Belcraft
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Longitude: -82.825000000000
Belcraft was a small camp located on Sandlick Creek in Letcher County, on State Hwy. 931 just north of Marlowe. It may have been an outgrowth of the Marlowe mining operations, but I am not certain of that. It was already abandoned in the 1950s, when I was a child in Whitesburg. There was (and may still be) a community road sign for Belcraft as one drove north on Hwy 931 from Whitesburg up Sandlick Creek. Last references to Belcraft as a mining location is that Southeast Coal Company (now defunct) operated a tipple at Belcraft as late as the 1980s. Quoting from the site http://www.spikesys.com/Trains/App_coal/apcl_3d.html : "Finishing out the Sand Lick Branch had been SouthEast Coal Company's first tipple. The Belcraft Tipple had sat at the end of the line on a multi-track, 60 car siding known only as "Belcraft". This tipple loaded coal from mines on Persimmon, Fairchild and Long Creeks and survived until the mid eighties." KY Hometown Locator (http://kentucky.hometownlocator.com/ky/letcher/bellcraft.cfm) has a brief listing of Belcraft as a "populated place". In the 1940 census, part of Belcraft was in ED 67-21; remainder was in ED 67-19.
-submitted by Dan C. Mohn on 5/28/2014 danmohn@twc.com Dan's Highland Homepage website: http://highlandhomepage.danmohn.net/
Location of Belcraft submitted by Dan C. Mohn on 5/28/2014