A Sunday paper for Appalachia. Culture, history, food, and stories that stick.

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🚂 WELCOME ABOARD
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While the Founders were writing speeches in Philadelphia parlors, somebody was standing in a mountain gap with a rifle, holding the western edge of everything those speeches promised. That somebody was from Appalachia. And we never much got a chapter in the textbook.

July 4, 2026 marks 250 years since the Declaration. Every major publication in the country is going to run something about it. Most of them will cover the usual suspects — Boston, Philadelphia, Virginia plantations, men in powdered wigs.

We can do something they can't.

We can tell the story from the ridge line.

This week we begin a new series highlighting Appalachia’s contributions to the American Story as we prepare to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.

But first, Happy Sunday!

I have been telling stories for a long time.

Forty-five years, give or take. Cops and courts. School boards and city councils. Fires and floods and the kind of human wreckage that turns up on a Tuesday morning when you least expect it. You write enough of that and you think you've seen the shape of things.

Then you start digging into what actually happened in these mountains.

And you realize you didn't know half of it.

Here's where I got hooked. I'm sitting at my desk, coffee going cold the way it always does, reading about a group of men who gathered on a riverbank in what is now eastern Tennessee in September of 1780. Nobody sent for them. No orders came down from some general in a fine coat. The Continental Congress had no idea they existed.

They just showed up.

Farmers. Hunters. Men who spent more time in the woods than in any town. They came from hollows and ridges that didn't have names on any British map. And they walked over the mountains in the cold and the rain and they changed the Revolution.

One hour and five minutes.

That's how long it took them to end Britain's southern strategy at Kings Mountain. Sixty-five minutes, and the chain of events that followed led straight to Yorktown and the country we live in today.

I have been proud to be an American my whole life. It's just there, like the mountains are just there — so familiar you stop seeing them.

But lately I've been seeing them again.

Two hundred and fifty years. That's what we're celebrating this July Fourth. A quarter millennium since a group of men in Philadelphia signed their names to a piece of paper and told the most powerful empire on earth to go to hell, politely.

What strikes me now, older than I used to be, is how much of that story ran right through here.

Not Philadelphia. Not Boston. Not the places that get the statues and the textbooks.

Here.

The men who protected the western flank of the Revolution lived in these mountains. The music that became American music grew up in these hollows. The food that fed this nation came out of Cherokee gardens and Scots-Irish kitchens. The labor that lit American cities came out of these mines. The stubbornness, the self-reliance, the deep suspicion of anyone who thinks they know better than you do — that's not a stereotype.

That's a founding principle. And it came from here.

I'm not saying Appalachia is more important than anyplace else. I'm saying it's more important than anyone told us.

Starting this week, I'm going to spend the next twelve Sundays telling you stories. One at a time. One person, one place, one moment. The Overmountain Men. Daniel Boone and the road west. The birth of American music. The men who went underground so a city somewhere could turn its lights on. The women who held everything together while the men were gone.

Stories that belong to us.

I am amazed, genuinely, at what this country is. Not in a flag-waving, chest-thumping way. In a quieter way. The way you feel when you learn something true about a place you've lived your whole life and suddenly see it differently.

These mountains were here before the country was. They'll be here long after the argument dies down.

What happened in them matters.

I think it's time we said so out loud.

Wayne Knuckles is a veteran of the newspaper industry and publisher of The Wayne Train. He began his career as a sports writer for his hometown weekly newspaper, The Pineville Sun.

The series begins below.

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⛰️ APPALACHIA 250
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Before there was a United States, before there were thirteen colonies arguing with a king three thousand miles away, there were people already living beyond the edge of all that.

Up in the hills.

Not cities. Not ports. Not places you’d find on a proper map.

Just mountains that rolled on forever, thick forests that swallowed sound, and cabins built by hand where the nearest neighbor might be a day’s walk away if you knew where to look.

That’s where part of America began. Not in a hall in Philadelphia, but in places where nobody was asking permission.

Most of them came from the borderlands. Scots-Irish. English. German. People who already knew what it meant to live between order and chaos. They didn’t arrive looking for comfort. They came looking for space.

And they found it in Appalachia.

Or maybe more accurately, they took it.

Because life there didn’t ease you in. It demanded something from you right away. You built your own shelter. You grew what you ate. You protected what was yours. If something broke, you fixed it or did without.

There was no one coming.

That does something to a person.

At the same time all this was happening, the official version of America was still hugging the coast.

Boston. New York. Charleston.

Ports, trade, merchants, letters back to England. Rules. Structure. Authority.

But the mountains didn’t care about any of that.

The people who moved into them didn’t either.

They weren’t anti-government in the way we argue about it today. It was simpler than that. Government just wasn’t there. So they became used to relying on themselves, their families, and the handful of neighbors they trusted.

That habit stuck.

👉 Read the full story

Next: A group of over-the-mountain fighters leave their homes, cross the ridges, and walk straight into one of the turning points of the Revolution.

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🗞 KAY’S CORNER
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Spring is my favorite season. All the dreariness, darkness, and dead stillness of winter seem to fade away as new life pushes through.

Early morning is the best time to take it in. Sitting on the front porch with a hot cup of coffee, listening to the wind chimes, it's easy to imagine they're ringing out a message: We made it through.

The trees begin to bud. The bushes sway gently in the breeze. Everything getting ready, like the world is stretching after a long sleep.

The crocuses peek through the ground, a little tentative, testing the air. The daffodils stand tall in their yellow and white, dressed for the occasion. The tulips follow in every color, no apologies.

Then comes the first mowing of the lawn. That smell. Nothing quite like it.

And the dandelions. Every year, more of them. Bringing the whole family.

Spring has always reminded me of newness. For those who believe, it echoes something deeper — old things passed away, all things become new. The season seems to know that, too.

Bible Verse of the Week:

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

- 2 Corinthians 5:17

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📜 KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS
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The Wayne Train visits all 423 Appalachian counties, one week at a time.

You don’t just pass through Leslie County.

You go there on purpose.

Tucked deep in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, this is the kind of place where the roads follow the creeks, the hills rise steep on both sides, and everything feels a step removed from the noise of the outside world.

Hyden sits at the center of it, a small county seat that does its job without much fuss. A courthouse, a handful of local businesses, and people who tend to know exactly who you are or at least who your people are.

Leslie County was carved out in 1878, named for Governor Preston Leslie, but its story runs deeper than that. This is coal country. For generations, the mines shaped the economy, the families, and the rhythm of life. When coal slowed down, the county didn’t reinvent itself overnight. It just kept going, the way places like this always have.

The land here is rugged. Not scenic in the postcard sense. Real. Working land. The kind that teaches you early that nothing comes easy.

But there’s a tradeoff.

You get quiet. You get space. You get a strong sense that people here mean what they say and stand where they stand.

Leslie County isn’t trying to be discovered.

It’s trying to be lived in.

Richard M. Nixon, who resigned as president in 1972 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, chose Leslie County for his first public appearance since his self-imposed exile in 1978.

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📜 APPALACHIAN ALMANAC
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Week of April 12–18

THE SKY ABOVE

The Lyrids are peaking this week.

Meteor shower. Best after midnight. No equipment required. Just walk outside, let your eyes adjust to the dark, and look northeast.

That's it.

We've made stargazing complicated somehow. It's not.

THE GROUND BELOW

When the first lilac leaves show up, the old rule says plant your cool-weather crops — beets, lettuce, peas.

The lilac has been keeping that calendar since before anybody thought to print an almanac.

Mid-April in Appalachia is a poker game. Warm days bluffing. Cold nights holding aces. That last hard frost is still out there, patient as a debt collector, waiting on your tomato seedlings.

Don't rush it.

ON THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

April 12, 1961

Twenty-seven-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to travel into space. He also became the first man to orbit the planet — a feat his capsule pulled off in 89 minutes.

A carpenter's son from a collective farm.

His farewell to ground control right before launch was Poyekhali! — Russian for "Off we go!"

Off we go.

The whole world changed while most people were eating breakfast.

April 14, 1865

Shortly after 10 p.m., John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box at Ford's Theatre and fatally shot Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln slumped forward, Booth leapt to the stage and ran.

Five days after Appomattox.

Five days after the war ended.

He thought it would help the South.

It didn't help anybody.

April 15, 1912

The Titanic sank in the early morning hours. More than 1,500 people went into the North Atlantic and didn't come back.

She left Southampton April 10th. Five days later, gone.

The ship that couldn't sink.

Same week. Same lesson. History doesn't care what you call unsinkable.

April 15, 1947

Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field at Ebbets Field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first Black player in major league baseball in the modern era. The Dodgers beat Boston 5-3.

Same date as the Titanic.

The worst thing and one of the best things share an anniversary.

History doesn't organize itself for your convenience. It just piles up, and we sort through it later.

April 18, 1775

Paul Revere rode out of Boston to warn the minutemen that British troops were coming — setting off the chain of events that led to the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Longfellow's poem made him famous. What didn't make the poem: Revere was captured that night and lost his horse somewhere outside Lexington.

The legend and the truth are always two different rides.

THE SIGN FOR THE WEEK

Don't plant until you've had your last cold snap, and don't trust a warm week in April.

Nobody ever got rich ignoring that one.

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📜 THE BACK PAGE
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Mudville had a problem.

Two outs. Bottom of the ninth. The kind of deficit that makes you start looking for your car keys.

The crowd was doing what crowds do — half of them already mentally in the parking lot, the other half still believing because that's what fans do. They believe until the lights go out.

Then Casey walked up.

You know the type. Big man. Slow stride. The kind of guy who doesn't need to hurry because he's decided the moment belongs to him already. He tipped his cap. He smiled at the jeering. He let strike one go by like it was beneath him.

Strike two, same thing.

The whole ballpark was holding its breath. Fifty years from now, half these people would tell their grandkids they were there. The other half actually were.

And then.

He swung.

Not a check swing. Not a foul tip. A full, beautiful, catastrophic swing at air.

In honor of the start of another glorious baseball season, let’s revisit the classic poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1880-1940)

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that—
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

The Wayne Train rolls out every Sunday morning.

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