Leatherwood Creek and Stribbling community. Found this in loose leaf form, probably from a book on History of Stewart County TN. but not sure. Was written somewhere between 1970 and 1980. In the late 1800s there were two iron companies in the Leatherwood Creek area. Both the Clark and LaGrange furnaces were at Stribbling, a community of about two thousand people located near the mouth of Leatherwood Creek. The LaGrange Company owned the only store, a large log building that supplied everything. One early resident, Hilmus Bartels, remembers hearing his mother and father talk about the typical work day: from 4:00 a.m. when the company whistle blew, until 9:00 p.m. when it blew again--six days a week. His father worked hauling charcoal to the furnaces at Stribbling, He hauled the charcoal on a wagon drawn by six horses. The wagon was equipped with water buckets and on every ridge water was stored in barrels in case a load of charcoal caught fire. Aload of charcoal consisted of some 140 bushels and was loaded and unloaded by hand. His father hauled two loads a day, He would arrive home after his grueling seventeen-hour day, tend the horses, grab a bite to eat and fall into bed. Contractors cut timber and stacked it in charcoal hearths where it was covered with leaves and dirt, then burned to make charcoal. If the contractor let the fire burn too long and burned up the charcoal, he had to pay the company for the timber he had wasted. Farther up the creek the Leatherwood Community had a post office at Hart, Tennessee. There was one store and two churches. Some of the early residents of Leatherwood that Mr Bartles remembers were Stavely, Borens, Hart, Settle, Bartels, Pearl, Cathy, Moore, Harris, Scarbrough, Kirksey, Hilmus, Reed, Watkins, Bell, Fowler, Gray and Lane.