Industry
Blue Heron, also called Mine 18, was an isolated coal town along the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River in Kentucky, built around mines opened in 1937 by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company. The underground operations lasted until December 1962, when they closed because they were no longer profitable, and the community was then abandoned as its buildings were removed or left to decay. In the 1980s, the site was re-created as an outdoor museum within Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, using ghost structures, photographs, and audio programs to preserve the memory of this vanished industrial community and the suddenness of its disappearance.
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Kentucky · United States
