Diamond Girls Mark Unknown Graves at Pleasant Hill

The “Queen Bees” of the Diamond Girls at Pleasant Hill, (L-R) Eloise James, Bennie Johnson, Jewel Forney, and Georgia Stanford.
Photo By: W. Clay Crook / The Lexington Progress

Article by Clay Crook-

The heat and humidity continued to oppress a small city of tents near Warren’s Bluff, fires burned long into the night as moans from the fevered sick kept the exhausted rail workers awake. The twenty-four miles from Perryville to Lexington was nearing completion, but an epidemic among the men who labored at the spur of the Tennessee Midland Railroad, later known as the “Peavine” slowed the progress to a standstill. Victims from the raging fever were loaded into wagons and moved north across…

For the complete story, see the May 23rd edition of The Lexington Progress.

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