Jenkins is a home rule-class city[3] in Letcher County, Kentucky, United States.

[4] In autumn of 1911, the Consolidation Coal Company purchased the current location of Jenkins as part of a 100,000-acre (40,000 ha) tract of land in Pike, Letcher, and Floyd counties from the Northern Coal and Coke Company.

After the acquisition was finalized, plans were made to extend the Lexington and Eastern Railroad from Jackson to a town named McRoberts.

Next, a temporary narrow-gauge railroad was built over Pine Mountain from Glamorgan, Virginia, in order to carry supplies to further the development of the town.

[5] Jenkins's city government was established as soon as the businesses and land were put up for sale.

The Jenkins Cavaliers played as members of the Class D level Mountain States League.

[9] Diana Baldwin and Anita Cherry, hired as miners in 1973, are believed to have been the first women to work in an underground coal mine in the United States.

About 30 percent of Jenkins is vulnerable to flooding in the event of a dam break, and the town lacks a comprehensive emergency plan.

U.S. Route 119 leads southwest from Jenkins 12 miles (19 km) to Whitesburg, the Letcher county seat, and north with US 23 to Pikeville.

[25] The David A. Zegeer Coal-Railroad Museum is housed in town in a historic railroad depot.