In a town where residents are know by nicknames like Picket, Fuzzy, Hot Dog, and Chicky, people from just ten minutes away are considered outsiders. Yet at the height of its coal-mining boom, Murray City was home to nearly 2,000 people. The sense of pride that residents still glean from the past can be seen in the plaques that commemorate old mine sites and a train engine that rests in front of the old depot on tracks that now lead to nowhere. The Murray City depot used to literally be “the end of the line,” a phrase which in many ways continues to define this rural community.
