- The town of Murray is home to the Boy Scouts of America
Scouting Museum located on the campus of Murray State
University.
- The Kentucky Derby is the oldest continuously held horse
race in the country. It is held at Churchill Downs in
Louisville on the first Saturday in May.
- The Bluegrass Country around Lexington is home to some
of the world's finest racehorses.
- Kentucky was a popular hunting ground for the Shawnee
and Cherokee Indian nations prior to being settled by white
settlers.
- In 1774 Harrodstown (now Harrodsburg) was established as
the first permanent settlement in the Kentucky region. It
was named after James Harrod who led a team of area
surveyors.
- The old official state tree was the Kentucky coffee tree
(Gymnocladus dioicus.) The tulip tree (Liriodendron
tulipifera) is the current official state tree. The change
was made in 1976.
- Cheeseburgers were first served in 1934 at Kaolin's
restaurant in Louisville.
- Chevrolet Corvettes are manufactured in Bowling Green.
- Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave and was first
promoted in 1816, making it the second oldest tourist
attraction in the United States. Niagara Falls, New York is
first.
- Begun in 1819 the first commercial oil well was on the
Cumberland River in McCreary County.
- The first Miss America from Kentucky is Heather Renee
French. She was crowned September 18, 1999.
- The first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant owned and
operated by Colonel Sanders is located in Corbin.
- Kentucky is the state where both Abraham Lincoln,
President of the Union, and Jefferson Davis, President of
the Confederacy, were born. They were born less than one
hundred miles and one year apart.
- Cumberland is the only waterfall in the world to
regularly display a Moonbow. It is located just southwest of
Corbin.
- Fleming County is recognized as the Covered Bridge
Capital of Kentucky.
- Shelby County is recognized as the Saddlebred Capital of
Kentucky.
- The town of Corbin was the birthplace of old time movie
star Arthur Lake whose real surname was Silverlake: He
played the role of Dagwood in the "Blondie" films of the
1930s and ‘40s. Lake's parents were trapeze artists billed
as The Flying Silverlakes.
- Christian County is wet while Bourbon County is dry.
Barren County has the most fertile land in the state.
- Thunder Over Louisville is the opening ceremony for the
Kentucky Derby Festival and is the world's largest fireworks
display.
- More than 100 native Kentuckians have been elected
governors of other states.
- In 1888, "Honest Dick" Tate the state treasurer
embezzled $247,000 and fled the state.
- The song "Happy Birthday to You" was the creation of two
Louisville sisters in 1893.
- Teacher Mary S. Wilson held the first observance of
Mother's Day in Henderson in 1887. It was made a national
holiday in 1916.
- The great Man o' War won all of his horse races except
one which he lost to a horse named Upset.
- The first town in the United States to be named for the
first president was Washington. It was named in 1780.
- Pikeville annually leads the nation in per capita
consumption of Pepsi-Cola.
- The first American performance of a Beethoven symphony
was in Lexington in 1817.
- Post-It Notes are manufactured exclusively in Cynthiana.
The exact number made annually of these popular notes is a
trade secret.
- Kentucky was the 15th state to join the Union and the
first on the western frontier.
- Bluegrass is not really blue--its green--but in the
spring bluegrass produces bluish purple buds that when seen
in large fields give a blue cast to the grass. Today
Kentucky is known as the Bluegrass State.
- There is a legend that the inspiration for Stephen
Foster's hymn like song
"My Old Kentucky Home" was written in 1852 after an
unverified trip to visit relatives in Kentucky.
- Daniel Boone and his wife Rebecca are buried in the
Frankfort Cemetery. Their son Isaac is buried at Blue Licks
Battlefield near Carlisle, where he was killed in the last
battle of the Revolutionary War fought in Kentucky.
- The only monument south of the Ohio River dedicated to
Union Soldiers who died in the Civil War is located in
Vanceburg.
- The public saw an electric light for the first time in
Louisville. Thomas Edison introduced his incandescent light
bulb to crowds at the Southern Exposition in 1883.
- The radio was invented by a Kentuckian named Nathan B.
Stubblefield of Murray in 1892. It was three years before
Marconi made his claim to the invention.
- The first enamel bathtub was made in Louisville in 1856.
- In the War of 1812 more than half of all Americans
killed in action were Kentuckians.
- Middlesboro is the only city in the United States built
within a meteor crater.
- Joe Bowen holds the world record for stilt walking
endurance. He walked 3,008 miles on stilts between Bowen,
Kentucky to Los Angeles, California.
- The world's largest free-swinging bell known as the
World Peace Bell is on permanent display in Newport.
- High Bridge located near Nicholasville is the highest
railroad bridge over navigable water in the United States.
- Carrie Nation the spokesperson against rum, tobacco,
pornography, and corsets was born near Lancaster in Garrard
County.
- The brass plate embedded in the sidewalk at the corner
of Limestone and Main Street in downtown Lexington is a
memorial marker honoring Smiley Pete. The animal was known
as the town dog in Lexington. He died in 1957.
- Kentucky-born Alben W. Barkley was the oldest United
States Vice President when he assumed office in 1949. He was
71 years old.
- More than $6 billion worth of gold is held in the
underground vaults of Fort Knox. This is the largest amount
of gold stored anywhere in the world.
- The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington
has 82 stained-glass windows including the world's largest
hand-blown one. The window measures 24 feet wide by 67 feet
high and depicts the Council of Ephesus with 134 life-sized
figures.
- The Lost River Cave and Valley Bowling Green includes a
cave with the shortest and deepest underground river in the
world. It contains the largest cave opening east of the
Mississippi.
- The swimsuit Mark Spitz wore in the 1972 Olympic games
was manufactured in Paris, Kentucky.
- Frederick Vinson who was born in Louisa is the only
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court known to be
born in jail.
- Pike County the world's largest producer of coal is
famous for the Hatfield-McCoy feud, an Appalachian vendetta
that lasted from the Civil War to the 1890s.
Thanks to: Kentucky
Department of Travel, John D. Dowd, Mandy Paige, DeLores
Wiggins, Wayne Shelton, David Grossman, Cleamon Inman, Jody
Odonnell
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