Outfitters throughout eastern Kentucky, such as Sheltowee Trace Outfitters, provide gear and boat rental.

BBC: Adventure travel in eastern Kentucky

Eastern Kentucky is one of America's least meritocratic enclaves, but failure still carries a stigma.

ECONOMIST: The poor

In April, I travelled to Inez, a town in eastern Kentucky, where McCain was scheduled to speak at the county courthouse.

NEWYORKER: The Hardest Vote

AppalRed provides free legal assistance to low income persons in 37 counties, located primarily in the Appalachian hill country of Eastern Kentucky.

WHITEHOUSE: Addison parker | The White House

Here was the first important Union victory in the four-year war, when in 1862 Union forces broke the Confederate stronghold in eastern Kentucky.

FORBES: Battle cry

In a brief telephone interview in April, Mr. Daugherty blamed high poverty rates especially in Eastern Kentucky for his large case load and high approval rate.

WSJ: High Approvals From Judge Deciding Social Security Disability Claims

"It's the most negative campaign I've ever seen, " said Paul Blanchard, head of Eastern Kentucky University's Center of Kentucky History and Politics and a 30-year veteran of local political wars.

CNN: Bitter U.S. House battle in Kentucky horse country

The 13 coal-producing counties of eastern Kentucky have consistently worse poverty than the others, notes Justin Maxson, director of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, a local microfinance group.

ECONOMIST: The poor: The mountain man and the surgeon | The

The cost of living may well be less in Kinshasa than it is in eastern Kentucky, but I can assure you it is less in eastern Kentucky than it is in New York.

ECONOMIST: On Devan Nair, American poverty, the death penalty, evolution, Deutsche Bank, gay marriage | The