Mary Breckinridge rode through the mountains in the summer of 1928, visiting lonely cabins and riding up steep mountain canyons. She gave nursing care to men, women, and especially children. Word spread that she was a nurse and mothers flocked to her with their sick babies.
For the next 40 years, Mary Breckinridge served the Kentucky mountain people as a nurse, midwife and friend. She had seen and fallen in love with a stretch of land facing the great North Mountain, on the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River a few miles from Hyden. She bought the land and had a log cabin built there which she named Wendover. For many years, Wendover had two of the only five bathtubs in the county. She recruited nurse-midwives from England to come over and work with her.
