Horse Creek (Kentucky) facts for kids

Horse Creek is a tributary of Goose Creek river in Clay County in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The Cumberland and Manchester Railway built a spur line up the creek, and it has been the site of operations of at least eight coal mining companies. The name comes, according to local tradition, from the proliferation of "horseweed" in the creek valley.

Tributaries and post offices

One of the creek's own tributaries is the Paw Paw Branch, location of Siebert town, railroad depot, and erstwhile postoffice.

The mouth of the Crawfish Branch tributary to the creek is the location of the Crawfish pos toffice, established on March 29, 1907, by postmaster Hugh Gregory. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Manchester and the creek that it serves is 2 miles (3.2 km) long. However, the station on the spur line, a loading depot for the coal mining operations, was named Hima. On May 4, 1920, then postmaster David Gregory renamed the post office to the name of the railway stop.

The mouth of the 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long Pigeon Roost Branch tributary to the creek was the original location of the Pigeon Roost postoffice, established on 1888-05-11 by storekeeper and postmaster Jefferson D. Rowland. Local oral history is that they were named after a large flock of pigeons roosting on timber. The postoffice moved around to several locations along Horse Creek and Kentucky Route 80 over the years, its name becoming Pigeonroost in 1894, until it closed in 1974, its final location being two miles downstream of Pigeon Roost Creek and 5 miles (8.0 km) south-west of Manchester.

Coal

The coal beneath the creek is part of Kentucky's Breathitt Formation.

Pollution caused by the mining operations was measured in 1969. The pH of the river water was 4.2 in Horse Creek itself, and 5.8 in Goose Creek. Fish kills were reported for Goose Creek, and both Goose Creek and downstream South Fork of Kentucky River were occasionally acidic. The problems of acidic outflow and sediment affecting the downstream waters of Goose continued to be reported in 1979.

The Cumberland and Manchester Railway railway spur was built in 1918, contracted to L.L. Richardson for building the road and John C. White for supplying 200,000 feet (61,000 m) of timber for trestles.