Pall Mall, the village, is co-extensive with the "Valley of the Three
Forks o' the Wolf." As a stranger first sees Pall Mall it is but a
half-mile of the mountain roadway that runs from Jamestown, the county
seat of Fentress county, to Byrdstown, the county seat of Pickett.
The roadway comes down from the top of "The Knobs," a thousand feet
above, and it comes over rocks of high and low degree, a jolting,
impressive journey for its traveler. It reaches the foot of the mountain
along one of the prongs of the Wolf, crosses them at the base of the
eastern mountains and passes on to the northern side of the river.
At the post office of Pall Mall, which is also the store of "Paster"
Pile--a frame building upon stilts to allow an unobstructed flow of the
Wolf when on a winter rampage--the road turns at right angles to the
west. Through fields of corn it goes, across a stretch of red clover to
the clump of forest trees which is the schoolhouse grounds and in which
nestles the little church that has played such a prominent part in the
life of the village. Then the road goes beside the graveyard and again
through corn to the general store of John Marion Rains, which with five
houses in sight--and one of these the York home--marks the western
confine of Pall Mall.
One can be in the center of Pall Mall and not know it, for the residents
live in farm houses that dot the valley and in cabins on the
mountainsides.
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