The Pikeville Cut-Through Project, the dream of Dr. Wm. C. Hambley, was the largest engineering feat in the US and second in the world only to the Panama Canal. It was started in 1973 and finished in 1987, at a cost of $77,593,691. 18,000,000 cubic yards of earth were moved. The project eliminated the disastrous flooding of the Big Sandy River by moving a 4-lane highway, a railroad and a river through the mountain.