March 19, 2025, An Interesting And Informative Day In Prestonsburg, Kentucky

On March 19, 2025, my wife Candice and I took a trip to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to complete a variety of intended actions including a minor amount of shopping, eating out for lunch, and a hike for me at Jenny Wiley State Park where I often hike when we are in Floyd County. Our first stop was at Wal Mart to do a minor amount of shopping, and then off to Jenny Wiley State Park where one of my favorite hiking trails starts near the lodge and has about 4 miles of linked trails around the mountain, over and along the ridge, and a connecting trail which can take you off the mountain to the site of the former Jenny Wiley Amphitheater which still exists as a building but is, sadly, no longer in use due to the demise of the Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater which functioned there for several decades. When we got to the park, I left Candice reading in the van as I often do and headed out to hike toward the trailhead near the lodge. As I approached the trailhead, I could see yellow construction barrier tape across the start of the trail with a printed message taped to a post. The message stated that this portion of the trail was closed due to a mudslide, and that the remaining portions of the trail could be accessed at the amphitheater spur. I started back in that direction, stopped for a few minutes to read the names and text on a monument to the children and bus driver who died in the 1958 Floyd County School Bus Wreck, and then headed on toward the amphitheater which is situated near the convention center which is used for a variety of purposes including state employee training sessions, weddings, banquets, and other public events. I have even once seen a rained out performance of the Roger Miller written musical "Big River" in the convention center. As I approached the convention center parking lot, I realized that several vehicles including a group of travel trailers, several cars from various othet states, and one or two vehicles actually marked with signs for the American Red Cross were in the parking lot. I realized the convention center must be in use as the stationary site for the Red Cross Disaster Response to the recent flooding in Eastern Kentucky which had devestated larger portions of Eastern Kentucky and Floyd County in particular. I also remembered that the Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge was once again in use as emergency housing for flood victims as it has been used on at least one other occasion under the incredibly effective and compassionate leadership of Governor Andy Beshear. I had to walk past the rear entrance of the convention center to get to the trail and when I turned that corner I saw two people sitting at a table outside the rear entrance. I suspected they were Red Cross volunteers and stopped to verify that and thank them for their work. We introduced ourselves and my hike turned into a long conversation with these two people and a third who showed up a bit later. They were from three different locations in the country, all long term Red Cross workers, one with ten years of service, one with sixteen years of service, and the third with an amazing forty-one years of work with the American Red Cross and on their third deployment to Eastern Kentucky in disasters. Our conversation quickly turned political and they opened up to me about their fears for the future of FEMA and the likelihood that TRAITOR Trump will destroy that agency and further worsen the disaster response to upcoming hurricanes, floods, forest fires, and other disasters. I expressed my own identical opinions and they reassured me that the Red Cross will always continue to provide disaster services since it is a private non-profit agency. But we all agreed that the future response from the federal government to disasters in the next four years, if TRAITOR Trump is not removed from the White House, will be slipshod at best with any federal funding likely to come to the states in block grants which will be pillaged on two or three levels before any of it actually reaches victims themselves. One of these Red Cross workers had actually been part of the response to the most recent Puerto Rican hurricane disaster when TRAITOR Trump was living in White House the first time and sent almost nothing to the people of Puerto Rico for a variety of reasons including his racism, ignorance, TREASON, and total lack of compassion and empathy. It was very refreshing to have this conversation with people who have traveled the world doing good works for the betterment of the human race, who understand the dire straits our country has been in since January 20 2025, and who can speak as openly as I do about the danger which is presented to the country by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate. I never finished my hike due to the length of that conversation but I have put in about a half hour between my parking location at the parking lot of the old golf course, the lodge, the closed trailhead, and the convention center. I also got a second half hour afterward at the Big Sandy Community and Technical College walking track and campus. As I walked across the campus, I encountered the sign at the top of this blog post, realized immediately that it would be considered a violation of TRAITOR Trump's malicious executive order against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and decided to document these signs for my readers before the Right Wing Radical Repugnican head of the state community college system in Kentucky can force these signs to be removed from the campus, and order that racism, sexism, and mysogny be practiced in the community college system across the commonwealth. Below is the seond sign which was available on the BSCTC campus and all the other community colleges in Kentucky.

Buffalo Night At Jenny Wiley State Park, January 25, 2025

Yesterday, January 25, 2025, my wife Candice and I went to Buffalo Night at Jenny Wiley State Park. Historically, these events have always been held in the lodge dining room. In fact, we had the Thanksgiving Dinner there this past November. When we arrived at the park, we found that the event was being held in the convention center near the now abandoned amphitheater. I had been in that facility once or twice before including once, not long before the long running Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater had been abandoned along with the amphitheater. At that event, we had gone to see the Jimmy Dean written musical "Big River". It got rained out and instead of offering rain checks the theater gave the performance in the convention center which had been a total bust. There is actually a large commercial kitchen in the convention center. But the room where this Buffalo Night was held is simply a large, windowless convention room set up with tables, all of which are designed for eight people doing work sessions in which they must face each other. That was a bit of surprise to be seated at a table for eight when, at brief times, the dining room door was left open and others, waiting to be seated for as much as half an hour, were able to look through the door and see two people seated at a table for eight. A windowless room is never a good site for anything other than a jail. Despite some bad weather in the last three weeks, the turnout was predictably large and the place was reasonably well staffed. But for these events, all of the state parks seem to schedule employees in the park system who have nothing to do with food service to work on event night and many of them have no experience in the areas in which they are working. We spoke to one woman who said she was working as a housekeeper in the lodge. We were seated at that large table conveniently in the front row near the buffet line which makes it a lot easier on Candice if she serves herself, or if I serve her and make two trips to the buffet for each of us to get a plate. The room was probably 40 feet wide and buffet was set up with the salad bar against one wall, the dessert table across the opposite wall forty feet away, and the main buffet line across the end wall at least fifteen or twenty feet away from the other two sections of the buffet. Thankfully, we had a young male waiter serving our drinks, napkins, etc. who was excellent, highly attentive, and robustly working the room all the time we were there. Ethan was a blessing in the middle of much that wasn't in other areas. In general, all of the staff, despite their sometimes being forced to work well outside their expertixe, are friendly, congenial, and nice. But it would be far better if other food service staff could be shifted from within the state park system for these high volume special events. The buffalo was served three ways, roasted and sliced on the line, presliced and cooked in deep hotel pans in boiling water, and as meat loaf. The roast was excellent and the female employee who served it was gracious, friendly, attentive, and experienced. The meat loaf was excellent, self service on the line, and made in the Eastern Kentucky style with catsup on top. The presliced and boiled was unappetizing looking and I niether of us even tried it. The vegetables were short sections of corn on the cob (over cooked but tasty); good, well made scalloped potatoes; green beans;greens with ham hocks sliced in them; and, there was also buffalo chili and fried catfish which Jenny Wiley usally serves as an alternative to the main meats at any special dinner. There were only two deserts, banana pudding in which I never saw a banana, and a berry cobbler. I happened to reach the dessert table after a cobbler had been demolished and left with only a thin skim of berries in the hotel pan. But I had manfully picked up one of their overly small, plastic (I assume disposable but maybe not) dessert dishes and was ready to settle for berries only (they appeared to have been mixed berries.) when a servers stepped up beside me and said, "I'm getting ready to set another cobbler down, would you like to wait." I had the pleasure of taking the first piece of that cobbler out of the pan to my table. I enjoyed some parts of the meal and the trip, was very appreciative of the waiter Ethan, and won't totally slam the event. But it did have some things lacking and could definitely be improved on before the next event. It is usually done far better at Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, Kentucky, where we also go regularly. Yes, I will probably be at the next special event dinner at Jenny Wiley, but I must insist that it be held in the lodge dining room.

"Jenny Wiley Pioneer Mother and Borderland Heroine" by Henry P. Scalf--Book Review

Scalf, Henry P. Jenny Wiley Pioneer Mother and Borderland Heroine (Prestonsburg, Kentucky. Prestonsburg Publishing Company Press, 1964)

The story of Jenny Wiley and her capture by and escape from Native Americans on about October 1, 1789, in what is now Johnson County Kentucky has been told, retold, exaggerated, blown all out of proportion, and moved from fact to legend to myth over the intervening 220 years.  It has resulted in at least one musical theater production which has been a regular and now intermittent production of the  summer musical theater named after her along with the state park in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, where this little 16 page pamphlet was produced by Henry P. Scalf in 1964.  Scalf was a newspaper writer, author of several such pamphlets and about a half dozen genealogical books during his lifetime.  Much of his writing, documents, and books are in the Special Collections Department at the University Of Pikeville Library which I have used more than once in my research. I own one of his dozen or so self-published genealogical books about the Stepp-Stapp Families of America.  His best work was done in the fields of newspaper writing and genealogy.  This Jenny Wiley pamphlet was produced about 10 years after the formation of the Jenny Wiley State Park The date of this pamphlet coincides with the formation of the Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater in 1964 and was likely an attempt by Scalf to capitalize on that event or, perhaps, to help support the push to form the theater.

Late in this work, Scalf states that "Ever with the Wiley story have been stories of the unusual, the strange and fanciful.  Some of these were added by descendants and other mountain folk for the tale of her captivity penetrated deeply into the consciousness of a people, becoming after the lapse of many decades an important element of their folklore."  Scalf was absolutely correct to make that statement and much of the general public opinion about the Jenny Wiley story today in Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, and Southern West Virginia is nothing more or less than folklore.  While it is a fact that Jenny Wiley was captured by and successfully escaped from her Native American captors after witnessing the deaths of her brother and children, much of what is frequently accepted as fact in the region today is nothing more than myth, legend, puffery, and prevarication.  It has long been impossible to differentiate the truth from the fiction.  But this woman has become a solid and permanent part of the historical beliefs in the region.  Harry Caudill wrote a terrible novel, "Dark Hills To Westward",  about the Jenny Wiley story and there have been nearly a half dozen other highly fictionalized books about her.   A highly fictionalized, but enjoyable musical play was written about her and performed to rave reviews hundreds of times in the theater at Jenny Wiley State Park.  Her grave on a ridge near River, Kentucky, is frequently visited by her descendants and total strangers who are enamored of the tales of her privation, grief at the deaths of her children, and her miraculous escape. I have to admit that I have visited her grave once myself.  This is an interesting little pamphlet to read if you can find a copy.  It will hold your interest.  But do not automatically assume that every word in it is a fact.  It contains no references to any historical documents and no professional method of crediting sources was used. At the time of the events not a great deal of documentation took place due to a variety of factors including the harsh conditions under which the people lived in the area, the high rate of illiteracy at the time, the persistent need for everyone to devote nearly all their time to survival and self-preservation, and the simple fact that paperwork was not a daily task of anyone.  The story was told by the people who were parties to it, passed down over more than 200 years through the oral story telling tradition, and has grown out of all proportion to the bare truth at the time the events happened.

Jenny Wiley lived until 1831 and died at the age of 71 more than 40 years after her capture.  The area at the time was genuinely on the edges of white civilization in America.  My own third-great-grandfather, Aulse Hicks traveled to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, sometime between 1790 and 1810 and we do not have a single historical document about his life.  I wonder if he might have known the Wiley family.  I have always admired the courage and fortitude of anyone who would pick up what little they could pack onto a horse or mule and a draft ox which might have also doubled as a milk cow, and stride off westward into Eastern Kentucky from the relative safety of much more heavily settled Western Virginia in the time of Daniel Boone and Jenny Wiley. 

I would also say that if you are doing genealogical research related to the Big Sandy and Tug River valleys the Scalf papers at the University of Pikeville Library are well worth a visit but you should contact the library archivist first to schedule a visit and access to those papers. 

Hiking The Jenny Wiley Trail, Saturday, August 24, 2019

On Saturday, August 24, 2019, my wife Candice and I traveled to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to Jenny Wiley State Park to have lunch at the state park lodge and for me to put in an hour hiking on the Jenny Wiley Trail which is just across an arm of Dewey Lake opposite the lodge, amphitheater, and marina.  Candice had the lunch buffet and I ordered a barbecued chicken breast off the menu since I did not like the looks of the beef and pork on the buffet.  Both were in hotel pans on the warmer and immersed in a watery sauce.  I had one bite of each off Candice's plate and the pork was actually fairly good.  The beef was way too bland and just did not meet my standards especially in light of the fact that I rarely eat either meat these days.  My chicken breast was a typical frozen and partially precooked breast which had been briefly grilled and then covered in what tasted a lot like Sweet Baby Ray's sauce.  But it was moist, tender, fairly tasty since I actually like Sweet Baby Ray's Original Sauce.  We arrived late in the lunch hour after 1pm and found only three other tables occupied in the large restaurant.  Four or five staff members spent much of the time in conversation at the check out counter and seemed to have nothing to do.  But the female hostess and waitress who served us were both friendly, talkative, and attentive.  

After the lunch, we parked in the shade near the Jenny Wiley Amphitheater where Candice could read a book and wait for me to return.  There seemed to be absolutely nothing happening at the amphitheater and that is a shame because for many years it was one of the better entertainment venues in Eastern Kentucky.  But it seems to have lost much of its success in recent years and has moved most of its productions to Pikeville, Kentucky.  I have seen many pleasurable and well done productions there over the last fifty years.  It is a shame that it is no longer what it used to be. 

Official Map Jenny Wiley State Resort Park by KY State Parks

I have included the official map of the state park above since it can be helpful if you go there to visit, hike, fish, camp, eat, boat, or see a play.  I have also included the reverse side of that map below which gives the official descriptions of the 6 hiking trails within the park along with the rules for users.  The map describes the Jenny Wiley Trail as being 4.5 miles and "Strenuous" and "not recommended for solo hikers".  I must admit here that I broke two key rules for hikers anywhere during my hike.  First, I totally disregarded the disclaimer that the trail is "not recommended for solo hikers",  and after having hiked on it for an hour, I have no idea why it is labeled that way.  The first few hundred yards of the trail are a fairly steep uphill hike on what we natives of the area call a "point" which is a projection of land which rises out of the landscape.  But once you are past that few hundred yards, I found the trail to be only mildly challenging and capable of being hiked by any reasonably healthy and fit human.  Second, the trail begins near a rental cottage near the lake and has an aged, decrepit set of wooden steps up the first twenty feet or so from a paved driveway to the actual beginning of the trail proper.  There was an old caution tape tied to but torn down from the entrance to the steps with a dirty sign saying that "This section of the Jenny Wiley Trail is temporarily closed". I realize that going past that tape and sign is a cardinal mistake for most people and I did it anyway.  But I know the mountains of Eastern Kentucky better than most.  I am in fit condition and hike regularly.  I still do not recommend taking such actions and would not have done so in an area in which I had never spent time. I interpreted the sign to be referring to the decrepit condition of the steps and not the entire trail.  The steps are in bad need of replacement and for a few hundred dollars of lumber, screws, and labor, the Commonwealth of Kentucky could solve the problem for several years.  Actually, I must say that the trail does not appear to be well maintained in general and I eventually encountered an area near the ridge with several blown down trees which block the trail to a considerable degree and, since Candice was waiting for me alone, that is where I turned around after a little more than half an hour.  I also saw at least two fairly dangerous "widow maker" trees which were dead, partially fallen, and hung up in other living trees.  If the trail were well maintained, it would be a fairly nice hike of probably an hour and half for an experienced and fit hiker.  As it is, it is somewhat more time consuming and might take the same hiker two hours or a bit more if the remainder of the trail also has similar down timber blocking it.  

For me the most interesting part of the trail is that I saw a small cemetery beside the trail in that initial climb up the point which has only two clearly marked graves, one of which is marked with a Confederate States Of America tombstone.  Both carry the same last name.  The little cemetery is totally hidden in the timber and if a marked hiking trail were not there it would probably be long forgotten by now.  Speaking of marked trail, the trail is fairly well marked ever hundred yards or so with blue paint blazes on trees.  It is also well used and nearly as visible to the trained eye as a cow path might be.  I also noticed a lot of young poplar trees on or near the trail ranging from about two years old to having recently sprouted.  They varied from about two or three inches to maybe eight inches in general and seem to indicate that the area was more open in the past few years since poplars are generally regenerative growth.  They also indicate that, on this particular trail, the Kentucky State Parks Department is not doing its job.