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A few streams are freed from low head dams but many more remain in Kentucky
In the early years of this nation and state, settlers built small dams on rivers and streams to capture waterpower for mills, enable navigation and assure a water supply. In the middle part of the last century even more were built as government agencies tried to bring waterways under control. Today, thousands of those dams […]
Segregated Lexington: Then and what now?
LEXINGTON — On Friday, May 17, 1907, the Lexington Leader ran an ad promoting a new subdivision. “Mentelle Park is the only perfectly appointed and finished residence park ever attempted in Lexington,” it proclaimed. The joys of the park were extolled: “model macadam roads … streets curbed with Bedford stone … splendid forest and shade […]
Resistance was everywhere in Kentucky. Enslavers advertised it daily.
LEXINGTON — Throughout the late spring of this year a group of nine University of Kentucky students did work that no one had ever done before. They scrolled through digital copies of early Kentucky newspapers, looking for advertisements seeking the return of people who had fled slavery, to record and preserve them. “Ran away last […]
How Janis Ian’s ‘life’ came to Berea College
BEREA — On one of their visits, Janis Ian took Berea College President Lyle Roelofs to her studio. There he saw a photo of “a very young” Ian sitting at a grand piano. “Looking over her shoulder at the music she had written and was playing from,” he realized, was Leonard Bernstein, the legendary songwriter […]
Invader threatens Kentucky woodlands
From late fall to early spring, volunteers fan out across Kentucky woodlands to battle an aggressive invader they know they can’t defeat but hope to hold at bay: Lonicera maackii aka Amur honeysuckle aka bush honeysuckle. They pull it, dig it, spray it and cut it (then spray again) in an effort to protect ecosystems that […]
Happy cows, good food, more profits for farmers
NEW CASTLE — For more than a century Henry County relied on tobacco to keep its farmers and its economy going. For most of the second half of the 20th century a federal program stabilized the price of tobacco, guaranteeing those farmers a steady, predictable income. That all changed in the new century after Congress ended tobacco […]