[3] Washington County has the highest high school graduation rate (84.5%), while Adams County has the lowest (68.6%). [25], Both central and southern Appalachia suffered tremendous violence and turmoil during the Civil War. The Quecreek Mine rescue in 2002 and continuing mine subsidence problems in abandoned coal mines in western Pennsylvania as well as the Sago Mine disaster and Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia and other regions have also been highlighted in recent times. As lands in eastern Pennsylvania, the Tidewater region of Virginia and the Carolinas filled up, immigrants began pushing further and further westward into the Appalachian Mountains. Urban Appalachians are people from Appalachia who are living in metropolitan areas outside the Appalachian region. Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15, 1528, and applied the name. A competing and often more popular name was the "Allegheny Mountains", "Alleghenies", and even "Alleghania". [90] Ghost stories native to the region include the story of the Greenbrier Ghost, which is rooted in a Greenbrier County, West Virginia, murder.[87]. Murder stories, such as Omie Wise and John Hardy, are popular subjects for Appalachian ballads. In the 2014 midterms, the West Virginia House delegation became exclusively Republican, and as part of the Republicans gaining a Senate majority, Republicans won Senate seats in Arkansas and West Virginia with Tom Cotton and Shelley Moore Capito respectively. [7]:187–193 The breakdown of authority and law enforcement during the Civil War may have contributed to an increase in clan feuding, which by the 1880s was reported to be a problem across most of Kentucky's Cumberland region as well as Carter County in Tennessee, Carroll County in Virginia, and Mingo and Logan counties in West Virginia. [93] By 1999, 1.4 million acres were extinguished as a result of deforestation by natural resource industries. Sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes. Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia (p. 86-88). Arguably the most successful logging firm in Appalachia was the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Company, established in 1927 and renamed Georgia-Pacific in 1948 when it expanded nationally. [13], In northern U.S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃənz/ or /æpəˈleɪʃənz/. The remaining half of Appalachian Ohio counties were designated "transitional", meaning they lagged behind the national average on one of the three key indicators. In the early 20th century, large-scale logging and coal mining firms brought wage-paying jobs and modern amenities to Appalachia, but by the 1960s the region had failed to capitalize on any long-term benefits[4] from these two industries. [84], In the 20th century, national trends began to have more of an effect on education in Appalachia, sometimes clashing with the region's traditional values. This article briefly covers what are plateaus, types of plateaus and the crops grown on them. There are rolling surfaces and flat-topped hills dissected by rivers flowing through the area. An interesting feature in the Appalachian plateau is the Chattooga river which starts up in North Carolina and flows down through the Appalachian plateau. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people. The presence of Africans in the Appalachian Mountains dates back to the sixteenth century with the arrival of European colonists. [104] Eastman Chemical, also established in 1920, is Tennessee's largest single employer. [115] Another photojournalist, Shelby Lee Adams, has been photographing Appalachian families and lifestyle for decades. As early as the 18th century, Appalachia (then known simply as the "backcountry") began to distinguish itself from its wealthier lowland and coastal neighbors to the east. [19]:7–13, 19. Crops such as rice, maize, little millets and beats, oilseeds, groundnuts (peanuts), soybeans etc are grown here. [98], In the late 19th century, the post-Civil War Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the nation's railroads brought a soaring demand for coal, and mining operations expanded rapidly across Appalachia. By 1900, the Chattanooga area and north Georgia and northern Alabama had experienced similar changes due to manufacturing booms in Atlanta and Birmingham at the edge of the Appalachian region.