
Author Note: The history of Stab reminds us that even the smallest Appalachian communities hold stories of families, changing place names, and landscapes that deserve to be remembered. If your family lived in Stab or the surrounding Short Creek area, I welcome your photographs, documents, and memories as we continue preserving Pulaski County’s history.