West Van Lear, KY

West Van Lear is an unincorporated Johnson County community in eastern Kentucky's Big Sandy coal country. The place has its own ZIP code, 41268, and a post office dating to April 1912, even though it has no municipal government. It sits west of Van Lear, the former company coal town along Miller Creek, where Consolidation Coal developed mines and rail connections in the early twentieth century. The 2020 census counted 768 residents.

West Van Lear's present-day map is made from the institutions that keep an unincorporated place legible: a small grocery store, volunteer fire department, community center, and post office. Miller Creek and the Big Sandy watershed set the valley geography, while Paintsville supplies the nearest larger county-town orbit. The nearby Van Lear coal story, including its mines, railroad, and surviving community history, gives West Van Lear a regional frame without making the two places the same. It is an Appalachian crossroads community with a postal identity and a handful of local gathering points.