Van Lear is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and

coal town A coal town, also known as a coal camp or patch, is a type of company town or mining community established by the employer, a mining company, which imports workers to the site to work the mineral find. The company develops it and provides residen ...

Johnson County, Kentucky Johnson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 22,680. Its county seat is Paintsville. The county was formed in 1843 and named for Richard Mentor Johnson, War of 1812 general, Unite ...

, United States.

History

Incorporated in 1912, the town was named for a director of

Consolidation Coal Company Consolidation may refer to: In science and technology * Consolidation (computing), the act of linkage editing in computing * Memory consolidation, the process in the brain by which recent memories are crystallised into long-term memory * Pulmonar ...

(Consol),

Van Lear Black William Van-Lear Black (18 December 187518 August 1930) was an American publisher and civil aviation pioneer. Early life Black was born in Cumberland, Maryland, into a wealthy family who claimed they could trace their lineage back to the Amer ...

. It owes its existence to the viable efforts of John Caldwell Calhoun Mayo. Mayo bought coal rights to land along Miller's Creek in Johnson County, which he later sold to Northern Coal and Coke, which in turn was later acquired by Consol. Consol built five miles of railroad into the Johnson County property with money loaned by Van Lear Black's Fidelity Trust. Eventually five

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

s were opened and operated in Van Lear from 1910 through 1946. The vast coal deposits were mined from five underground mines around the clock. The miners included immigrant Irish, Italians and Slavs, as well as

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

ns and locals. The mines were integrated; both blacks and whites worked underground. During the boom years the population surpassed 4000. In 1945 Consol merged with the

Pittsburgh Coal Company The Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company was a bituminous coal mining company based in Pittsburgh and controlled by the Mellon family. It operated mines in the Pittsburgh Coalfield, including mines in Becks Run and Horning, Pennsylvania. Unusuall ...

, then divested itself of its Miller's Creek properties. The people who lived in company-owned housing were given first chance to purchase those homes and many did. However, most of the major buildings were torn down.

Van Lear today

Currently, Van Lear is an

. There are no deep mines operating in Van Lear proper, although some mines operate nearby. Most of the residents work in locations outside Van Lear, including the nearby cities of

Paintsville Paintsville () is a home rule-class city along Paint Creek in Johnson County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is the seat of its county. The population was 3,459 during the 2010 U.S. Census. History A Paint Lick Station was referred to in ...

, Prestonsburg, and Pikeville. Since the end of local mining, only a handful of businesses continue to operate in the Van Lear area, including a bookstore, Icky's 1950's Snack Shop (located inside the Coal Miners' Museum), Mine number 5 store/Webb's store, (owned by Loretta (Webb) Lynn's family) and Blood Moon Security Solutions, a private security company. Residents work in mining, education, health care, government, and retail/service jobs. The present population of Van Lear proper is roughly 1600. The total population of the Van Lear postal district (including Butcher Hollow) is over 3000. The Van Lear mines are referred to by

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Loretta Lynn Loretta Lynn (; April 14, 1932 – October 4, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. In a career spanning six decades, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had numerous hits such as " You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My M ...

in her songs " Coal Miner's Daughter" and in the title song of her ''

Van Lear Rose ''Van Lear Rose'' is the forty-second solo studio album by American country music singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn. It was released on April 27, 2004, by Interscope Records. The album was produced by Jack White. The album was widely praised by criti ...

'' album, by

Tyler Childers Timothy Tyler Childers (born June 21, 1991) is an American singer and songwriter. His music is a mix of neotraditional country, bluegrass, and folk. He released his breakthrough album ''Purgatory'' in August 2017. Childers has released five stu ...

in the song "Coal" from his " Bottles and Bibles" album, and by

Dwight Yoakam Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter, actor, and film director. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album '' Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.''. Yoakam had considerab ...

in "Miner's Prayer" from his '' Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.'' album. Lynn was born in Butcher Hollow and Yoakam in nearby Pikeville.

Geography

Van Lear is located at (37.7712067, -82.7579371). It has an elevation of .

Demographics

According to the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

of 2000, there were 2,106 people, 807 households, and 625 families in the

ZIP Code Tabulation Area ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) are statistical entities developed by the United States Census Bureau for tabulating summary statistics. These were introduced with the Census 2000 and continued with the 2010 Census and 5 year American Community S ...

for Van Lear's ZIP code (41265). The racial makeup of the community was 99.7% White, 0.0% African American, and 0.3% Asian. In the community, there were 807 households, out of which 33.5% had children under the age of 18, 63.7% were married couples living together, 10.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.6% were non-families. 19.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and the average family size was 2.99. The median income for a household in the ZCTA was $26,600, and the median income for a family was $29,556. Males had a median income of $30,000 versus $18,375 for females. The per capita income for the ZCTA was $15,269. About 14.2% of families were below the poverty line.

Education

Most students in Van Lear attend:Johnson County Schools
Retrieved on June 1, 2009 *Porter Elementary school at Hager Hill (kindergarten-sixth grade) * Johnson County Middle School in

(seventh-eighth grade) *

Johnson Central High School Johnson Central High School is a public secondary school located at 257 North Mayo Trail on the northwest side of Paintsville, Kentucky, United States. The school serves as the Johnson County School District's consolidated high school. As of ...

in Paintsville (ninth-twelfth grade)

Notable residents

, country music singer. *

Crystal Gayle Crystal Gayle (born Brenda Gail Webb; January 9, 1951) is an American country music singer widely known for her 1977 hit "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". Initially, Gayle's management and record label were the same as that of her oldest sist ...

, country music singer and younger sister of Loretta Lynn. * Peggy Sue (singer), country music singer and younger sister of Loretta Lynn.

References

External links

Van Lear website
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Johnson County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky Company towns in Kentucky Populated places established in 1912 Former census-designated places in Kentucky Coal towns in Kentucky 1912 establishments in Kentucky