A Mr. King is known to have been among the first settlers of the Letcher County valley formed by what was later called Kingdom Come Creek. According to local legend, when later settlers arrived in that valley and asked who'd come first, the answer was usually "King done come."

An early settler of the Cabin Creek area of Lewis County, a man named Brown, got his living by stealing from his neighbors. One of them, after noticing his corn was disappearing from the corn patch, decided to lie in wait to trap the offender. When Brown showed up, the neighbor confronted him with a stick and chased him down the creek. Another man was milking his cow when his wife saw Brown rushing by and she called her husband , "Look at Brown run." Since then the stream along which he made his getaway has been known as Browns Run.

They say that the Wolfe County town of Helechawa was named for the fact that, many years ago, there was only one road leading into or out of the place, a dirt road that was so bad that people would say it was hell-each-a-way.