Harlan County War

On our most recent episode of Southern Gothic, we went on out to Harlan County, Kentucky, where we explore the legend of Headless Annie, the purported apparition of a young girl wandering the winding roads of Black Mountain at night, all in search of her head.

Now, by all accounts, this legend seems to be a bit shaky when it comes to a factual foundation, but as you heard, with a past as violent as the place known as Bloody Harlan is, y'all, it'd be crazy for us to think that the legend of Headless Annie is the only ghost story down there in the shadow of Black Mountain.

You see, on the southwestern side of it, just outside the town that's actually called Harlan as well, is Red Dog Road.

A narrow, rugged mountain road that steeply winds its way up into the wooded hills above town.

And that is certainly not something that only happened here in this particular corner of Kentucky, but the violent ramifications of what came next made such a mark on the community that for decades many folks have come to refer to this Appalachian community in the shadow of Black Mountain by a nickname that makes it awful clear what happened here.

They call it Bloody Harlan.

Of course, with a past as violent as what would cause Harlan County to earn such a dark nickname, you might not be surprised to hear that Black Mountain is said to be home to a pretty gruesome haunting.

A deeply unsettling spirit believed to have lingered on the dark roads of that very mountain.

The spirit of a purported victim who suffered from the same brutality that inspired the name Bloody Harlan.

My name is Brandon Schexnayder and you are listening to Southern Gothic.

A lot of folks out in Harlan County claim that if you find yourself driving one of those lonely winding roads up on Black Mountain after dark, you just might end up having an awfully unsettling experience as It's been said that an absolutely terrifying figure wanders the mountain at night.

Well, as you might imagine, that only intensified the hostility of the coal companies and the local authorities, leading to even more and more coercive and brutal clampdowns.

It gets people killed, or it at least used to.

Yeah, I mean, if we've never covered the strikes in Bloody Harlan, which is why it has its name, I think that would be an interesting case to cover.

Coal mining

back then was huge in labor unions.