[PW] "Mountain Empire" name origin

[Bristol Library]

Hello,
This is actually a regional question, but so far I've had no luck in finding
the answer locally so thought I would ask the Collective Wisdom (and people
who have access to newspaper databases!)

The region of southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, and parts of West Virginia
and Kentucky is sometimes referred to as "the Mountain Empire."  We're
trying to find the origin of the term.  A local historian thinks it might be
related to an effort to form a new state in that area in the 1800s; other
references seem to link it to the early 1900s with the lumber and coal
companies formed more or less an empire of their own,  but no one seems to
have a definite answer.  I've contacted Mountain Empire Community College
and the reference person there is also searching for the origin.  A number
of businesses and governmental entities have adopted the term as part of
their names but again, no one seems to know the origin.  We have a book,
Double Destiny, copyrighted 1956 which uses the term in the jacket copy:
"... the people in the "Mountain Empire"--the highlands country he calls his
own."  I take this to mean the term was already fairly well known by that
time at least.

TIA for any help,
Jeanne
-- 
Bristol Public Library
Bristol, VA/TN