Unsolved Murder of Pine Mountain School Teacher Lura Parsons (Pt 2)

MOUNTAIN HAINTS Series continues
Part Two Of Pine Mountain Schoolteacher Laura Parsons' Murder Dives Into Some Of Harlan County’s Darker History
BY: JENNIFER McDANIELS
APPALACHIAN JOURNALIST

(As Published In The Tri-City News)

There is not much known about Lura Parsons, the Pine Mountain Settlement School teacher who was viciously assaulted and murdered on Laden Trail on Sept. 7, 1920. Even though she made headlines throughout the nation, her background is as shadowed as the lone, mountain trail where her body was found. Parsons was bigger in death than she was in life. Perhaps it is because her murder was shrouded in mystery and shady politics, as well as volatile social issues of the day, that her story has grown to be legendary, handed down from mountain family to mountain family. Folk Studies Professor Theresa Osborne said that is how lore and legends are born  -  because there is always more to the story than what has been officially recorded. The context of historical events is often more interesting, and that is no exception in Pine Mountain’s unsolved Lura Parsons murder case.