Hazard unveils downtown coal miner memorial honoring more than 400 names

More than 400 names now stand in the middle of downtown Hazard, carved into a permanent coal miner memorial in Triangle Park that turns Perry County’s mining losses into part of the city’s everyday view. The tribute was unveiled near the Hazard Police Department at the Farmer’s Market Pavilion, where Hazard/Perry County Tourism invited friends and family members of honored miners to attend.

The project took more than two years and was a collaboration among the City of Hazard, Perry County government and Hazard/Perry County Tourism, Hazard City Manager Tony Eversole said. Eversole said significant research went into collecting the names of people who died in different parts of the coal industry, a process that gave the memorial its weight beyond the ribbon-cutting itself.

The installation is surrounded by coal and includes engraved artwork showing a miner heading to work with a hard hat and pickaxe, early-1900s coal camp houses in the background and modern mining machinery in the foreground. Local accounts described the memorial as honoring more than 400 Eastern Kentucky coal miners who lost their lives in the industry, while smaller side monuments list more than 280 Perry County miners killed while working.

By placing the memorial in Triangle Park, officials put Hazard’s coal history in the center of daily life rather than in a place people visit only for ceremonies. That matters in a county where coal and lumber shaped the region’s growth, and where Hazard still celebrates its coal heritage each September with the Black Gold Festival downtown. The new memorial also joins other public remembrance sites in the city, including tributes to war veterans and East Kentucky Flood victims.

The memorial arrives with a broader safety context that still resonates in the coalfields. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the fatal work-injury rate in 2024 was 3.3 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, and the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said Kentucky coal recorded zero fatalities in calendar year 2023, the first such record in the history of the Kentucky Division of Mine Safety. In Hazard, those numbers now sit alongside a wall of names that gives the region’s mining history a permanent, visible place in the heart of town.