The story of Packard and Pat Neal

Patricia Neal in 2001

Sometimes when I am looking for something in particular in our archives, I will stumble upon something else that catches my eye. Inevitably, I veer off for a moment to read a little bit about whatever it is, and then, before I know it, I find myself going down a completely different rabbit hole in search of information on a new topic.

Such was the case last week when I ended up flipping pages of old Whitley Republicans in search of reports concerning the southern Whitley County community once known as Packard.

Depending on where you reside in the county, the story of Packard may be one that you’ve heard many times. I, however, am just now learning about its history, and it is quite intriguing to say the least.

We have a hardback book here in the News Journal offices titled “History and Families of Whitley County, Kentucky.” It was published in 1994, and just as the name implies, it dedicated about 350 pages to compiling information on the county’s people and places, including Packard.

In the book, a Vicki Cooper is named as the author of a brief history of Packard, saying, “Packard, Kentucky came into being in 1911, when T.B. (Breck) Mahan and the Mahan-Jellico Coal company opened mines in a hollow [n]ear Big Patterson Creek in Whitley County. The coal camp was named for Miss Amelia Packard, a Brooklyn, New York born student and teacher at Cumberland College.”

The article went on to say that, while not as large as the nearby Gatliff coal camp, it managed to grow into one of the larger ones in the county, including several houses, a couple of churches, and later, a small school. At one point, the camp also saw a power house built that provided electricity for both the mining operations, and for the families’ homes.

There was a barber shop, a boarding house, a camp doctor, and several of the men came together to form a baseball team that would travel around to neighboring communities to play games. However, according to some (scarce) reports online, unsatisfactory working and/or living conditions led some of the mine workers to revolt, which in turn led to National Guard troops having to be deployed into the area to maintain peace.

I suppose things worked out, because life in Packard continued on until sometime in the mid-forties, when the coal apparently ran out and the once-thriving community became a veritable ghost town.

In 1965, Eugene Siler, Sr. wrote a column about Packard in the Whitley Republican. It said Packard has now vanished from the face of the earth. There is hardly more than a house or two left in the tree-lined hollow that once held Whitley County’s Packard along with its scores of neat dwellings, its two-story commissary, its power house and stable, its baseball diamond and barber shop, its boarding house and coal tipple.”

Of course, nearly sixty years after Siler wrote those words, there is likely nothing at all left to see in Packard now. I myself have never been to the area, but I’m sure that many of you out there probably have. From what I can ascertain, these days you’d be lucky to spot an old foundation, or perhaps some stone steps that long ago led up to a doorway, but that is about it.

Siler’s column also offered background on one of Whitley County’s most famous daughters – Patricia Neal – who was born in, you guessed it, Packard.

Once I started reading up on Pat Neal I was surprised that I had not heard of her before. I mean, she only won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actress, and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

No big deal, right?

Neal, according to Cooper, moved away from Whitley County at the age of five, relocating to Knoxville, Tennessee with her family. During her storied career, she would star alongside the likes of Andy Griffith, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and Paul Newman. She was married to, and had several children with, famous children’s author Roald Dahl, who wrote, among several other uber-successful titles, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Neal passed away in 2010 in Massachusetts, but how amazing it is to think about all that she accomplished after getting her start in life in a little old mining camp community right here in Whitley County, Kentucky.

Two books have been published about Neal’s life. One is Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2006), and the other is As I Am: An Autobiography (Simon & Schuster, 1988).