Whitesburg Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

From the record

“The Whitesburg Historic District, in Whitesburg in Letcher County, Kentucky, is an 82 acres (33 ha) historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It included 86 contributing buildings, four contributing structures, and a contributing site.”
Wikipedia article Whitesburg Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 4 National Register listings published here for Letcher County · listed in 2006 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Portions of Main Sts., Broadway, Bentley, Webb, and Hayes Aves., Church, Pine, Cowan, Madison Sts, River Rd., Hazard Rd, Whitesburg, 41858
When was it listed? September 2006
Category. district
Census division. Whitesburg
National Register reference number. 06000813 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

192 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 192 fires within 5 miles of Whitesburg Historic District between 1997 and 2020, burning about 12,813 acres in total. None started naturally. 24 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	98
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	46
Arson/incendiarism	24
Recreation and ceremony	18
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Smoking	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2002	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	not named
8 September 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	10 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	not named
30 September 2007	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	not named
25 September 2012	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	WHITCO HIL
22 September 2001	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	not named
31 August 2012	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	COWAN
24 August 2012	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	COWAN
23 August 2008	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Kentucky Division of Forestry	not named

Every fire recorded in Letcher County

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Whitesburg Historic District: 2 prospects, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Clay, Silica. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Gordon Lewis Sandpit	Silica	Prospect
Pine Mountain Gap Shale	Clay	Prospect
Whitesburg Mill Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Whitesburg Mine	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Letcher County

Storms near this property

41 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Whitesburg, the town this property stands in, in 41 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 20 thunderstorm wind, 8 flash flood, 7 hail, 5 heavy rain. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2004	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	$500,000	One foot of water was over Highway 931, south of Cowan. Highway 931 was washed out near Highway 2035 and residents were evacuated out of their homes in Cowan. Highway 2035 was impassable and water was reported to have flooded into homes.
July 2004	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	$110,000	Greater than six inches of water was flowing across the intersection of Kentucky Highways 119 and 2035. Near the community of Cowan, two to three people were evacuated. Fifteen homes sustained interior water damage with an additional 15 homes receiving exterior water damage. Three to four bridges were washed out and a portion of Highway 931 was damaged.
May 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$50,000	Downed power lines left 3500 people without power across the county.
May 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$30,000	Numerous trees were reported down on Hwys 317, 805 and 343. Similar problems were also reported in Fleming Neon and Jenkins.
April 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$25,000	Trees down countywide. Road crews spent 2 days cutting downed trees off the roads.
August 2003	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	$10,000	Several areas of Letcher County were affected by flash flooding. At 3:30 pm EDT, four feet of water was reported running over Kentucky Route 7. At 4:13 pm, one to two feet of running water was reported over Route 1811, about 5 miles northwest of Whitesburg. At 4:24 pm, high water was reported flowing over Route 3402 from Little Dry Fork, making the road impassable. At 4:30 pm, 4 to 6 feet of water were reported over Doty Creek Road near Highway 7, washing the road out.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$7,000	A tree was blown down on Highway 15. Numerous large limbs were also blown down.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$5,000	Numerous reports of trees and power lines down throughout the county.
January 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$5,000	Trees were blown down on U.S. 119 near the top of Pine Mountain by wind gusts estimated at 62 mph.
November 1996	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	$5,000	no account filed
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$4,000	A large tree was blown down onto a shed. The tree took down power lines leading to the adjacent house and crushed the power meter attached to the house, while doing only minor damage to the house itself.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$3,000	One tree and one power line were blown down.
August 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$3,000	High winds brought trees down in the area. One tree fell onto a truck producing damage.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$3,000	Trees and power lines were downed across the county.
March 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$3,000	no account filed
April 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$2,000	Power lines blown down in the Dry Fork area.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$1,000	Tree down on Highway 3409 near McRoberts.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	$1,000	Large tree down.
May 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	-	A tree was blown down.
May 2016	Hail	Whitesburg	-	Numerous reports of quarter to golf ball size hail were sent in by the public and trained spotters.
August 2011	Heavy Rain	Whitesburg	-	A half inch of rain fell in Whitesburg between 255 and 310 pm.
February 2011	Heavy Rain	Whitesburg	-	The storm total rainfall since 930 am was 1.5 inches.
September 2011	Heavy Rain	Whitesburg	-	A half an inch of rain fell in 30 minutes near Whitesburg. The total rainfall since Sunday evening was 3 inches.
September 2011	Heavy Rain	Whitesburg	-	A coop weather observer reported that 3.38 inches of rain had fallen near Whitesburg since Sunday afternoon. Of that total, 2.27 inches had fallen since 7 am Monday morning.
September 2011	Heavy Rain	Whitesburg	-	The 12 hour rainfall total ending at 8 pm at Whitesburg was 3.05 inches. The 24 hour rainfall total was 4.16 inches.
August 2008	Hail	Whitesburg	-	Penny size hail was reported near Millstone on Highway 2545.
April 2007	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	-	Solomon Road closed due to flooding.
January 2004	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	-	Roads were closed due to high water, including: Kentucky Route 160 at Smoot Creek (about 2 miles west of Whitesburg), Kentucky Route 931 South (Whitesburg), and Route 2034 (northeast of Whitesburg). Water was also over the road on Kentucky Route 15 at Maryland Drive and Jenkins Road in Whitesburg.
June 2004	Hail	Whitesburg	-	A cooperative observer reported that hail with the diameter of nickels was falling.
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	-	Two trees were down.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	-	Trees were down.
March 2002	Flood	Whitesburg	-	A small amount of water was reported over highway 15.
May 2002	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	-	Heavy rains caused water to flow over Circle Road and Jenkins Road.
October 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	-	Numerous trees were blown down.
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	-	Trees were downed countywide.
February 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitesburg	-	Trees were downed at numerous locations in the county.
March 2004	Flash Flood	Whitesburg	-	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Whitesburg	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Whitesburg	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Whitesburg	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Whitesburg	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Letcher County

Newspapers printed here

1,006 digitised pages

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 208 issues, 1,006 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.

Newspaper	Published
The Mountain Eagle	1907 to Current

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 06000813 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Letcher County	All 4 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.