Brookside, Kentucky

Brookside is a Harlan county community about five miles east of Harlan the near the mouth of Ages Creek on the Clover Fork of the Cumberland River. It was named for its location on the Clover Fork. Coal mining and processing arrived by the early twentieth century with the Clover Fork Coal Company and much later the Eastover Mining Company and Manalapan Coal Company.

The Brookside post office opened in 1930. In 1975 the Brookside and nearby Ages post offices were combined into a new Ages-Brookside post office. It closed in 2017.

Brookside was the site of a long and violent strike by the United Mine Workers of America and the Eastover Mining Company in 1973 and 1974. Much of the housing in Brookside was razed during the strike. The strike was the subject of the film Harlan County, USA.

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© 2025 David C. Elbon