MOUNTAIN HAINTS SERIES Continues

Unsolved murder of Pine Mountain School Teacher Lura Parsons Remains One Of Kentucky's Greatest Mysteries 100 Years Later                                           
(This is a two-part story. The second installment will be shared next week.)
By: JENNIFER McDANIELS
Appalachian Journalist

(As Published In The Tri-City News)

HARLAN, KY - The shrill whistle of a steaming locomotive pierced the mountain silence 100 years ago on the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River in Harlan County. It was a train carrying Pine Mountain Settlement School teacher Lura Parsons and a prominent and politically aligned Kentucky state assistant veterinarian on board. Although it is claimed the two did not know each other, they were both headed across Pine Mountain to the settlement school when the train stopped at the L & N station in the community of Dillon, which was located near what is now known as Laden, between Putney and Totz On Sept. 7, 1920, Parsons was returning from a vacation break she had spent with her family in Garrard County, Kentucky and the state assistant veterinarian, Dr. C.H Winnes, was traveling to Pine Mountain Settlement School to test cattle for tuberculosis. While the two reportedly did not know each other at the time, both Parsons and Winnes would go down in the annals of Kentucky history as being a part of one of the state’s most horrific, sensationalized, and mysterious murders.