Hi, I am Jim, I love Kentucky, and traveling in and around Kentucky! I also love the entire country, and all of the beautiful and strange places here and there! This blog covers the overlooked, forgotten, and underrated places, people, and moments in history in America, with a focus on Kentucky!
It will cover great tourists stops, books about people and history, and include photos and postcard scans.
So, you're a Civil War enthusiast with 12 dollars in your pocket..... what would be the best way to spend that money?
Go to the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center and Museum in Tunnel Hill Georgia and visit their museum and take their guided tour.
Seriously, this is easily one of my favorite historical tours I have ever done, and I think it is an amazing value. Watch my video, but remember that a video never does the real thing justice.
General Sherman, John Bell Hood, John Bell Hood's leg, and the Great Locomotive Chase all made appearances here in the 1860s.... Spoiler alert..... One of them is still here!
I wanted to tip my hat to the DoubleTree by Hilton Atlanta in Roswell Georgia. I usually dont mention chain hotels here, but I thought this one was very nice... and it is in an area where I have had mixed experiences finding a nice place.
Everything was great here and I am sure we will be back!
Among the many cool shops and historic places we found in Roswell Georgia was Crazy Love Coffee House. They had great coffee, and sold lots of cool gifts too! It was a very clean, relaxed place to enjoy some beverages.
They are doing the "Christian Coffee shop" thing which I personally think is very nice. There was a Bible verse on my coffee sleeve.
This place was just perfectly cozy and clean and I look forward to get back here as soon as I can!
This unused postcard notes on the back "The Little White House at Warm Springs was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Georgia home. The Paul's Scarlet Climber roses were in bloom when he died in this house on April 12, 1945."
"The Bump Gate, built under direction of President Roosevelt, is open by pressure of an automobile bumper. As the gate swings open on an eccentric pivot, the car passes through, then the gate swings shut by gravity."
While driving through the northern part of Georgia, we found that the locals were raving about Bailey's Bar B Que in Ringgold. We stopped by for a nice meal!
"Lost in Yesterday" by Peter Bonner was given to me recently. Peter is a tour guide who has done a ton of research relating to Margaret Mitchell's classic, "Gone with the Wind."
The author has looked at the Civil War, Mitchell's home town, friends, relatives, etc. and found out that a LOT of real life events went in to the Civil War novel. He gives many stories about people and events that affected the author and her writing.
Bonner starts the book with a very easy to understand telling of Civil War events that happened around Atlanta (Sherman's March to the Sea). He reminds the reader that President Lincoln was heading into a campaign for a second term, and he was doubtful he would win. His opponent was the former Union general in chief, George McClellan. McClellan's party, the Democrats, were pushing for a an end to the war.
The whole situation was very complicated, but it always makes one think about the "what if" situations that may have happened.
Anyway, Lost in Yesterday was a quick, easy to understand read that packed a wallop. I can't wait to get back south and check things out in Jonesboro!
I love the Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum in Rockport Indiana. Its not far from Evansville, Santa Claus, or Owensboro. Here is a short video I posted going through the museum there!
I bought a copy of "The Wrath of Judge Lynch: Race Wars" from it's author, John Arnold Hargis recently at the Rockport Indiana Lincoln Pioneer Village. He was selling them for the bargain price of $10!
For anyone who is interested in the history of this area, which is packed with interesting history, this is a great book. Hargis is writing about crime mostly in Rockport in the year 1900. His bio on the back notes that he practiced law, mostly in Rockport, for 46 years. He does discuss laws and informal justice from this time period with authority, though he knows he isn't writing a technical journal. He wants to make sure that people like me can understand the situation, in 1900, from a legal perspective.
Not to give too much away, but a white barber in Rockport is murdered. A black man is accused of the crime, and he ends up giving the names of two accomplices, and tries to downplay his own involvement. Eventually, three black men are murdered by a mob, and no justice is ever given to the three men.
Hargis openly discusses the character of the participants. He also shows that one of the African American men had a solid alibi.... AND, even though pretty much everyone knew who was involved in the murders (see cover photo), no one was brought to justice.
John Hargis writes in a factual way- I did not feel like he was trying to tell the reader what to think. He was sticking to the facts, and I appreciated that.
Oh, and he includes a map showing where events relating to the crimes happened. I appreciated that as I am always trying to visualize an area as I read a book.
This is just a fascinating book about a time that is hard to imagine in a lot of ways. I give this one my highest recommendation.
On October 29th of this year (2022) The Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum in Rockport hosted a great event, "Fall Heritage Day." We sent there and had a great time! They had a good crowd and people seemed to be having a lot of fun. Here is a video I made of our visit there.
I read through Alan Brown's "Kentucky Legends and Lore" recently. If you are interested in strange things happening in Kentucky, this will be a great addition to your library.
Brown does cover the usual topics you might find in a "strange" or "haunted" book on the Bluegrass State (The Seelbach Hotel, Waverly, Edgar Cayce, Daniel Boone) which would be expected in a volume like this. I felt that he gave a little more information on each than some volumes. He also brought up some of the more obscure legends (Jailer's Inn, and a nice section on some Kentucky College ghosts).
Like I said, I felt like Brown gave a brief teaser on all of the legends, but his information wasn't the standard short rehash.
I usually take notes these days when I am reading a book, and I took a lot of notes with this one- Alan Brown clued me in to some Civil War sites and stories of which I was unaware (a Civil War field hospital was also the birth site of an NFL star). Also, he notes that you can see some underwater remains of a former city in western Kentucky.
This is the kind of book that can send you down many different rabbit holes... He even mentions a few books that were not on my radar that I am going to have to look up soon.
My only criticism of this book is that the author uses Wikimedia Commons a bit excessively for photos. To his credit though, he does not use that as an exclusive source (I have books in my collection that do). Also, a bit more editing would have been helpful- there are some dates given that don't add up..... on page 129 he mentioned a murder that remained unsolved, he says, until 2009. He later says that the killer confessed in 1990. You can probably figure out the timeline errors, if you even catch them.
Still, this is definitely a labor of love on the authors part, and, for a book just over 150 pages- it is pretty meaty. You are getting a lot for your money. Brown is giving you a lot of info on famous Kentuckians, monsters, UFO sightings, ghosts, deaths, etc. My couple of criticisms are absolutely outweighed by the volume and quality of information contained in the book. This is definitely one of my favorite mysterious/strange type books about Kentucky.
We went to Brushy Mountain Prison a few years ago, and I have been looking for an excuse to get back there for some time. Well, my pal Mark wanted to go, so off we went.
Brushy was a functioning prison from 1896-2009!
Now, its a tourist attraction, and you can go in, look around, do a self guided tour, etc. I think they always try to have former staff or inmates around.
They have a video about the prison too.
They have a GREAT restaurant on site, the Warden's Table... AND they make their own adult beverages!
Check out my video... this is a very cool place to check out less than a couple of hours away from the Great Smoky Mountains.
We have been going to Gatlinburg and the Pigeon Forge area for years now, and believe it or not, we JUST started going to the dinner theater shows!
We have talked about it before, but we always kinda talk ourselves out of it....
So, we saw Pirates a few months ago and loved it! Seeing "Peter" performed at Biblical Times Dinner Theater would be my second experience with a show in the GSM area.
We drove in to town a little late and saw that a performance would be starting soon. We stopped in hopping to get tickets. We were told that tickets were available, but not with a dinner. Good to know that you can get a non dinner ticket, but we were hungry, so we passed on a non meal performance, but we came back the next night.
Tickets were $50, which is cheaper than some of the other shows in town. We got to our seats around 6 for the start of the show. A nice, small salad was waiting for us at our seat tray.
The first 45 minutes of the show involved about a 45 minute gospel music performance by the same actors who would be in the play. They sang (very well!) to a prerecorded music track.
I'm personally not a huge fan of this sort of thing- as I kinda felt like I was at church, but it was entertaining.
Food service occurred only during this first part of the show. The food was above average and the 2 people that they had taking care of the theater were quick and efficient.
After an intermission, the play/musical started. I would say that was another 90 minutes or so (putting the whole thing at well over the advertised 2 hours, which was fine with us).
There is a small cast of half a dozen or so, and they interact some with prerecorded other actors. There is also a very cool projection onto a screen system they use for set changes. This is different, and kind of adds another element making this a unique experience.
After the performance, the actors came out to say hello and pose for photos.
This was not the over the top performance like you might see at one of the other venues, but we still enjoyed it a lot. These guys are scrappy, and doing a lot with a very small team. In fact, the fellow who sold us out ticket later popped up in the performance.
This is different and unique and I really like what they are doing.
I put up another video on youtube recently of my old school, Berea College, and I peppered in some old postcards and photos to do a bit of a "Then and Now" comparison.
I mostly left Boone Tavern out because I thought it deserved a video all to itself.
As I mention in the video, I worked here some while attending Berea College in the 90s. I would meet my future wife while working here... and she spent all four of her Berea years working at the Tavern.
We still go down often, and we try to get a room there for a weekend every year or two, just because.
So, check out this video of my recent trip to Boone Tavern, along with some older images of the hotel/restaurant that has been there for well over a century!
I have talked a lot on this blog about my love of Berea College in Berea Kentucky. I have made many posts about it. And, I spent a good chunk of the 90s there...
Well, we were back on campus recently and I made another video. I added in some images of old photos and old postcards to do a bit of a "Then and Now" kind of thing.
I will be putting up a similar one that is Just Boone Tavern.
I do feel like the campus changes, but it changes very slowly.
I always think that, if someone hadn't been on campus for several decades and then they just showed up, it would still be an easy campus to recognize.
I found myself back at the Mary Todd Lincoln House in Lexington the other day. They have changed the way they are doing things a bit. It is now being done as a self guided tour, and, they were allowing the use of video!
I have been here numerous times, but I was very excited to stop by and make a video!
I picked up the Images of America book "Harrogate and the Cumberland Gap" by Natalie Sweet on our recent visit to the area. By the way, this area is REALLY growing on me!
This is just a nice, quick read (mostly historic photos with description) about the area, and how it was established.
I was totally unaware that there was a massive resort there once!
I love the college there too, LMU is a cool place with a Col. Sanders connection!
