"Goatman- Flesh or Folklore?" by J. Nathan Couch

J. Nathan Couch's "Goatman- Flesh or Folklore?" is a great little volume I picked up at the Goatman Festival in Louisville.  I got my copy directly from the author and had a nice brief chat with him about the mysterious critter.

His book is a great, complete telling of the various Goatman legends- and there are a lot.  Louisville's Pope Lick Monster isn't the only one.  Texas and Maryland have some very well-known similar stories.

Couch goes deep in his book, giving info on each location's legends and the origins.  He goes into various ancient stories involving similar pan like beings.

Of course, most regions have their own origins.  A bridge, a hospital, a mysterious facility all factor in.  A logical link to the legends is made to a nomadic fellow who traveled the country from 1930-the late 60s with his goats.

The book is packed and informative but gets to the point and has a nice flow.  If you want one book on your shelf about "Goatman" this is the one to get.
 

Goatman Festival- Legend at Pope Lick Louisville KY October 2025

Check out the Goatman Festival at the Legend at Pope Lick in Louisville Kentucky!  We went there last year, and stopped by again this year.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium 2024

We had a very interesting time at Waverly Hills in Louisville.  This haunted spot has been high on our list for some!  They dont allow video during the tour, but I took some photos!

Goatman Festival Oct 2024

I REALLY love what "The Legend at Pope Lick" in Louisville is doing.  It is a cool place, and they are putting on a lot of stuff....  for free!

They have been doing free movie nights for some time.  AND they just hosted their 2nd annual "Goatman Festival."  It too was free!

If you are in to cryptids, UFOs and just general strangeness, this was a great event to attend.  They had several authors, vendors, and just cool people in general.  I was particularly excited that Geraldine Sutton Stith was there talking about her family and their association with the Hopkinsville Goblins.

The event started Friday night, then started back up on Saturday around 3.  I was only able to stay a couple of hours on Saturday, but those were a great couple of hours.  I will have to make sure I can stay longer next year.

Seelbach Hotel Louisville Kentucky 2024

We had a great stay at the legendary Seelbach Hotel in Louisville!  We enjoyed their restaurants, took a historic tour, and learned about the famous ghost, The Lady in Blue!

"Waverly Hills Sanatorium: A History" by Lynn Pohl

 I wanted to quickly mention "Waverly Hills Sanatorium:  A History" by Lynn Pohl.

I really don't know a ton about the historic building located in Louisville.  Heck, I have seen the usual ghost shows, and other brief documentaries on it, but I wanted something with a bit more RESEARCHED and historical information on the place.

Pohl's easy to read volume was exactly what I wanted!  You won't find any ghost stories here, this is all facts.

Actual facts, and authentic records are hard to find, and the author acknowledges, many were destroyed (thanks to the 1937 flood and many others were destroyed after the closing of the sanatorium in the early 60s).  She was able to piece a lot of the story together from some interesting sources, giving credit to the photo collection of a resident/employee in the 1910s and 1920s.  A black newspaper provided a lot of info to her also.

What is seen in Louisville now is the only surviving structure of a once massive campus.  There were facilities for men and women, and also for black and white patients (you can guess which facilities were lacking in quality and resources).

The author talks a lot about TB and how it was treated nationally, and how trends affected Waverly Hills and its residents.  The rise of factories, and military bases affected things, as groups of people suddenly found themselves closer together.

Again, Pohl doesn't cover the overly told stories about ghosts, but she doesn't really need to.  The facts relating to a facility like this can be sad and terrifying enough.  She dismisses the often quoted death numbers of 50,000 and higher, but shows that there were still several thousand.  Documentation of the "Death Tunnel" and it's use is rare, though employees have reported that it was used to transport dead bodies.  One of the most disturbing parts of the book involved some suggestion about how Waverly disposed of General Hospital's garbage AND amputations.

This book gets a big thumbs up from me.  Pick this one up when you can!

Butcher Cabin Books Louisville

There is a GREAT bookstore in Louisville if you are interested in horror literature!

Quills Coffee Shop Louisville Kentucky

We really love Quills Coffee, a small chain mostly out of Louisville!  Love this place!

"In Shadows Canyon Red" by Bill Stark

I saw that the book, "In Shadows Canyon Red:  Our Haunted Cabin in the Red River Gorge" by Bill Stark was coming out....  I knew I wanted to read this one!

Author Bill Stark is all over the socials....  And has a web site where you can order the book directly from him.  I got my copy from him signed, with a bonus bookmark and sticker!  Plus, ,it always help the author out when you order directly from them.....  But, copies are available all over the Gorge area.

Anyway, Bill and his wife bought a cabin at the Gorge and were excited to enjoy some time there.  Odd things start happening quickly (not JUST at the Gorge, but in general).  Still, the cabin seems to be a bit of the focus of the activity.

Bill and other guests encounter mists, orbs, bigfoot and other odd creatures.  The Wendigo, UFOs, and other oddities appear too.  Bill mentions several well known locals who experience things with him too.

The author and his wife appear on a Discovery Channel show to discuss their strange cabin on a show called "Terror in the Woods".  I watched it the other night, and it is a very well done episode.

Also covered in the book are the many other strange topics like the many Kentucky Yeti sightings that are reported, and Daniel Boone's killing of a 10 foot creature.

"In Shadows Canyon Red" is a fantastic story that would almost feel like fiction, except the author is down to earth and believable.  

I will definitely take this one with me to read late at night on my next over night adventure to the Gorge!

 

Legend at Pope Lick Louisville Kentucky 2024

We recently walked by the Pope Lick Trestle, and we went to the new business, the Legend at Pope Lick, both relating to a scary legend!

Noche Mexican BBQ Louisville Kentucky

Check out Noche Mexican BBQ in Louisville Kentucky...  on Bardstown Road.  GREAT unique Mexican restaurant!

Dinos Under Louisville Mega Cavern Kentucky

I ALWAYS love having an excuse to go to the Mega Cavern in Louisville.  The place is just cool, and it is so unique.

I recently heard that they were having a "Dinos Under Louisville" event- with life sized animatronic dinosaurs....  I knew I had to check that out!

So, here is my mostly complete drive through video!

Starlight Coffee Southern Indiana

 I have really enjoyed stopping by the Starlight Coffee shops in southern Indiana recently.

1950's Brown Hotel Matchbook cover- Louisville, KY

 I found a great matchbook cover from the Brown Hotel from the 1950s.

"Secret Louisville" by Kevin Gibson

I received "Secret Louisville: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure" by Kevin Gibson recently and I really enjoyed this one.,  I find myself in Louisville a lot, and this book included several things that were off of my radar.  AND, the copyright on the book is 2017, so it is a pretty updated book too!

There are the entries you might expect in a book like this (there's a shoe tree, stories about ghosts, and contested food birth sites).  There are some great lesser known obscurities too, like a (staged) crashed airplane, lots of caves and caverns, and cemeteries.

Each entry gets a couple of pages, and there are about 100 entries here, so this is a nice book to pick up if you enjoy exploring Louisville!

Concert Memories: Grateful Dead, Louisville, KY 07/06/1990

The Grateful Dead at Cardinal Stadium in Louisville was my first real concert.  Let that one sink in for a moment.  Seriously, I remember seeing a couple of local bands at festivals, I remember a cover band/don't do drugs act playing at my middle school.  BUT, my first real concert was this one. 

Check out that "Ticketron" ticket, by the way.

I do remember that even our crappy seats for this show were over 20 bucks, which was pretty expensive for the time.

I went to this one with my cousin Matt, who had just gotten his driver's license.  I wasn't old enough to have mine yet.  The Venue, Cardinal Stadium, was big enough to almost hold the entire population of our hometown of Owensboro.  AND, as I said before, this was the Grateful Dead.  We were way out of our league at that time.

We heard that we should get there early, and we did.  I remember us walking around the parking/vending area.  The whole vending thing at Dead shows was a lot of fun too.  I bought a couple of bracelets from a guy, and when I said this was my first Dead show, he gave me a couple extras!

It was a HOT day.

We went in to the stadium and hung out some.  Bruce Hornsby was the opening act, and we loved him.  We were big Don Henley fans at the time too.  He performed "The End of the Innocence" which he had written with Henley, and we loved it.

The Dead were great too, but I think this show gets better in my memory than it was for me that day.  My cousin and I were pretty darn tired by the end of the day.  We didn't realize that the Dead performed such marathon shows.  Plus, there is a LONG break between sets and opening act.  I remember them opening with "Hell In A Bucket" and also doing a lot of songs I had heard off of the Skull & Roses album, one of my all time favorites.

A few side notes....  I mentioned before that the $20+ for these tickets was pricey at the time.  It is almost funny to me how out of hand concert ticket prices have gotten.  I remember listening to a radio show maybe 10 years ago where they talked about good concert values coming to my area over the summer.  I don't think they mentioned a single show under $80.

Again, this was a Grateful Dead concert.  We saw a LOT of things that were totally new to us this day.  I don't want to mention most of them, but I do recall that I saw two women making out.  First time I ever saw that!

I remember a giant dancing skeleton puppet that was very cool.  I remember reading a newspaper article the next day that a LOT of Deadheads were busted for drugs at the show.  I also remember all of the Deadheads that we interacted with being very friendly.

This would be one of the last Grateful Dead shows with Brent Mydland, who would die a few weeks later.

I would get to see the Grateful Dead a couple more times before Jerry died and the band folded.  I would get to see some of the Dead's side projects here and there too (mostly RatDog).  I have friends who count their Grateful Dead concerts in the hundreds.

The Coliseum, Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, Louisville, Kentucky

The postcard notes on the back- The Coliseum, Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, Louisville, Kentucky.  Completed in 1956, the gigantic Coliseum has a maximum seating capacity of 20,220 and this auditorium is one of the largest in the world.
The new state fairgrounds cover an area of 375 acres and the entire cost is $16,000,000.

21-C Museum Hotel in Louisville KY

We stepped in to the 21-C Museum Hotel in Louisville while we were in town.  I have been curious about this place for a while, but I wanted to stop by when I had a good amount of time to take it all in.

This was a good idea, because there is a LOT to take in.

As someone who has worked with resin casting, I have admired their penguins...  There is something cool about them.  You know, they are kinda like a cool toy you might have bought as a small kid, only gigantic.  They are exactly the kind of thing I have made before in resin.... and mine would be an inch or two tall.  Not four feet tall.

So, we walked in and the place DID feel more like a museum than a hotel.  Very slick and modern. 

Right behind the front desk you immediately note 4 life sized (and anatomically correct) detailed sculptures of unclothed children.  So......  they are going for a bit of an "art that may make you feel uncomfortable" vibe here.

As far as a museum goes...  this is impressive.  There are several displays.  Many paintings and larger projects.  There are some things that are difficult to describe.  There are smoking bowls that release smoke..  smoke that looks like jelly fish floating through the air. 
 
By the elevators...  a camera films you as you walk by.  You are projected onto the wall, slightly distorted. 

Artsy painting and photos hang on the walls.  Many are extremely artsy and symbolic.  Thinking back, I don't think I saw a basic landscape, or general photo anywhere.

You can buy one of their signature penguins.  You can also buy other animals made with the same process.  These are several thousand dollars, though you can buy a small ceramic penguin for less than $40.

 21C is different.  You know when I travel, I like to stay somewhere old and historic.....  So I'm not sure I would want to stay at a 21C.  Even though this one in Louisville is in an old tobacco and bourbon warehouse, it is still too slick and modern for me.

Still, I am intrigued by what they are doing here.  I did pick up a few things in their gift shop, and I will definitely be checking these Museum/Hotels out when we travel.

Zachary Taylor Monument and Tomb in Louisville KY

This unused postcard probably from the 60s says on the back-Zachary Taylor Monument and Tomb Louisville, Kentucky.  President Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States, rests forever in the old Taylor family burying ground in the National Cemetery.  Located on the Brownsboro Road U. S. 42.

Concert Memories: Natalie Merchant, Louisville, KY 02/28/1996

I saw Natalie Merchant at the Palace in Louisville over 20 years ago!  Man, that seems like a long time now!  Natalie had really just started her solo career at this point, and her Tigerlily album had been out for a while at this point.  Still, it was hot, and there are some great songs on that album.

The music was great....  I think Natalie was already doing less and less music from her 10,000 Maniacs days, but I remember some Maniacs songs.  She opened the show with her solo song, San Andreas Fault, coming out and dancing around a candle behind a curtain.  It was a cool and ghostly affect.

On a personal note, this was the first time that me and my future wife would "go out" off of campus.  It was our first date away from college.