Pathfork, Kentucky.
Typical home $81,043 (-26.8% in a year). Middlesborough, KY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$19 (+5%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $29,670 -27%
- $110,714$81,043 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $39,911 -33%
- $120,955$81,043 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Pathfork$425
- Kentucky$1,212
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Pathfork, KY fell 26.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Pathfork, Bell County, Kentucky
Pathfork, in Bell County, had 326 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $49,571 a year and half less, against $31,354 across Bell County. 98% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 2% are rented. Unemployment in Bell County was 5.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Bell County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Pathfork is a very small community in Bell County, Kentucky, where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Household incomes here run well above the county's, and typical home values are modest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels. Across Bell County, some of the largest workplaces are Smithfield's packaged meats plant, Bell County Schools and Walmart. Unemployment across the county is somewhat lower than a year ago, though the number of jobs there has slipped slightly.
Things to do. A short drive away, Hensley Settlement is a museum of mountain life, and Blanton Forest and Wilderness Road State Park are protected areas for walking and time outdoors. Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is a longer drive away and is the best known of the nearby places. The Powell River is also a longer drive for anyone who likes to be near water.
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What people in Bell County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Bell County had 8,318 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 65°. About 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Baxter weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bell County
- Smithfield - Middlesboro PackagedProcessed meats manufacturing563
- Bell County SchoolsSchool district393FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters358
- Middlesboro ARHGeneral hospital240FTE
- Middlesboro Independent SchoolsSchool district190FTE
- K VA T Food StoresSupermarket148
- Blue Diamond Industries MiddlesboroPipe, rigid plastics, manufacturing130
- Bluegrass HealthcareHomes for the elderly with nursing care125
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 23 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,477 people in all across the county; Pathfork has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Pathfork’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Bell County and the Middlesborough, KY metro.
Pathfork home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Pathfork$81,043
- Kentucky$230,909
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Pathfork address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Pathfork — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Pathfork
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40856 | Miracle | 745 | — | $90,105 |
| 40863 | Pathfork | 706 | — | $70,070 |