Tag: NoDestination

No Destination: Kentucky Fried Chicken

If you travel abroad and say that you are from Kentucky, the majority of people identify our home state with delicious, fried chicken. Colonel Harland David Sanders, a Colonel in the Order of Kentucky Colonels and which is not a military rank but rather a distinction for honored Kentuckians, moved from Indiana to Corbin, Kentucky in 1930 where a service station was opened. A lunchroom followed, and this was by continued expansion and growth of the Sander’s Cafe.

When the service station and cafe burned in 1939, Sanders rebuilt using a cafe-motel model. The Colonel operated the Sander’s Court and Cafe until the construction of I-75 took business away from the local roads. He auctioned the building and began to franchise his Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Today, the franchise is owned by Louisville-based Yum! Brands. Yum! also owns the old Court and Cafe and utilizes it as both an active franchise and a museum. Pictured above is a recreated kitchen from the days of the Court and Cafe. For more, check out Nate’s visit in January.

No Destination: St. Augustine Catholic Church

Although Lebanon was originally settled by Presbyterians, it quickly became a center of Catholic faith. The first Catholic Church organized here in 1815 and the first church was erected in 1825. In 1837, this church (then called St. Hubert’s) was rededicated to St. Augustine.

In 1871, the present church was completed and it certainly is a beautiful parish church. As is the case with Catholic churches generally, the doors are open during the day for people to enter and pray. [I wish this were the case with certain Protestant congregations, particularly those with historic and beautiful building!]  After praying, a snapped the picture [right] of this gorgeous house of prayer.

The church’s mission statement is great, honoring in its first paragraph both God and our great Commonwealth:

St. Augustine Catholic Church, located in the heartland of Kentucky’s holy land, being rich in history and tradition, is a diverse community of believers committed to serving God and neighbor. We are sustained by a loving devotion to the celebration of the Eucharist in fulfillment of our Baptismal call to proclaim the Good News of salvation.

See: A Short History of St. Augustine Parish.

Map Update

With my recent posts in south central Kentucky, I can now present this updated map on county visits for Nate and I:

For the Kaintuckeean, the tally is now 33 of 120 counties (27.5%). The Kentucky 120 Project remains ahead at 35 of 120 counties (29.2%). This coming weekend, we hope to target the following counties:  

  • Carroll County 
  • Henry County
  • Oldham County
  • Shelby County
  • Trimble County

Any offbeat places that I shouldn’t miss as I go with No Destination?

No Destination: Lebanon

Three miles from the middle of Lebanon is the geographic center of Kentucky, but this community of about 6,000 stands on its own. First settled in the 1700s, the town was incorporated in 1815. Named after the “Biblical Lebanon” because a number of cedar trees also grew in this area. Much of the communities growth can be attributed to the L&N Railroad that once rolled through town. The historic depot constructed in 1857 survived a burning by Gen. Morgan’s men during the Civil War, but it could not escape teenage arsonists in 1992.

The above-picture is clearly not the best, but it shows the route that the railroad once took a block north of Main Street. In the distance you can see the Marion County municipal building. A new courthouse is being built just to the south of this municipal building. Hopefully, the historic courthouse on Main Street will be preserved!

Bonus Kaintuckeean: J. Proctor Knott. A Kentucky Congressman, Governor and member of the 1891 Constitutional Convention during which he led the effort to keep Frankfort as Kentucky’s capital. He was also the first dean of Centre College’s law school. Knott County is named after him. [Marker 728]

No Destination: Gov. William Goebel

Outside Kentucky’s Old State Capitol is a statute of one governor. It isn’t Isaac Shelby (Kentucky’s first governor), but rather a man who served in office for only a few days. On January 30, 1900, shots rang out from the nearby state building striking Gov. William Goebel. A few days later, he was dead.

Goebel remains the only actively-serving governor of a U.S. state to be assassinated. Although the identity of the shooter will likely never be known, it followed the hotly contested gubernatorial election of 1900. For more, read here.

No Destination: Campbellsville

Centrally located Campbellsville – Taylor County’s seat – is eighty miles from Lexington, Louisville and Bowling Green. Established in 1817, the town’s history is quintissentially Kentucky. Began as a grist mill, grew in population as a stop on a stagecoach route and later a rail line, and the target of Civil War raids by the infamous Gen. John Hunt Morgan. Today, Campbellsville’s Main Street (pictured, above) remains active with a number of businesses due at least in part to the presence of Cumberland University.

What is now Campbellsville was on the Cumberland Trace – that route through the Cumberland Gap that would serve as the early route for western settlers; ultimately those who passed through what would become Taylor County continued past the Cumberland River to what is now Nashville, Tenn.

Taylor County was separated from Green County in 1848 (named for General Zachary Taylor in the same year that he would become President) and Campbellsville at that time was selected to be the seat of the new county. The first courthouse was erected soon thereafter and was destroyed during an 1864 raid by Confederate forces. The next courthouse was built and survived until 1965 when it was razed in favor of a “contemporary” brick design. This is another instance in which, architecturally speaking, the courthouse project currently underway in Kentucky is “a good thing” as the new Taylor County Courthouse has that “modern take at an old building” quality that at least returns a bell tower to the courthouse square. All historic markers, however, remain at the site of the 1965 courthouse.

Nate, on his courthouse visits, loves the feel of coming over the hill into a town to see the tallest building in town – his immediate indicator of the courthouse’s prominence and central role for a community. Not in Campbellsville: the tallest spire will lead you up a hill to the Campbellsville Baptist Church (pictured, right). The congregation began as early as 1791, but the name of the church was not adopted until 1852. Following a 1962 fire, the present church was constructed. It replaced a 1916 sanctuary that consisted of “a domed ceiling and four walls of stained glass.”

No Destination: Campbellsville University

Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University (“CU”) was founded by the Russell Creek Baptist Association. Affiliated with the Southern Baptist Church, CU enrolls of about 3,000 students of various faith backgrounds.

Regular readers may recall from last week that another community (Glens Fork) courted the Baptist association in the late 1800s before Campbellsville was selected as the home of the institution.

Originally the institution was not a college – it began as the Russell Creek Baptist Academy which was a private elementary and high school. It was in 1923 that the General Association of Kentucky Baptists met and gave authority  for a junior college to be opened. By the late 1930s, both the elementary and high schools were gone leaving only Cumberland College (renamed to CU in the 2000s). In 1960, the college gave out its first four-year degrees.

Notable alumni of CU include former Kentucky Governor Wallace Wilkinson (1987-1991) and the current head basketball coach of Mississippi State University (Rick Stansbury). Wilkinson, however, did not graduate from CU – he later transferred to UK, but never graduated. Stansbury did graduate from CU and led the school’s basketball team to the NAIA tournament.

No Destination: Green River Lake

Situated between Adair and Taylor counties, Green River Lake is a man-made lake that encompasses 8,210 acres. Created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through the 1969 impoundment of the Green River, the project cost approximately $33.4 million.

Despite this seemingly high cost, the Corps points out the economic benefits of the dam: annual tourism of $34.75million and savings from prevented floods over the impoundment’s first forty years (through 2009) of $129.997million.

Visiting in the winter, I saw the waters at their lower levels. This also allowed for repairs to be made to the dam. It was an interesting moment: look to the right and feel like a kid, enjoying the big trucks move dirt; look to the right and be an old man appreciating the glory of nature.

As an aside, the Green River, at 370 miles, is the longest river to flow completely within the boundaries of Kentucky. [cite] Its fount is in Lincoln County and it flows into the Ohio River in Henderson County

No Destination: Federal Hill

Visiting Bardstown for a wedding last summer, I knew one destination that I could not miss. Federal Hill, colloquially known as My Old Kentucky Home. Of course, my arrival there was moments before the state park closed so while I toured the grounds, I did not enter any of the buildings.

As folklore goes, it was on an 1852 visit with his cousins (the Rowans) here that Stephen Collins Foster was inspired to write what later became the state song. There is some debate as to the veracity of this story. Foster could have been inspired on an earlier (and well-documented) 1833 visit to Augusta, Kentucky. The song was adopted as the official state song in 1928; its words were revised in 1986 also by legislative fiat (changing the word from “darkies” to “people” after a performance of the song by a Japanese choir upon the opening of the Toyota Plant in Georgetown. It was said that the lyrics “convey connotations of racial discrimination that are not acceptable.”) Also generally eliminated by the 1986 legislation: verses 2 and 3. Verse 3 is below; you can see why it was removed:

The head must bow and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darky may go;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes grow;
A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter, ’twill never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

John Rowan, a jurist and congressman, began construction of Federal Hill in 1795 but the work was not finished until 1818.  According to The Kentucky Encyclopedia, John Rowan’s granddaughter (Madge Rowan Frost) sold the estate to the Commonwealth in 1921 who has since maintained and operated the site.

No Destination: Columbia-Union Presbyterian Church

The oldest church in Columbia was erected just beyond the town’s original boundary. Known only as the Columbia Presbyterian Church until 1925 when it took on the combined name with the Union Presbyterian Church (the county congregation, the congregations having actually merged in 1912), the church has a storied past.

The church was constructed in 1857 and contained a balcony for slaves, though the balcony was removed in1885. During the Civil War, the attic was used both as a lookout for rebel forces and as a place to make bullets. Doors inside the church were taken down following an 1863 skirmish and were used as stretchers to carry the wounded back to the church where the structure served as a temporary hospital. A 1908 renovation replaced the plain (or frosted) windows with the stained glass windows seen today.

The steps leading to the door of the sanctuary are original from 1857, hand carved from Kentucky marble (aka limestone).

See: Columbia Magazine’s Walking Tour of Columbia.