From "The Enterprise Community PHILPOTT Valley" by Roy Green
Railroads and Coal in the Valley

An excerpt from Langford's Johnson County History, 1921, state about coal in Johnson Co, "...... a bituminous vein 12" thick, too thin to possess any degree of publicity outside of the county, sofy and inflamable and unsurpassed in the world in quality. It is know as the Philpott coal, so called because a man by the name of Lynn (Lindon) Philpott owned the land on which it was found and operated the mine for years.: The Philpott family came from North Carolina in the early 1870's, bought 120 acres on stage road in the east end of the valley. He built a substantail home that stood in livable condition until about 1940. He accidentally discovered this coal from an out-cropping in a creek bed where he was digging a water hole to supply water for a steam cotton gen he had just built. Cotton was the main cash crop at this time. When he dug into the coal by a slope following the vein, it soon reached a thickness of 18 inches. By 1921, when Langford's History was publised, several small mines were mining 18" coal. More about coal later but the name Philpott has left it's imprint as the name for the area. This article is dealing with the specified community in Johnson County, but we need to point out that this basin extends west into Franklin County for about 21/2 miles and the name Philpott Valley applies beyond our border! A road from Ozark and a local voting precinct for Franklin County also carries the name, but back to Johnson Co... Return to THE PHILPOT FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER Return to REMEMBERING BEDFORD COUNTY TENNESSEE Return to FAMILY GENEALOGY CONNECTIONS