Jenkins is a northeast Letcher county town located on Elkhorn Creek below the Pound Gap of Pine Mountain. The town was built in 1911 by the Consolidation Coal Co. and named for George C. Jenkins, a director of the company. The Jenkins post office opened in 1911. In 1940 Jenkins and the coal camp towns of Dunham and Burdine along the Elkhorn Creek valley were incorporated as the single town of Jenkins. The population in 1990 was 2,751.