U.S. Route 23's Historical Role
Route 23 plays an important role in the history of the Appalachian region. The construction of roads and highways such as Route 23 has, at least in the past century, been a continual and essential proposal by developers for the increased economic prosperity of the region. Ronald Eller writes, “Newly paved highways made possible by state and federal expenditures during the 1930s linked the county seats with each other and with the rapidly growing urban communities on the fringes of the mountains.”[1] From the location beginning in southwestern Virginia, Route 23 connects the county seats of Scott County (Gate City) and Wise County (Wise) in Virginia, and in Kentucky Pike County (Pikeville), Floyd County (Prestonsburg), Johnson County (Paintsville), Lawrence County (Louisa), Boyd County (Catlettsburg), and Greenup County (Greenup). And the Midwestern state of Ohio, for example, contains what Eller referred to as “the rapidly growing urban communities on the fringes of the mountains,” many of which Route 23 led to either directly or indirectly.
Ultimately, and ironically, the roads built to increase business within the region actually served to increase business by boosting employment opportunities in city factories outside the region. “Laboring beside other displaced populations,” notes Eller, “Appalachians built the automobiles, washing machines, radios, and televisions that shaped the postwar consumer society of the United States.”[5] Along with their availability and ability to work, “Mountain migrants brought their music and culture with them to the new world of the city, creating little Appalachian communities in the midst of urban centers and helping to bring national attention to the plight of communities back home.”[6]
"The Hillbilly Highway"
The portion of Route 23 in Virginia is known today as “The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail” while the stretch in Kentucky is referred to as “The Country Music Highway” after the many country music artists that have arisen from that section of Kentucky. To those who became acquainted with the mass movement of Appalachians into the cities, the highway attained the derogatory title “the Hillbilly Highway.” Route 23 and other highways were not only utilized by families to exit the region, they also provided them a way back home on weekends when the work week was over. “It was not uncommon on Friday nights in the 1950s to find the highways flowing south from Akron, Dayton, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Chicago filled with Appalachian migrants heading to West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee,”[7] says Eller. Writing in 1972, Bill Montgomery captures the significance behind this image well:
…the Appalachian seems to consider home to be where the heart is, and no matter where he might go the Appalachian nearly always leaves his heart behind in the hills. That point is illustrated graphically every Friday night by the long stream of automobiles heading south from Cincinnati on Interstate 75. License plates identify the vehicles as being from Ohio, but the people inside them are Appalachians heading home, if only for the weekend.[8]
The Three R's
During this time, a saying arose regarding the mountain school’s supposed curriculum that was undergirding the large outmigration of Appalachian residents. Eller articulates, “Migrants quipped that the only things taught in mountain schools after World War II were the three R's—reading, writing, and Route 23, or whatever the local highway to the North was.”[9]
Country singer and Pikeville, Kentucky, born Dwight Yoakam encapsulated this sentiment in musical form in his 1987 song, “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23.”
They learned readin', rightin', Route 23
To the jobs that lay waiting in those cities' factories
They learned readin', rightin', roads to the north
To the luxury and comfort a coal miner can't afford
They thought readin', rightin', Route 23
Would take them to the good life that they had never seen
They didn't know that old highway
Could lead them to a world of misery
Have you ever been down Kentucky-way
Say south of Prestonsburg
Have you ever been up in a holler
Have you ever heard
A mountain man cough his life away
From diggin' that black coal
In those dark mines, those dark mines
If you had you might just understand
The reason that they left is all behind
Chorus:
They learned readin', rightin', Route 23
To the jobs that lay waitin' in those cities' factories
They learned readin', rightin', roads to the north
To the luxury and comfort a coal miner can't afford
They thought readin', rightin', Route 23
Would take them to the good life that they had never seen
They didn't know that old highway
Could lead them to a world of misery
Have you ever seen 'em
Put the kids in the car after work on Friday night
Pull up in a holler about 2 a.m.
And see a light still shinin' bright
Those mountain folks sat up that late
Just to hold those little grandkids
In their arms, in their arms
And I'm proud to say that I've been blessed
And touched by their sweet hillbilly charm
Chorus:
They learned readin', rightin', Route 23
To the jobs that lay waiting in those cities' factories
They learned readin', rightin', roads to the north
To the luxury and comfort a coal miner can't afford
They thought readin', rightin', Route 23
Would take them to the good life that they had never seen
They didn't know that old highway
Could lead them to a world of misery
Yeah, it turns out that that old highway,
Leads you to a world of misery
They found out that that old highway
Leads you to a world of misery[10]
To close out this blog post on Route 23’s role in Appalachian outmigration, bluegrass artist Ralph Stanley puts a bit of realism into what was endured by some, namely himself, on the trek outside the region and toward the cities north of the mountains.
They found out fast that the Promised Land wasn’t all they’d hoped for. Pay was low, the city was big and strange, friends were few and far between. But that didn’t stop them from leaving their homes and everything they had. Thousands and thousands kept right on a-coming north…[The route] was six hundred miles of rough road, and it took more than sixteen hours, and that’s if you was lucky and didn’t have an engine breakdown or get a flat tire. I’m speaking from personal experience, because I was once one of the pilgrims on the Hillbilly Highway.[11]
Notes:
[1] Ronald D. Eller, Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2008), 14.
[2] Phillip J. Obermiller, “Migration,” in High Mountains Rising: Appalachia in Time and Place, eds. Richard A. Straw and H. Tyler Blethen (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 92.
[3] Obermiller, “Migration,” 92.
[4] Phillip J. Obermiller, “Living City, Feeling Country: The Current State and Future Prospects of Urban Appalachians,” in Appalachia Inside Out: Vol. 1 Conflict and Change, eds. Robert J. Higgs, Ambrose N. Manning, and Jim Wayne Miller (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1995), 321.
[5] Eller, Uneven Ground, 20.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., 22.
[8] Bill Montgomery, “The Uptown Story,” in Appalachia in the Sixties: Decade of Reawakening, eds. David S. Walls and John B. Stephenson (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1972), 145.
[9] Eller, 22.
[10] See http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/d/dwight_yoakam/readin_rightin_rt_23.html.
[11] Dr. Ralph Stanley with Eddie Dean, Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times (New York: Gotham Books, 2009), 173.