Brown Br

Brown Br is a holler that winds through the hills of Sitka, Kentucky. After driving down state route 23 south and traveling west on state route 201, followed by driving west on state route 1559, one finally reaches the intersection for Brown Br which stands for Brown Branch.

While driving down this holler, you'll see the rich appalachain vegetation abundant with agriculture.

In this field here, Grandpa ran and played with many of his cousins. While there is a paved street now, 60 years ago there wasn't much more than a dirt road. Before the dirt road, there was the creek that runs alongside Brown Branch. Grandpa commented that the creek was used as the street. He would haul coal up and down the hill in his truck through this creek on a daily basis. When asked "Did you ever get stuck?", he laughed and added non-chalantly that of course he got stuck in mud in all types of trucks and cars.

This is an original house (?) along Brown Branch with a tin roof. Grandpa commented that tin roofs are no longer around but "...you could sleep a mile a minute..." because of the sound the rain made when hitting the roof at night.

This is an original barn that Grandpa remembers playing in when he was a boy. He said that he would ask his maternal grandmother (Leva Ann Picklesimer) to take him and his siblings anywhere around the hollers, just to have a change of scenery and to do something. Grandpa loved to meet up with his cousins that lived in the Sitka and Flat Gap regions of Kentucky.

He recalls this barn in paticular that they would play in as children. Time, of course, has taken it's toll on the building. Grandpa commented repeatedly about the current status of the hollers. He was astonished how the buildings were dilapadated or completely overgrown with vegetation.

What it must feel like to travel down streets that you have traveled hundreds or thousands of times and to think back 60 years ago when they were dirt streets with cleared land all over filled with corn or tobacco crops.