Rock Fences
Though they’re commonly called ‘slave fences,’ the walls constructed in fields and around homes in the Bluegrass region come by that appellation rather speciously. According to University of Kentucky geography professor Karl Raitz, who co-authored Rock Fences of the Bluegrass (University of Kentucky Press, 1992), documents suggest that antebellum landowners typically hired Irish immigrant stonemasons to build these walls at a going rate of $1.25 per rod, or 161-2 feet. Since two can fence-build better than one, the masons would take on a slave as a ‘partner’ - often paying the slave-owner for the right to use his laborer - and teach him the trade. 
After the Civil War, as free men, these black stonemasons took over many of the projects, which may have linked them even more to work formerly conducted by Irishmen.
Raitz speculates that Kentucky has more rock fences than any state outside New England (and he calls the Northern states’ version a ‘rock wall’ because it was generally constructed from odd-shaped pieces cleared from fields rather than the quarried limestone laid by masons here). Approximately 90 percent of this state’s rock fences are gone now, but excellent examples remain that show how the layers were placed without mortar in horizontal rows of uniform height - true works of craft.
To see some of the Bluegrass’ best, Raitz recommends driving I-64 east to the Midway exit (Hwys. 421 and 62) and heading east toward Lexington.
Take U.S. 62 when it splits off to the north toward Georgetown and then go left when you reach Moores Mill Road. You’ll pass Audubon Farm, where stone fences line both sides of the road.
On the other side of U.S. 62, catch Bethel Road and work your way east to Yarnallton Road, where you’ll turn right and head south to Leestown Pike. This is the best stretch in Central Kentucky, with stone fences down both sides of the road. Old Frankfort Pike near Nugent Crossroads also has picturesque fencing, particularly near the Airdrie Stud horse farm.
Daniel Boone
Signs of his wanderlust can be found on roadside markers in 11 states - from Michigan south to Florida, from Virginia west to Missouri - but Daniel Boone left his trail most visibly in central and eastern Kentucky as he helped expand the late-18th-century frontier beyond the Appalachian mountains. Fort Boonesborough State Park near Richmond and the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, at the split in the mountains where he blazed Boone’s Trace in 1775, are the most well-known places to appreciate the pioneer’s early forays into the state.
However, Randell Jones, author of the recent book In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone (John F. Blair, Publisher, 2005), recommends a couple of Boone trails less
traveled. To feel like Daniel in the promised land, head for Clay City in Powell County and Pilot Knob State Nature Preserve. Here Boone and John Findlay, on their first major hunting excursion beyond the Gap, in June 1769, made their way north of the Kentucky River. Boone left an ailing Findlay behind and ascended what Jones and other chroniclers believe was Pilot Knob, where he could look west from this highest promontory at a vast, verdant flatland that has been called ‘the beautiful level of Kentucky.’ You can hike up and see the same expanse any day of the week from sunrise to sunset (www.naturepreserves.ky.gov/stewardship/pilotknob).
For a look at the original Boone’s Trace to Fort Boonesborough, Jones suggests Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park, a few miles south of London in Laurel County. Portions of the wooded buffalo trails that Boone followed to blaze his trace can be traversed today by visitors, as can sections of the Wilderness Road, which Boone also had a hand in marking (606-878-8000, www.parks.ky.gov).
Bluegrass Music
The Bluegrass State germinated its own music, and lovers of the high lonesome sound can touch its roots with a trip to tiny Rosine, the birthplace of Bill Monroe. Set in neither the Bluegrass region nor the mountains where the music really took hold, this western-Kentucky hamlet nonetheless served as the crucible where a young Monroe learned the mandolin and high-pitched country-church singing as well as an affinity for blues-style chords. Put them all together with mountain string music, take them on the road with the Bluegrass Boys in the 1940s and before long you’ve invented a new genre.
Rosine pays homage to its native son with a weekly Barn Jamboree, which runs from 7-11 p.m. Fridays in the middle of town near the general store, a short walk from Monroe’s grave. Most nights, members of two local bands - Jerusalem Ridge and Tunnel Hill - take the stage and share it with all comers, from local grade-schoolers earning their performance wings to legendary ‘jammers’ from out of town. Former Monroe band members such as Mac Wiseman and Wayne Lewis have made appearances, as have all manner of players from around the U.S. and abroad who cherish the experience of playing on hallowed ground.
Rosine is located on U.S. 62 in Ohio County.
Visit www.billmonroefoundation.com for additional information about tours of Bill Monroe’s childhood home, located two miles west of Rosine. The Inter-national Bluegrass Music Museum is a short jaunt up the William H. Natcher Parkway in Owensboro.
Louisville Slugger
Baseball fans, whether they’ve seen The Natural or not, learn to ascribe a mystique to the wooden bats that have been wielded by generations of big-league hitters.
That magic is centered right here, of course, home of the famous Louisville Slugger and the Slugger Museum, where the charming story of the first bat and the craft of shaping ‘powerized’ big sticks are well explained.
But to see some old-fashioned country hardball, consider a road trip out the Western Kentucky Parkway to Dawson Springs, home of Riverside Park, a faithfully produced replica of the field on that same site where the Pittsburgh Pirates held spring training in 1915-17. Teaming up with the Kentucky Heritage Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a group of baseball aficionados erected an all-wood grandstand, wire backstop and old-style dugouts in a park-like setting in the southeastern corner of Hopkins County. Fans walk across a bridge over the babbling Tradewater River into the time-capsule confines, where players who compete at various colleges during the spring come together in the summer as the Tradewater Pirates, members of the Mid-East Semi-Pro Baseball League. All games feature wooden bats instead of the metal weapons generally used at the collegiate level and below.
The Pirates, who often travel to cities such as Chicago, Memphis or St. Louis for away contests, expect to play 30 or more home games in 2005, most on Saturdays and Sundays from Memorial Day week/files/storyimages/through July. Their league’s tournament will be in Dawson Springs as well, July 15-17. Admission is $4 and the concessions include western-Kentucky barbecue, pork chop sandwiches and taco salads, as well as standard ballpark fare (www.tradewaterpirates.com).
Kentucky Rifle
When early-19th-century folks aimed to name the long rifle that served hunters so well on the American frontier, they missed the mark by several hundred miles - the flintlock that became associated with this state was actually developed and manufactured in Pennsylvania. It most likely became the Kentucky Rifle in popular parlance for two reasons: because ‘long hunters’ such as Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton and John Findlay who made famous expeditions into early Kentucky territory were associated with the firearm; and because a popular song of the 1820s written in honor of Kentuckians’ key role in the War of 1812 Battle of New Orleans referred to the brave fighters and their eponymous rifles.
We’re happy to take so much credit for someone else’s work, and now that the Frazier Historical Arms Museum has opened its doors on Main Street, we can argue a strong present-day tie to the renowned hunters’ and marksmans’ piece. The museum, at 829 W. Main St. (www.frazierarmsmuseum.org), exhibits a stunning variety of firearms, from early-16th-century wheel-locks to flintlock muskets and hunting rifles (including the German-made J’ger flintlock, the most direct
precursor to the Kentucky version).
The rifle’s evolution comes into sharp focus over two floors of exhibition space, as does the craftsmanship of those neglected Pennsylvanians, who combined a long barrel with a smooth bore for accuracy at several hundred yards. The polished-wood stocks and ornate scrolled brass ornamentation around the patchbox
covers (which sealed a recessed compartment in the butt used for storing greased cloth or cleaning tools) reveal guns as art. The exhibits that detail frontier hardships, on the other hand - wars, massacres and the risky pursuit of game - underscore the Kentucky rifle as an indispensable tool of westward expansion.
Natural Arches
People associate Kentucky with caves - and especially with the 340 miles of passageways in the Mammoth Cave system - but the state is also endowed with
portals of another sort: natural bridges and arches. There are, in fact, nearly 500 known natural arches in the Red River Gorge area alone, including Kentucky’s most famous example, Natural Bridge in Powell County.
Victor Fife, a librarian at Western Kentucky University, has made an avocation of hiking to arches, including many he’s discovered himself. He says Kentucky and Arizona rank second to Utah as the states with the most natural spans - most here carved by the erosion and weathering of sandstone, others of limestone.
Fife recommends a lesser-visited natural bridge (arches with water flowing under them are termed ‘bridges’) in far western Kentucky, north of Land Between the Lakes. The span at Mantle Rock runs 188 feet and is 30 feet high. A brook flows in front and fragile glade mosses cover a ridge outcropping behind the arch. It sits on Nature Conservancy property and is open to hiking; an easily traversed trail past bluffs, shelters and honeycomb formations leads to Mantle Rock. A large group of Cherokees were forced to stop there on their ‘Trail of Tears’ march in the winter of 1839, many of whom died because an icy Ohio River was unfordable at the time.
Also suggested: Carter Caves State Resort Park (parks.ky.gov/cartcave), which features Smokey Bridge and Carter Caves Natural Bridge - two of the largest spans in the state. Another option: Creelsboro Natural Bridge, near the Cumberland River in Russell County, one of the less-prevalent limestone arches, featuring a glorious view of the river through its opening. The 100-foot span, also called Rock House Natural Bridge, is located about two miles west of Creelsboro and may be accessed from a gravel road.
American Saddlebreds
Despite its reputation as the breeding ground for Thoroughbred racehorses, the Commonwealth lays greater claim to pioneering the pedigree of another famous horse: the American Saddlebred.
These ‘easy riders’ are descendants of the mounts that entered the state after the American Revolution, carrying their masters through the Cumberland Gap to the Bluegrass frontier. Called simply the ‘American horse,’ this frontier steed was mixed here and in nearby states with several other breeds, including Thorough-breds, Arabians and Morgans, before the final genetic mix of the Saddlebred was established. Early on, the breed was referred to as ‘Kentucky saddlers’; most of it’s prominent sires were foaled, raised and trained here. In 1891, the American Saddlebred Horse Association was founded in Louisville as the first horse-breed association in the U.S.
The Saddlebred is a high-stepping and graceful horse with the innate ability to walk, trot and canter. But what really makes it special is the inherent capacity
to perform what is called the ‘slow gait’ at a speeded up pace called ‘racking.’ The rack, unique to the Saddlebred, involves a specialized movement during which each of the four feet strike the ground separately. Many riders compare it to being in a rocking chair as they glide through the air aboard these horses.
The best way to see the spectacle of the rack is in the show ring. Saddlebreds compete in five primary divisions: five-gaited, three-gaited, fine harness, park and pleasure. The five-gaited horses exhibit the rack, and they’re on display at the World Championship Horse show each August in Louisville at the Kentucky State Fair. However, a precursor to that show, the Rock Creek Horse Show, will be held on June 6-11. It’s an outdoor competition in a tranquil setting next to Seneca Park. Admission at the gate is $7, or box seats can be reserved by calling Rock Creek after May 23 (893-5252). The five-gaited championship takes place on the final night, and the crowd will surely snap to attention when the announcer says, ‘Rack your horses!’
Kentucky Bibb Lettuce
The fertile soil of the Bluegrass has given rise to many a tobacco plant,
but it has also sprouted a sought-after salad staple. Sometime in the late 1860s former lawyer and politician John B. Bibb, an amateur horticulturist and resident of Frankfort, germinated the first examples of what was originally called limestone lettuce, later to be known as Kentucky Bibb.
Bibb belongs to the butterhead family of lettuces, characterized by a small, compact head. Its easily bruised leaves require tender loving care, but that fragility is outweighed by its sweet, almost buttery taste. Since Bibb introduced it, other varieties of Bibb, including Boston Bibb, have been developed.
The plant is fairly tricky to grow, but does best in cool spring or fall weather. It’s typically raised hydroponically, and many of the top local restaurants and some specialty grocers purchase their Bibb from Grateful Greens in Old Louisville.
To experience the glory of Bibb on the plate, head to Jack Fry’s on Bardstown Road and order its warm brie salad. The restaurant’s classic version starts with a bed of Bibb tossed in a vinaigrette dressing, topped off with slices of warm brie and slivered toasted almonds. All of the ingredients come together in a taste sensation that even Bibb himself might never have imagined.
