Pikeville Cut-Through

The Pikeville Cut-Through is a rock cut in Pikeville, Kentucky, United States, created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through which passes a four-lane divided highway (Corridor B, numbered as U.S. Route 23 (US 23), US 119, US 460, and KY 80), a railroad line (CSX' Big Sandy Subdivision), and the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River. It is one of the largest civil engineering projects in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 18,000,000 cubic yards (14,000,000 m3) of soil and rock were moved, making the Pikeville Cut-Through second only to the Panama Canal (240,000,000 cubic yards (180,000,000 m3)) when ranking the hemisphere's largest earth-moving projects. Dr. William Hambley, who served as mayor of Pikeville for 29 years, Robert H. Holcomb, Chamber of Commerce president, and Henry Stratton, local attorney, spearheaded the project.

The Pikeville Cut-Through is 1,300 feet (400 m) wide, 3,700 feet (1.1 km) long, and 523 feet (159 m) deep. The project was completed in 1987 following 14 years of work at a cost of $77.6 million ($215 million in 2024 dollars).

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