The Christmas Lights of Chevrolet Holler

Yards packed with twinkling holiday surprise await in Eastern Kentucky's most festive community.

Dec 23, 2021

Few things scream “holiday tradition” across Central and Eastern Kentucky more than bundling up on a chilly December night, cramming in the car, tuning the radio to the local all-holiday-music-all-the-time station, and cruising around at a snail’s pace to “ooh!” and “aah!” over the Christmas light displays slung up on nearby lawns.

And while I’m sure the dripping icicle lights and wobbling inflatable penguins in your neck of the woods are cheerful—and even some towns, like Prestonsburg, have committed to major twinkling displays this year—there’s pretty much no hamlet or neighborhood that can compete with Chevrolet Holler in Harlan County for a purely-distilled, tightly-packed explosion of over-the-top Christmastime magic.

As with so many unincorporated communities in Eastern Kentucky, Chevrolet’s holler moniker has a curious back story. According to Kentucky Place Names by Robert M. Rennick, in Harlan County, “the local post office of Bee Gee [established] on June 5 1918...was renamed Chevrolet in December of that year for the car driven by either an early mail carrier or the foreman of the construction gang building a coal tipple, whose model 490 Chevrolet car is said to have been the first to drive over the local road 1173.”

The Christmas front yards in Chevrolet are intricate, telling stories and tracing history with year-after-year, layer-upon-layer displays that seem determined to light up this tiny spot in the mountains for everyone to see—from the heavens on down. Almost like a Magic Eye poster, the longer you look at a yard in Chevrolet Holler, the more your vision adjusts to the right frequency and you’re able to see it completely: hidden vignettes, hilarious winks, and all the detailed hard work that goes into creating a community synonymous with holiday joy.

If you can’t make it to Chevrolet Holler this year, Harlan-based photographer Will Major has captured the spirit for you to enjoy right here on The Goldenrod.