NEWS: Jellico Town, by Gene Siler, 1976, Whitley Co, Ky Date: Saturday, August 30, 2003 10:36 PM Submitted by Mary Lou Hudson ************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit, or for presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations who wish to use this material must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or legal representative and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of the consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. ************************************************************* The Whitley Republican, Williamsburg, KY – Thursday, May 20, 1976 Jellico – a town full of brothers By Gene Siler This town was full of brothers and it has claimed quite a few notables among its citizens through the years. It was always called Jellico – or Jillico as my grandmother used to say. "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down", according to the Negro spiritual. But our Jillico was not a Jericho by any means and the walls are still there – just about all of them, I think. Oh Yes! I promised to tell you about those brothers who lived up and down Main Street and really ran the town of Jellico. There were the Ellison brothers – Will and George. They were in furniture and undertaking and wholesale groceries. There were the Smiths – Frank and Charlie. They were in hardware and banking. There were the Bairds, whose first names I don’t recall, and they were in dry goods. There were the Silers – M.V. and Wymer. They were in wholesale groceries. There were the Harknesses, whose first names are hiding out from me right now. They were in the ice and electric power business. There were the McCombs brothers, Sam and Barrett. They were in the coal and mine supply businesses. There were the Mahan brothers, Lee and Wesley. Lee was a salesman and one a postmaster. Eight sets of brothers in one small town. All those mentioned, except Charlie Smith, have gone on to help run the affairs of the golden streets, we hope. But wherever they are, it is likely they will be busy in any situation – never idle. They were not good loafers. And now I hope you are hanging on my words to find out who were Jellico notables. I promised to tell, didn’t I? In music, there were Grace Moore, Metropolitan Opera Star and movie celebrity, and Homer Rhodehaver, nationally known song leader for the great evangelist, Billy Sunday. In sports activity, there were the Douglass brothers, Big Doug and Little Doug, both Big League Baseball pitchers, and there was Billy Harkness, University of Tennessee football quarterback. In the field of writing, there were Tom Siler, author and sports editor of Knoxville News Sentinel, and Grover Cleveland Kidwell, whose published stories appeared in national periodicals a generation ago. If you had come down town in Jellico on a Saturday night in those halcyon days I have mentioned you would have seen a great throng of peope at the Union Station. What on earth were they all doing? Well, talking and waiting for the evening trains from Knoxville. It was excitement and romance and crowd stimulation, you see. Then, if you had left the crescent driveway of the station and wandered up on Main Street, you would have found plenty of people still milling around, even until 10 o’clock. What brought up all of this Jellico lore? Well you see, I went to Jellico to the funeral of Nona Vermillion, a beautiful Christian, and as I sat between former Mayor Paul Harp, and Goldie Garber, both of them were voluble talkers. So we talked and talked about Jillico and its people. But we also listened to the funeral, mind you. Jellico – it’s the only one of its kind on earth, the town you can’t forget.