John W. Flannagan Reservoir on the Pound River, the principal tributary to Russell Fork, is the major public water source for Dickenson, Buchanan, and portions of Wise County, Virginia, and serves coal mining for processing and mine supply. Before the rise of mining, Russell Fork and its tributaries were essential to the timber industry. Selective cutting of walnut occurred as early as 1885 for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. In 1909, the heyday of timbering began when the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company constructed a splashdam at Bartlick upstream from here. Primarily poplar, which reached enormous size in cove settings, along with other hardwoods, was placed in the pond behind the splashdam, where the water was allowed to rise and then released. Only in this way could the timber be assured of passing through The Breaks to Elkhorn City, Kentucky, where the logs were made into rafts and floated to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, then transported to a mill at Coal Grove, Ohio. Considerable effort was expended to blow up boulders in the gorge that could trap logs. In less than 10 years, the virgin poplar was gone and splashdamming ceased. Even before timbering, the waters of the Russell Fork Basin powered simple pounding mills and more advanced grist mills, using millstones once quarried and fashioned at Mill Rock Point. The headwater springs also provided pure water mixed with corn ground from those mills as the first step in moonshine production.