Jenkins, KY

Jenkins is a Letcher County home-rule city in eastern Kentucky, with 1,902 residents in the 2020 census. The city was built by Consolidation Coal Company in 1911 at the foot of Pine Mountain, on a planned grid of homes, stores, schools, churches, a hospital, and company facilities. Its name honors George C. Jenkins, a Baltimore banker and Consolidation director. The railroad reached the city around 1912, tying the coal camp to outside markets. Pine Mountain rises immediately south of town.

The town’s coal-and-rail story remains visible at the David A. Zegeer Coal-Railroad Museum, housed in a restored 1911 depot with mining tools, railroad artifacts, photographs, and company-store scrip. Jenkins Independent Schools and a branch of the Letcher County Library serve the community, while U.S. 23 runs along the Kentucky-Virginia mountain corridor. Jenkins Homecoming Days brings the calendar back to the city’s own traditions. Jenkins is an eastern Kentucky city where a planned coal town, Pine Mountain, a depot museum, and a working school center meet.