Cut-Thru Project

The Pikeville Cut-Through Project

The Pikeville Cut-Through Project is one of this hemisphere’s largest engineering and earth-moving achievements, second only to the Panama Canal. Pikeville’s Cut-Through is a channel 1300 feet wide, 3700, feet long and 523 feet deep. The New York Times called it “the eighth wonder of the world.” Devised as a plan to create land for expansion and development, the project was the brainchild of Pikeville’s former mayor the late Dr. William C. Hambley.

As a youngster growing up in Pikeville, Hambley had grown up with the almost yearly flooding of the Big Sandy River which surrounded his horseshoe-shaped hometown and with the congestion caused by a railroad and three major roads converging in an extremely inadequate space. At the time, the railroad ran right through Pikeville, resulting in buildings and streets being covered with dust from coal being hauled north, and contributing to the perpetuation of substandard housing near the tracks. Hambley felt the railroad was a divisive element and must be moved if the town were to prosper.

After receiving his medical degree from Northwestern University and serving in the military, in 1954, Dr. Hambley returned home to set up his practice as a physician and surgeon. In that same year, he was appointed to the Pikeville Planning Commission and began to actively pursue his dream of moving the railbed.
Elected mayor in 1960, “Doc” Hambley started his search for funding. In 1963, with a $38,000 federal grant for a railroad relocation feasibility study and then with Pikeville’s being named one of the first nationwide Model Cities, the dream began to materialize. A $12.5 million Urban Renewal Project grant from HUD created the Model Cities Agency, the governmental unit which would act as overseer for the Cut-Through Project.

In 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission was established and, as luck would have it, began a plan for a corridor highway system in the mountains. The ARC’s plans for eastern Kentucky and Pike County, combined with one of the 1963 railroad relocation study’s options, assured the Cut-Through project was going to happen.

Phase I - Excavation
On November 26, 1973, nearly 23 million cubic yards of rock were blasted from Peach Orchard Mountain to create a ¾ mile channel, the future home of the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, the railroad tracks, and the convergence of US 119, US 23, US 460, and KY 80.
Phase I cost: $17,250,000.00

Phase II - Relocation
Seven years later on March 4, 1980, the relocation of the railroad and coal tipples from the center of town, the construction of a bridge across the cut, the diversion of the river, and the filling in of the original riverbed got underway. Five million cubic yards of dirt were moved to build a base for the highway. The rock and dirt moved from Phase I and Phase II created approximately 240 acres of usable land within the town.
Phase II cost: $22,200,000.00

Phases III and IV - Completion
Begun on March 15, 1983, the final stages of the project involved completion of the north and south interchanges and floodwalls, replacement of bridge access to downtown Pikeville, and construction of Hambley Boulevard right where the former railroad bed had been. These two phases resulted in a final 150 acres of usable land being created.
Phases III and LV cost: $19,700,000.00

Dedication
The Pikeville Cut-Through was dedicated on October 2, 1987, almost 14 years from when it began. Most of the 390 acres created has now been developed with expansion for Pikeville College, a new Pike County Health Department, Mountain Comprehensive Care, parking for Pikeville Medical Center, a ten screen Cinema, medical buildings, office buildings, the Pike County Housing Authority, the Pike County Extension Service building, a multipurpose outdoor recreation facility (Bob Amos Park), and headquarters for SouthEast Telephone, a local communication services provider. The Cut-Through stands as testimony to this mountain community’s determination to meet the challenges it faces.