The Red Flannel Rag

If you walk north or west from any point in Hopkins Gap, in a short while you will

find yourself on top of the Allegheny Mountain range of the Appalachians and in the

state of West Virginia. If you walk east or south, you will soon be in the Shenandoah

Valley of Virginia facing the Blue Ridge range of the Appalachian Mountains.

Hopkins Gap is approximately five miles long and varies from one mile to three

miles wide. Smaller ridges flow into the gap from the mountainsides creating a

succession of deep dark hollows with the narrow Hopkins Gap running through the

center. The hollows all had streams running through them. Rainfall kept most of the

streams flowing, but some were fed by cold springs that dripped through the rocks from

beneath the mountains.

There was an abundance of resources available in Hopkins Gap for subsistence

living. The ridges that angled into the Gap were rich with wild fruit of all kinds —

blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, and huckleberries. The huckleberry crop was

periodically guaranteed. When the old huckleberry bushes stopped bearing, people

would set fire to a mountain ridge. The following year, new huckleberry bushes replaced

the burned trees and underbrush. On top of the ridges, local people cleared patches of

land and planted communal orchards of cherry, apple, peach, and pear trees.

The mountains provided abundant wild game that was harvested for meat and

skins — deer, bear, squirrels, raccoon, skunks, and bobcats. Muskrats were trapped

along the streams for their skins that brought a good price from the fur buyers.

In the early days, the mountains were covered with soft wood and hardwood trees.

White pines, spruces, bull pines, and poplars blended with white oaks, red oaks,

chestnuts, hickory, walnuts, and maples of all varieties. Each type of tree had a different

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