Cawood, KY

Cawood is a census-designated place and coal town in Harlan County, Kentucky, United States. The 2020 census counted 630 residents. A post office in Cawood was established in 1890 by Wilson S. Hensley. The short version is that Cawood carries an earlier story into the places people know and use now. That is the local read on Cawood: its past remains attached to the places people use now. He said one of his ancestors was Berry Cawood, a hero of the Revolutionary War. Cawood is located in south-central Harlan County in the valley of Crummies Creek, where it joins Martins Fork of the Cumberland River. U.S. Route 421 now borders the southern edge of the community, leading northwest down the Martins Fork valley 9 miles to Harlan, the county seat, and southeast across the Tennessee Valley Divide 14 miles to Pennington Gap, Virginia.