Harlan County, KY News | NewsBreak Harlan County, KY (2025)

FAQs

What happened in Harlan County, Kentucky? ›

HARLAN COUNTY — Coal miners engaged in skirmishes, strikes and boycotts to unionize the mines after mine operators slashed salaries by 10 percent to deal with the changing economic conditions of the Great Depression.

"Bloody Harlan" they call it because it was bloody. They were non-union mines and the United Mine Workers went in and tried to organize it and did organize it. Brookside, which is the same as Duke Power Company, refused to bargain with them in good faith.

Kentucky's location within the U.S. Harlan County is well known in folk and country music, having produced many prominent musicians. During the 20th century, it was often a center of labor strife between coal mine owners and union workers, especially in the Harlan County War of the 1930s.

There have been 97 recorded wind events in Harlan County. The most severe event was a tornado, which occurred in 2007.

Harlan County, USA is a 1976 American documentary film covering the "Brookside Strike", a 1973 effort of 180 coal miners and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, southeast Kentucky.

As far as poverty and drug addiction go, we rank pretty close to the worst in the nation. Our schools, also, are not good at all. The public schools hover near the bottom in terms of academic performance, with Harlan County High School being #13,364 in the nation at the time of this writing.

During the 1930s, union suppression and strikes led to violence that went both ways and became known as the Harlan County Wars. Eleven deaths were directly linked to those conflicts, during which the National Guard was called in twice.

Harlan's on-screen incarnation is a lawless and violent town overrun by violence and corruption. Harlan Countians generally accept Justified as an entertaining work of fiction although Justified is an embellishment.

Harlan County War is excellent fiction about a labor conflict, although based on true events. The fight of the coal miners in Harlan County has become illustrious, among others due to the documentary Harlan County USA by director Kopple.

Filming. While the pilot was shot in Pittsburgh and suburban Kittanning and Washington, Pennsylvania, the subsequent 38 episodes were shot in California. The small town of Green Valley, California often doubles for Harlan, Kentucky.

Is Harlan, KY a dry county? ›

Its county seat is Harlan. It is classified as a moist county—a county in which alcohol sales are prohibited (a dry county), but containing a "wet" city, in this case Cumberland, where package alcohol sales are allowed. In the city of Harlan, restaurants seating 100+ may serve alcoholic beverages.

Harlan (population 2,081), county seat of Harlan County, is located at the forks of the Cumberland River and was first settled around 1796. The community was known as Mount Pleasant, for a local Indian mound, when it became the seat of the new county in 1819, but it was renamed Harlan in 1865.

Deadly tornado leaves major damage in Dawson Springs, KY

There have been at least 5 confirmed deaths across the state. Governor Andy Beshear has declared a state of emergency as cleanup crews work to clear the storm's aftermath.

The clouds also reminded many about Kentucky's worst tornado in recorded history – an F5 with winds reaching 225 mph that ripped across Meade County on April 3, 1974, destroying downtown Brandenburg and changing the way the nation tracks storms.

Kentucky is a part of Hoosier Alley, an offshoot of what we traditionally think of as Tornado Alley. Peak storm season in Kentucky and all of Hoosier Alley occurs during April and May.

1775 - Daniel Boone establishes the town of Boonesborough and widens the Wilderness Trail from Virginia. 1780 - The city of Louisville is established. 1792 - Kentucky becomes the 15th state. 1861 - Kentucky decides to side with Union in the Civil War after trying to remain neutral.

In March, 2010, the FX Network launched the season premiere of “Justified,” an over-the-top, modern-day crime drama set in Harlan, Kentucky. In March, 2010, the FX Network launched the season premiere of “Justified.” This show is an over-the-top, modern-day crime drama set in Harlan, Kentucky.