On a recent Sunday evening, 30 people come to worship in a wooden home by the side of a Kentucky county road. A handmade tin sign nailed to a lightpost announces “The House of Worship, everyone welcome”.

Inside, congregants fan themselves, waiting to take their turn at the pulpit. The church doesn’t have a minister and anyone is welcome. The service doesn’t end until everyone who wishes to has sung, read or preached.

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Josh Bailey, 14 years free of alcohol, riffs for 20 minutes, mixing scripture with stories of his past. “I used to drink all the time, until I discovered the Lord. Ain’t never had a buzz like Jesus Christ.” Josh and his wife Jenny have, he says, “nothing beyond their children and their faith in Jesus Christ”. They receive a disability check (he has seizures) and payments for the odd jobs she finds. They don’t have a car, so getting to the church requires a ride from a neighbor.

Another member has brought a friend, a local woman who disappeared for four years into the larger towns up north, until she was found living on the streets and invited back. She told of her descent into meth, and of what it meant to be welcomed into a church. “I have had it rough, but with you, and the Lord, I will keep my head high.”



It was four hours of euphoria that ended with everyone shaking hands and hugging – a reminder that, as Josh preached: “If you shake my hand in church, you will shake my hand outside in the world.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The House of Worship welcomes people from all around the county. Photograph: Chris Arnade

The House of Worship sits in Floyd County, at the center of the eastern Kentucky coalfields, where there is plenty of despair, and plenty of support for Donald Trump.

While cities such as New York, Los Angeles and DC have thrived, Floyd County, with a history of economic hardship, has declined further. The coal industry has been cut almost in half, addiction is rising, and town centers are being emptied by Walmarts. And while technology has helped decrease the sense of distance from bigger cities, the county remains economically and culturally separate.

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While the US has grown more diverse, it has stayed almost all white. While many Americans define themselves by their work, the residents of Floyd County define themselves equally by things outside of work. This is partly by desire, but also by necessity, since good jobs are rare. Instead, they find pride in their community: through church, morning breakfast groups, or at work-break tables outside the Walmart.

The real energy of Prestonsburg (Floyd County’s seat, population 3,500) is at its edges. At the north end of town are fast-food franchises strung along the road heading out of town – DQ, Hardee’s, McDonald’s. Each evening they fill with families eating dinner, and each morning with large groups who meet to socialize over coffee.

Each restaurant has a dedicated group, but the largest collects at the Hardee’s. It comprises up to 30 mostly older men. The hardcore regulars have printed up laminated Breakfast Club membership cards with a joking slogan: “There is great pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.”

For many, this is their new job. Darvin Burchet, 79, used to run coalmines, before they closed “because of Obama’s war on coal”. When he walks in, the others clear a prime corner space for him. He was the boss when many of them had jobs, and today he remains so. He proudly wears a Trump hat, as do many other morning members, and when the talk turns to politics, he is clear about why.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Darvin Burchet: ‘My father was a coalminer.’ Photograph: Chris Arnade

“Society has fallen apart and the economy has gone to hell. Finding a good worker now is almost impossible. People here lack pride. Can’t fully blame them. You work all day and then go home and see a neighbor just getting a government handout. Why am I busting my ass while he isn’t and doing just as good?”

The rest of the table nods as he speaks. “My father was a coalminer. Almost everyone here’s father was a coalminer. We all grew up poor, but had what we needed. It was a community. When someone’s house burned to the ground, we all helped out to rebuild it. Now guys will just steal the nails to sell for scrap metal, to buy drugs.”

Down the road at the McDonald’s, Orbin and Benny Slone, cousins aged 75 and 78, join another group. Much is the same. Both are sons of coalminers, and both come each morning to meet friends. Orbin was a teacher and a bluegrass musician, and Benny worked in the factories up north before returning home.



When I ask them about the town’s changes, they take turns speaking, weaving their voices into one. “We used to be self-sufficient here. People wouldn’t take gifts. We had pride and self-respect. Then we were flooded with gifts from the government. It took our pride away. Now people only take pride in drugs.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jerri Baird: ‘I never fit in.’ Illustration: Chris Arnade

This nostalgia is voiced by everyone in town, and is a change that is almost uniformly blamed on Obama. It is a change that is clear in the statistics. While coal jobs in the region having dropped 40% in last decade, and coal production 60%, deaths from overdoses have surged. Unlike in other towns struggling with drugs, there are few visible signs. The streets are clean, without discarded needles, and homes well kept. There are no clusters of people milling about on corners.

The impact is clear, though, above the city, on a mountaintop that once was mined for coal but is now home to a rehab center, run by Mountain Comprehensive Care, one of the town’s largest employers. The center is the temporary home to dozens of men and women drawn from all across eastern Kentucky; all are intent on ridding drugs from their lives, or following a mandate that they do so.

One of them is Jerri Baird, 27, raised in a small home four miles from the closest town. Her dad was a nurse, and her grandfather mined coal. She started using drugs at 14. Her stresses came from many directions, including growing up gay in a Pentecostal church. “I was bad in school. Didn’t ever feel I fit in. Grandfather smacked me in the face when he found out I liked women. Strong coalminer slap. Right across the face.”

Like many others, she notes the drugs offered relief from the boredom. “There was nobody doing nothing where I come from. Nobody working. Nothing.” When I asked her what she planned to do when back in town, she looked quizzical. “Like for work? I mean, there are no good jobs around. I done a few things. Clerked at restaurants, gas stations. Those sort of things. But that isn’t much of work to brag about.”

The loss of coal and the increase in drug use is felt in the heart of the community, in churches similar to the House of Worship. The city has more than two dozen that fill every Sunday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Foot-washing: the ritual takes place every year. Photograph: Chris Arnade

At the Highland Free Will Baptist church David Garrett, 66, has been preaching for decades. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran (three bronze stars), a lifelong coalminer, and the son of a coalminer.

He spoke to me just after Sunday service. “In mining, it is feast or famine. Right now, we are in a famine and the community is suffering, but we help each other out.” As he spoke, he gestured to the congregation, half of whom were on their knees, washing the feet of the other half, in a yearly ritual.

“Sometimes it just isn’t enough. I have to bury too many congregants, many who kill themselves. One woman who I knew since she was a baby shot herself in the stomach with a .38. The world is too material, and people don’t think they need the community. Brother. Do they ever need it.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Walmart is now an integral part of the community. Photograph: Chris Arnade

At the other end of the city, beneath mountains layered from mining, is a shopping plaza with Walmart and other discount brands. While many blame Walmart’s arrival for the destruction of community by closing local shops, it is now an integral part of Prestonsburg, functioning as the de facto town square.

It is the place where people come to gossip and teenagers to hang out, busy enough that the police patrol it on bicycles. Wooden tables and metal benches lining the plaza are filled with workers taking smoking breaks. When I ask one group of workers and their friends about coal, it sets off a chain of comments that spin into a long political argument – all polite. Obama is largely blamed, and the phrase “Obama’s war on coal” is being thrown around.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Esther Blair: ‘I worry a lot about paying my bills.’ Photograph: Chris Arnade

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Across the plaza, at a wooden table outside a grocery store, Esther Blair, 63, is taking a break with a group. When her friends go inside, she smiles at me, and when I ask her about her life, she seems surprised. She is shy and polite. “I am not sure I have much to say that would be interesting to anyone beyond Prestonsburg.” I tell her she does, which surprises her. She pauses to smoke, each sentence almost whispered, each punctuated with a period of silence.

“I work as a cashier. I always have. But I worry a lot. About paying my bills. About my child’s life. About my friends. I lost my husband two years ago. I have had a very hard life. I can’t win for losing.”

In the parking lot, Paul Gillespie, 28, is in his truck waiting for his wife in the Goodwill. He lost his leg from cancer when he was young and was placed in special education before quitting high school as a freshman. He pivots from the cab of the truck to the back edge, swinging his body on the doorframe. “I hated school. I was teased all the time. The other kids called me retard, or cripple. I learned to fight them. I had to.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Gillespie: ‘I love the flag, because I love fishing and hunting.’ Photograph: Chris Arnade

I ask him about the Confederate flag attached to his truck. “I love the flag, because I love fishing and hunting. That is what it means to be from the south, and I am proud of being from the south.”

During my week in Prestonsburg, I kept crossing paths with an older man who worked in the plaza. We chatted often. He was curious about why I was here, what New York was like. Each time I would ask to take his picture, and each time he refused with a cliched joke: “I am wanted by the FBI,” “I might break your camera.”



The last day, I thanked him for his time, and tried once more. He again declined, but this time he turned more serious. “I like you. But odds are you or your paper is going to write about gapped-tooth dirty dumb hillbillies filling their arms with heroin and pipes with meth. Everyone does that. They come here see the pretty landscape, but they don’t see the goodness.”



