Environment and Natural Resources Special Collections

This collection reflects more than twenty years of the controversy regarding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers efforts to alleviate flooding by constructing a dam in the Red River Gorge area in east central Kentucky. Congress initially authorized the construction of the dam in 1962, but through the efforts of numerous conservationists, local activists, and environmental organizations, the construction of the dam was eventually halted through a court injunction.

The Burt and Brabb Lumber Company maintained operations in the small community of Ford in Clark County, Kentucky . In addition to its Clark County properties, the company maintained several booms on the Kentucky River and its tributaries and owned property and timber rights in Madison, Leslie, Harlan, Letcher, Perry, Knott, Bell, Clay, and Breathitt Counties. This collection includes minutes of the company's Board of Directors and Stockholders, maps, instructions to a lumber foreman, rate tables, account books, check registers, sharebooks, ledgers, journals, legal papers, correspondence, and other miscellaneous materials.

Walter S. Harkins, Sr. (1857-1920), a lawyer and entrepreneur, did much to facilitate the economic and social transformation in the region by consolidating landholdings for the purpose of attracting investors and by representing outside companies in numerous legal disputes with eastern Kentuckians over who would control development in the region and how it would occur. By the 1920s his sons were practicing in the Harkins law firm and also participating in the development of coal and gas in eastern Kentucky.

The Means family played a dominant role in the development of the iron industry in the Hanging Fork region of southern Ohio and in eastern Kentucky. They also played a prominent part in the development of both river and rail transportation in the area and in the formation of Ashland, Kentucky as an industrial city. These papers include both personal and business-related correspondence, financial records, legal documents, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, journals, scrapbooks, and photographs.

This collection primarily relates to the Means family of Ashland, Kentucky, who played a dominant role in the development of the iron industry in the Hanging Fork region of southern Ohio and in eastern Kentucky. They also played a prominent part in the development of both river and rail transportation in the area and in the formation of Ashland, Kentucky as an industrial city. These papers include both personal and business-related correspondence, financial records, legal documents, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, journals, scrapbooks, and photographs.