Tag: Jenkins

Jenkins is a city in Letcher County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,203 at the 2010 census. Jenkins is also the birthplace of country music star Gary Stewart and U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers.
In autumn of 1911, the Consolidation Coal Company purchased the current location of Jenkins as part of a one hundred thousand acres tract of land in Pike, Letcher and Floyd counties from the Northern Coal and Coke Company. After the acquisition was finalized, plans were made to extend the Lexington and Eastern Railroad from Jackson to a town named McRoberts. Also, there was plans for a town named Jenkins, after George C. Jenkins, a director of the Consolidation Coal Company.
Because of the need of hundreds of homes and other structures, nine saw mills and two brickyards were erected. A steam and electric plant was established to temporarily generate power to the houses. Next, a temporary narrow gauge railroad was built over Pine Mountain from Glamorgan, Virginia in order…