Tag: Owen

NoDestination: I75, Exit 154


Driving north to Pittsburgh, Pa., I found myself needing to refuel. I was not anticipating my fuel stop a possibility for NoDestination, but as I stood putting 87-octane into my car I noticed a historic marker in the lawn between the Shell station and the KY-36. I suppose the moral of this story is that you never know when you might see something worthy of visiting and that you should always take the opportunity to inquire.

Marker #725 “A Civil War Reprisal” tells the tale of an Aug. 1864 execution of three Confederates in retaliation for the guerilla murder of two Union sympathizers. Interestingly, the three were held in Lexington prior to their execution but were brought to the Owen/Grant County area (home of their victims) to be executed. According to E. Polk Johnson’s 1912 A History of Kentucky, the executions were performed by firing squad.

Owen County Courthouse – Owenton, Ky.

Let me just say this at the start. Call me a nerd, but I have found that there is this really amazing feeling when you’re approaching the county seat and you see this towering courthouse cupola sticking up over the rest of the buildings between the trees. Especially when that towering courthouse is ridiculously awesome.
So I decided to start this whole thing in a place that I’d never been to, and the winner was Owen County. Owen County is sort of an island right in the middle of the big triangle (between Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati) and I’ve never had a reason to go there. So, I set out today with a map and a camera and no idea what I would find. The county seat of Owen County is (not surprisingly) Owenton. Anyway, I really thought this was an excellent way to start out the project. The building is pretty cool. It has these impressive brick columns and a really pretty little courthouse square. I looked it up on the National Register of Historic Places and it was built in the 1850s. Probably the coolest part is unseen in the above picture, as behind the courthouse is the old county jail, which is also on the National Historic Register.