Way Down the Green River, Where Paradise Lay

A look at the effects of strip mining in Muhlenberg County and Western Kentucky through the words of John Prine's "Paradise."

Brooks W. Mitchell

John Prine graced the world with seven decades of witty, influential songs about interesting people and interesting places during interesting times; his song "Paradise" is no exception. "Paradise" highlights Prine's parent's hometown and his own childhood vacation spot, the (former) town of Paradise, Kentucky in Muhlenberg County. In the song, Prine paints an idyllic picture of the area and its charms before bluntly describing how the town and surrounding area were destroyed by strip mining via "the world's largest shovel" in the 1960s. This StoryMap takes a look at Muhlenberg County and Western Kentucky through the words of John Prine's "Paradise" and highlights how strip mining changed and impacted the area over the years. 

John Prine's iconic 1971 hit, " Paradise ." Shared under educational fair use.

"When I was a child my family would travel; Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born

And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered; So many times that my memories are worn"

John Prine was a talented guitar player but is most widely known for his witty lyrics and ability to perfectly capture a moment in time and place from the eyes of an "everyman." His musical career began at an open mic night in a Chicago club in the early 1960's, where he had " a few beers and wasn't really impressed with what [he] was hearing " and therefore muttered a few words under his breath. A fellow patron challenged him to get up on stage, so Prine did and performed his original, "Sam Stone," a powerful song about a Vietnam War veteran who returns from the war a hero only to become addicted to heroin. The audience was stunned and "looked at [Prine], looked at each other, looked at [Prine] again … seemed like an eternity and finally they started applauding." Prine was immediately offered residency at the club and shortly thereafter quit his day job as a postman.

Source:  Vanity Fair . Shared under educational fair use.

 Prine wasn't just a one hit - or even a one-decade - wonder. His entire career, from the release of the 1971 self-titled album to his 2018 release, The Tree of Forgiveness, was full of critically-acclaimed success and praise. The song  "Egg and Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967"  from his final album, for example, perfectly captures his ability to paint an interesting picture of a seemingly-normal time, place, and/or event.

The red star indicates the location of John Prine's childhood home, 1110 S. First Avenue, Maywood, Illinois

John Prine was born in Maywood, Illinois, a small suburb of Chicago, in 1946. Although he went to school in Maywood and worked as a mailman in the city after returning from a brief stint in the U.S. Army, he identified strongly with his Western Kentucky roots.

Prine's parents were from Paradise, Kentucky, a (once) small mining town along the Green River in Muhlenberg County where he spent his youth summers. In  a 1975 interview,  Prine mentions how special Paradise was to him as a child:

"There was always something different about the town. I could go to another town, maybe about five miles away, and there's just that much difference between Paradise. It was set aside from everything else."

"And daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County; Down by the green river where paradise lay?"

There is roughly three miles distance between Paradise, KY (northwest) and Bakers archaeological site (southeast)

Muhlenberg County was founded in 1798; however, human habitation of the area dates back much further. The  Baker archaeological site in Muhlenberg County , for example, dates back 5,000-8,000 years ago during the Middle Archaic period. 

The Civil War affected Western Kentucky, as well. Not only were men enlisted in the Civil War from the area, but the bloody 1861 Battle of Sacramento also occurred in neighboring McLean County. More information about the Battle of Sacramento can be viewed  in this video 

A slide map view of all (left) Kentucky archaeological sites encompassing Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Late Prehistoric periods and (right) Kentucky Civil War Battle locations.

Coal mining has been a part of the Euro-American  history of Kentucky  for over 250 years - Dr. Thomas Walker was the first recorded person to discover and use Kentucky coal in 1750 - and was also used likely used by the first, native inhabitants of the area as well. From Dr. Walker's discovery until recent times, the majority of economic activity in Muhlenberg County has been coal-related.

"Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking; Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away"

While coal mining is common in both Western and Eastern Kentucky, miners are drawing from distinctly  different geologic resources . The Western Kentucky Coal Field, as the physiographic region is known, is located within the  intercratonic  Illinois Basin. The Eastern Kentucky Coal Field is located within the Central Appalachian Basin, a foreland basin. In simplified terms, the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field was formed as part of a collision between what-is-now North America and Africa. This was one of  four orogenic episodes  that built the Appalachian Mountains. The Western Kentucky Coal Field formed around the same geologic time period but within the interior of the North American craton - and old, stable chunk of rock forming the nucleus of the North American continent. Despite being only ~100 miles away from each other, the two coal fields have a very different geologic history and produce different kinds of coal; Western Kentucky coal generally has a much higher sulfur value than its eastern counterpart.

An interactive map of coal fields within the United States.

Muhlenberg County, and specifically the area near Paradise, has been utilized for coal production for a long time. In fact, the first commercial coal mine in Kentucky history, the "Mclean drift bank," was opened near Paradise in 1820. (Back then, Paradise was called "Stom's Landing" with a brief stint being called "Monterey" after the Mexican-American War.)  

A diagram showing potential environmental impacts of strip mining.  Created by Paul Horn  and shared under educational fair use.

By the time Prine was born, the area around Paradise had been mined extensively. The coal mining companies decided to abandon the expensive and time-inefficient practice of sending miners below the surface of the ground and instead stripped the surface of the land to immediately access the resources beneath. This process, called strip mining, left a devastating toll on the landscape. 

"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel; And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well, they dug for their coal 'til the land was forsaken; Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man"

The extraction of resources had begun to take its toll on the area around Paradise even while Prine was a young boy. The construction of locks and dams altered the makeup of the environment and likely eradicated native species. Subsurface coal-mining operations, while not as damaging as strip mining, certainly were not environmentally-friendly either. Heavy machinery and steam-powered excavators had been used since the 1920s, but there use increased dramatically in the mid-1950s. In the early 1960s, the Peabody Coal Company introduced extremely large and powerful machines like  "The Big Hog,"  which weighed 10,000 tons and was capable of moving 115 cubic yards of material. Around the same time, the Tennessee Valley Authority constructed two Fossil Plants in paradise with a third in 1970. A barge-loading facility constructed in 1985 allowed coal to come by train, truck, or boat.

(Left) A large shovel digs near Sewellsville, Ohio in 1973. (Right) "The Big Hog" which worked in Paradise, KY from 1962 until the mid-1980s when it completed work and was buried in a mining pit (where it remains to this day). Source: Left image came from The U.S. National Archives; right image came from  Wikmedia Commons  ( CC BY 3.0 )

The hillside slope of Headwaters Twentymile Creek watershed in West Virginia, calculated from elevation maps, pre- and post-mining. Source:  Matthew Ross, Duke University  and shared under educational fair use.

Machines like "The Big Hog" literally move mountains. A  2016 Duke University  study estimated that strip-mined land in southern West Virginia flattened out terrain by 40 percent. This kind of mining has a very deep and wide-ranging impact on the landscape. The tops of mountains are scraped and the rockfill is deposited in nearby valleys. This creates a landscape where soils are potentially hundreds of meters deep, compared to the normal of half a meter to two meters deep. Water, as one might expect, moves differently through this kind of landscape.

Matthew Ross, author of the aforementioned 2016 Duke study, also points out that that we are uncertain of the long-term geologic impacts of strip mining:

“We have data that the water quality impacts can last at least 30 years [from strip mining], but the geomorphology impacts might last thousands of years.”

By the mid-1960s, strip mining had left a major impact on the environment of Western Kentucky. Large portions of land had been victims to the effects of strip mining, with dead vegetation and wildlife, acidic groundwater, rotten lowland timber, and metal-heavy water prevalent.  Hagerman  points out how strip mining left behind large amounts of flooding and still water, which caused so many mosquitos that local farmers drove their tractors wrapped in bedsheets. 

Peabody Coal strip mine, south of Colstrip, Montana. Photo taken June 1, 1973. Source:  The U.S. National Archives. 

"When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River; Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam

I'll be halfway to Heaven with paradise waitin'; Just five miles away from wherever I am"

From the 1960s-1980s, the Western Kentucky Coal Field was the number one producer of coal in the world, but with great cost to the local populations and landscapes. The areas reign did did not last long, however, as the public became more and more outraged about what was happening to the landscape and, eventually, more environmentally-friendly government regulations came into place. The Kentucky General Assembly passed the  Strip Mine Control Act in 1954  which was vague and loosely written but amended and "tightened up" in 1960 and 1964. In 1977, Congress passed the  Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act  (SMCRA) which provided a slew of regulations for coal mining in addition to requirements for post-mining land reclamation. Additional regulations in the '80s and '90s, including amendments to the  Clean Air Act , continued to make mining coal in Kentucky less and less profitable. Mechanization of the coal mining process had already greatly decreased the number of those employed in coal mining and the additional regulations continued to drive down the number of employed in Muhlenberg County.

Kentucky population change from 1990-2000, with Paradise, KY shown as a blue star.

Strip mining area in Wayne National Forest, Ohio, three years after being reclaimed (Jan. 6, 1960). Source:  The U.S. National Archives 

It may not come as much surprise that reclaimed strip-mining land does not return back to normal. A  2008 study  found that reclaimed strip-mining land has less soil nutrients, worse water run-off, and less biodiversity than before. Although it hasn't been utilized in Western Kentucky or the area around Paradise, other parts of Kentucky and central Appalachia have had success in reclaiming land by introducing elk from the Rocky Mountains. Elks are native to the region but went extinct in the late 1700s due to overhunting and habitat destruction. Reintroducing elk, wildlife scientists believe, is a way to bring these habitats back to a more native state. Their presence has positives and negatives on the landscape, but ultimately,  the impacts have been encouraging .

Historical and current ranges for Elk in the United States. Paradise, Kentucky is highlighted by the red star. The map legend can be accessed be clicking the button in the bottom-left corner.

The Paradise Combined Cycle Plant, which was opened in April of 2017 and runs off natural gas. Source:  The Tennessee Valtley Authority  and shared under educational fair use.

Recently, the TVA has closed the Fossil Plants in Paradise - two in 2017 and one in 2020. In its place, they built a natural-gas powered plant. Abundant natural gas wells exist in and around Muhlenberg County (as seen in the below map) and  demand is high as well .

A map of all horizontal oil and gas related wells in Kentucky, counties, watersheds, shale basins and plays with Paradise, KY shown as a blue star.

There is still coal production ongoing in the area, but major companies like  Peabody Coal are pivoting  away from mining in the area. More importantly, the residents of Muhlenberg County and Kentucky as a whole are planning for their best possible future in a life without coal.

This video highlights how citizens of a former coal mining town are plotting to reinvent themselves in the absence of coal mining.

John Prine passed away from complications related to COVID-19 on April 7th, 2020 leaving behind his wife, Fiona, and his two sons, Jack and Tommy. Per his wishes in the song "Paradise," half of his ashes were spread down the Green River. 

Images and Video

Note: All images and video shared for educational purposes only.

  • “A HUGE SHOVEL DIGS TOWARDS A SEAM OF COAL OFF ROUTE 800, NOTE ITS SIZE IN COMPARISON TO THE CAR BY THE TREAD OF THE... - NARA - 554770.Jpg.” Wikimedia, The U.S. National Archive, 25 Oct. 2011, Accessed March 12, 2021 at  URL 
  • Boyd, Norton. “Peabody Coal Company Strip Mine, South of Colstrip. The Coal Fields of the Powder River Region Cover Some 25,000 Square Miles..., 06-1973 (7065814977).Jpg.” National Archives Catalog, The U.S. National Archives, 22 Nov. 2016, Accessed March 13, 2021 at  URL 

References

  • Hagerman, Eileen Michelle. “Water, Workers, and Wealth: How ‘Mr. Peabody's’ Coal Barge Stripped Kentucky's Green River Valley.” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 115, no. 2, 2017, pp. 183–221. JSTOR,  www.jstor.org/stable/44981141 . Accessed March 11, 2021.
  • Greb, S F, et al. “Comparison of the Eastern and Western Kentucky Coal Fields (Pennsylvanian), USA - Why Are Coal Distribution Patterns and Sulfur Contents so Different in These Coal Fields?” USGS Publication Warehouse, United States Geological Survey, 2002, Accessed March 10, 2021 at  pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70024816 .

Map Layers

Any other maps used were created by the author using ArcGIS Online software

    This StoryMap was created by Brooks W. Mitchell for Penn State's GEOG 482: Maps that Matter course. All images, videos, and other resources are used under educational fair use.

    A diagram showing potential environmental impacts of strip mining.  Created by Paul Horn  and shared under educational fair use.

    The hillside slope of Headwaters Twentymile Creek watershed in West Virginia, calculated from elevation maps, pre- and post-mining. Source:  Matthew Ross, Duke University  and shared under educational fair use.

    Peabody Coal strip mine, south of Colstrip, Montana. Photo taken June 1, 1973. Source:  The U.S. National Archives. 

    Strip mining area in Wayne National Forest, Ohio, three years after being reclaimed (Jan. 6, 1960). Source:  The U.S. National Archives 

    The Paradise Combined Cycle Plant, which was opened in April of 2017 and runs off natural gas. Source:  The Tennessee Valtley Authority  and shared under educational fair use.

    Source:  Vanity Fair . Shared under educational fair use.