Pikeville (Images of America)

Pikeville was founded in 1824 inside a bend in the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River at the foot of Peach Orchard Mountain. It was a river town for most of the 1800s with huge log rafts being floated downstream to the Ohio River and steamboats carrying people and goods back and forth. Three momentous events in Pikeville’s history all occurred in 1889. The school that became the University of Pikeville opened, construction was completed on the Pike County Courthouse, and therein eight Hatfield combatants in the infamous Hatfield-McCoy Feud were convicted of murder. In the 1900s, coal mining began its century long run as the dominant industry. By 1960, the railroad, coal loadouts, congested streets, and frequent flooding were holding back growth. Mayor William C. Hambley led a 30-year effort to complete the Cut-through Project and made Pikeville the “City that Moves Mountains.”