Living as Lilley:Local Actor Celebrates Cornett's Legacy

BY SHANNON HOLBROOK

Kentucky Chautauqua actor David Hurt brings to life the story of Lilley Cornett, the miner who spent his life and fortune to protect an old growth forest in Eastern Kentucky.

Hurt, a Kentucky native and farmer who holds a master’s degree in theater, chose Cornett because of his own family ties to him.

“What drew me to play him was that I value someone like Lilley Cornett more than politicians and soldiers,” Hurt said. “He was a poor guy who put it on the line for what he believed in. He could’ve sold the timber and been rich. I wanted to know, ‘what is the nature of a man who would do that?’”

Cornett, born in 1880, worked as a coal miner most of his life, but also ran timber down the river. He was drafted and injured in WWI. “He lived in Letcher County, saved his money, and invested in the nearby virgin timber land, buying up contiguous boundaries,” Hurt said.

“Many tried to buy it or steal it from him,” said Hurt because most of Kentucky’s timber had been cut by the 1920s. Cornett refused to sell the land. “He and his family lived right there on the property and patrolled those acres. He knew the true value of old growth forest — the ecosystem created by the big trees.”

Cornett’s descendants sold the land in the 1970s to the state to protect it. It was turned over to Eastern Kentucky University in the 1980s. Now, Lilley Cornett Woods is 554 acres of mixed mesophytic forest, 252 of which is old growth and untouched. It is a registered national landmark and offers guided tours. Hurt keeps Cornett’s legacy alive in his one-man-show, which took a year to develop with the aid of local historians. He sent his script to the Cornett family to review. He recalled, “My first show was for their family reunion. There were 100 of them, in a clearing in the woods.” He has become good friends with the Cornetts, enjoying meals and making sorghum together. Until the pandemic, he was regularly performing Cornett throughout the year. Now, he looks forward to the time when he can bring this Appalachian hero to life again.