Enchanting Forest: The Lilley Cornett Woods

Enchanting Forest: The Lilley Cornett Woods Patricia Shirley Deep within the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, an amazing old-growth forest flourishes today as a living museum of hardwoods, flora, and fauna. Located on the Cumberland Plateau's steep slopes, the Lilley Cornett Woods is a remnant of the mixed mesophytic forests that once covered much of the eastern United States. Dr. E. Lucy Braun, an early researcher of virgin forests in Eastern Kentucky, considered this region as seedbed for regenerating North America's vegetation, after the last glacier receded 10,000 years ago. Lilley Cornett How did this unusual forest survive? At first it may have been luck; but during the second decade of the 1900s, a rough mountain man became a saving force. Born at Skyline, Kentucky, Lilley Cornett was descended from Virginians who were early settlers along Line Fork Creek. Although uneducated, Lilley was a shrewd businessman. After serving in World War I, he gradually bought land along Line Fork. He accumulated this property while working as a miner for nearby coal companies. By the time large logging companies had cut out regional virgin forests, Lilley owned five tracts of unlogged timber where his woods stands today. Surface and subsurface mineral rights had evidently been sold earlier to coal companies, but mining had not been initiated on this land. Cornett refused all offers for his timber rights and allowed nothing cut in his precious forest. He removed only chestnut trees, killed by the Patricia Shirley recently retired from the University of Tennessee. Her poetry, stories, and nonfiction have appeared in several magazines and anthologies. 50 national blight early in the twentieth century. A frugal man, Cornett also built hog pens on his forest ridges from these logs, and the seemingly indestructible rails are still in place today. He sometimes spent weeks at a time in his woods to protect its boundaries from other men and the elements. During periods of dry weather, he often hired crews to guard against forest fires. Lilley Cornett had his own reasons for obtaining and preserving his forest. Appalachian writer Albert Stewart described Lilley as a man who followed his own ways and his own counsel. Dr. William Martin, director of the Lilley Cornett Ecological Station through Eastern Kentucky University, said, "I don't know if Lilley was an environmentalist in the sense of the word today, but his forest was very important to him." The Area Remote from interstate highways, the Lilley Cornett Woods rises in the rugged Cumberland Plateau mountains region that slants from east to west and joins Kentucky to Virginia and Tennessee at Cumberland Gap. Cut by the fast-moving Cumberland River, Pine Mountain lies close to the south and beyond is the highest peak in the range, Black Mountain. Oral tradition tells that Daniel Boone explored where the Lilley Cornett Woods stand, and it is history that Shawnee and Cherokee hunting trails ran nearby. Whether you leave State Highway 15 for looping Highway 7 at Jeff or Isom, the blacktopped road is good. From Isom, one bridges Rockcastle Creek and the Kentucky River's north fork. After Blackey, Highway 1103 snakes farther into ridges; water seeps from sandstone rock faces. Wooden footbridges swing over Line Fork Creek, which 51 hurries to join the Kentucky River. In budding spring, freshly plowed gardens appear, and new foliage greens the surrounding steepness. Lying on either side of Line Fork Creek in mid-Letcher County, this 540-acre treasure contains many hardwood giants that are over 400 years old. Towering trees command ridges or rise from ravines to form the only surviving near-virgin forest, of any size, in Eastern Kentucky. Shale, siltstone, sandstone, and coal are also abundant in this forest. Coal seams of 18 to 24 inches run under the ground or are sometimes exposed at the surface. Until early in the twentieth century, coal was of little value to the mountain people, and early settlers felled majestic trees with no idea of future conservation. Even walnut was used for firewood in primitive homes. Countless acres of forest were cleared for individual farming and logging, and livestock was allowed to run the ridges for a hundred and fifty years...