Kentucky

Also see Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

Page Toppers

Blue Moon Over Kentucky
Down Kentucky Way
East Kentucky Mountains
I Hear Kentucky Calling Me
Kentucky in the Morning
Kentucky Means Paradise
Kentucky Rain)
Kentucky Rainbows
Kentucky Sunshine
Kentucky Wind
Lucky Kentucky
Moonshine Over Kentucky
Warm Kentucky Sunshine
Wild Kentucky Skies

Quotes

Growing up in eastern Kentucky like I did, I'm used to having a few guns around to protect me. (Loretta Lynn)
My vision for Kentucky is a Commonwealth where there is so much economic opportunity, and our quality of life is so high, that people who are born here can stay here, and people who aren't fortunate enough to be born in Kentucky, can look forward to locating here. (Ernie Fletcher)
Soon after, I returned home to my family, with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune. (Daniel Boone)
Tough girls come from New York. Sweet girls, they're from Georgia. But us Kentucky girls, we have fire and ice in our blood. We can ride horses, be a debutante, throw left hooks, and drink with the boys, all the while making sweet tea, darlin'. And if we have an opinion, you know you're gonna hear it. (Ashley Judd)

Kentucky Symbols

Nicknames: Bluegrass state
Motto: United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Song: My Old Kentucky Home (words and music by Stephen C. Foster)
Bluegrass Song: Blue Moon of Kentucky
Dance: Square Dance
Musical Instrument: Appalachian Dulcimer
Band: Louisville Pipe Band
Wild Game Animal: Grey Squirrel
Horse: Thoroughbred
Bird: Cardinal
Fish: Kentucky Spotted Bass
Butterfly: Viceroy Butterfly
Tree: Tulip Tree (Yellow Poplar)
Former Tree: Kentucky Coffee Tree
Flower: Goldenrod
Fruit: Blackberry
Fossil: Brachiopod
Gemstone: Freshwater Pearl
Mineral: Coal
Rock: Kentucky Agate

Facts About Kentucky

Capital: Frankfort
Residents: Kentuckians
State Name Origin: from a Wyandot word meaning "plain" or the Iroquois word "Kan-tah-ten" meaning "land of tomorrow"
Admitted to Statehood: 1 Jun 1792
Order of Admission: 15th state
Length: 380 miles
Width: 140 miles
Area: 40,409 square miles
Size Rank: 37
Number of Counties: 120
Streams and Rivers: 49,105 miles
Geographic Center: 3 miles NNW of Lebanon in Marion Co.
Mean Elevation: 750 feet
Highest Point: Black Mountain, 4,145 feet
Lowest Point: Mississippi River, 257 feet
Official Language: English (since 1984)
Agricultural Products: horses, cattle, tobacco
Commercial Products: industrial machinery, electronic equipment, tourism, cars, coal, metals
Average Annual Rainfall: 43.6 inches
Average Winter High Temperature: 36 degrees
Record Low Temperature: -37 degrees (19 Jan 1994 Shelbyville)
Average Summer High Temperature: 80 degrees
Record High Temperature: 114 degrees (28 Jul 1930 Greensburg)
Official Language: English
More information about Kentucky

Kentucky, Wait

(Stella Crafeet Tremble)

Kentucky, wait! I'm coming home
To see the daffodils,
Where dogwood drops its satin blooms
Upon the hazy hills,

Where sheaves of water on a rock
Fall on a wind-bent tree,
Where light and shadow flicker on
In golden harmony.

I'll feel the playful breezes blow
A fragrance from the pine
That clings upon the ridge's crest
Against the timberline.

I'll see the sky-dome sagging
With constellation strain,
Be lulled to peaceful slumber
By the pattering of rain.

Kentucky, wait! I'm coming home
To see such things as these.
No other place does springtime have
Such magic certainties.

Items of Interest

Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap, allowing KY to be the first area west of the Alleghenies settled by pioneers.
Cheeseburgers were first served in 1934 at Kaelin's restaurant in Louisville (other places also claim this honor).
Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave and the second oldest tourist attraction in the U.S. (after Niagara Falls).
The first commercial oil well was on the Cumberland River in McCreary County KY in 1819.
All Chevrolet Corvettes are manufactured in Bowling Green.
Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy 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.
More than a hundred native Kentuckians have been elected governors of other states.
The song "Happy Birthday to You" was written by 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.
Man o' War won all of his horse races except one which he lost to a horse named Upset.
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.
Post-It Notes are manufactured exclusively in Cynthiana. The exact number produced annually is a trade secret.
Bluegrass is not really blue but in the spring it produces bluish buds that, when seen in large fields, give it a blue cast.
Thomas Edison introduced his incandescent light bulb to crowds at the Southern Exposition at Louisville in 1883.
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.
The world's largest free-swinging bell known as the World Peace Bell is on permanent display in Newport.
The largest amount of gold stored anywhere in the world (More than $6 billion)is in the underground vaults of Fort Knox.

Notable Natives

Some of these were born here, others just lived a while in the state.

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) (1942- ) - world heavyweight boxing champion (Louisville)
Alben William Barkley - U.S. vice president (at 71 years he was the oldest vice president when he assumed office in 1949) (Graves City)
Daniel Boone - frontiersman, explorer (buried with his wife Rebecca in the Frankfort Cemetery)
Isaac Boone (son of Daniel) - killed in the last battle of the Revolutionary War fought in KY (buried in the Frankfort Cemetery)
James Bowie - pioneer
Louis D. Brandeis - supreme court justice (Louisville)
John Mason Brown - critic (Louisville)
Kit Carson (1809-1868), army scout, Indian agent
Rosemary Cloony - singer (Maysville)
Irvin S. Cobb - humorist (Paducah)
Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) - only president of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 (Fairview)
Johnny Depp - actor
Irene Dunne - actress (Louisville)
Crystal Gayle - singer (Paintsville)
David W. Griffith - film producer (Oldham Cty)
Elizabeth Hardwick - author
Casey Jones - locomotive engineer (Cayce)
Ashley Judd - actress
Naomi and Wynona Judd - singers
Arthur Lake - actor (born in Corbin)
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) - 16th U.S. president (Hodgenville)
Brian Littrell - singer (Lexington)
Loretta Lynn - singer (Butchers Hollow)
Bill Monroe - songwriter (Rosine)
Carry Amelia Nation - social reformer against rum, tobacco, pornography and corsets (Garrard City)
Patricia Neal - actress (Packard)
Harold ("Pee Wee") Reese (1919- ) - shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers
George Reeves - actor
Kevin Richardson - singer (Lexington)
Wiley B. Rutledge - supreme court justice (Cloverport)
"Colonel" Harland Sanders (1890-1980) - founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (the first KY Fried Chicken restaurant is in Corbin)
Diane Sawyer - television journalist (Glascow)
John T. Scopes, (1900-1970) - defendant in the "monkey trial" in Dayton, TN, charged with illegal teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution, convicted and fined $100
Phil Simms - football player
Adlai Stevenson - U.S. vice president
Allen Tate - poet, critic (Winchester)
Hunter Thompson - author (Louisville)
Frederick M. Vinson - only Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court known to be born in jail (Louisa)
Robert Penn Warren - author (Guthrie)

The Kentucky State Flag
The flag background is navy blue. In the center is the state Seal. The two men shaking hands, a pioneer and a statesman, represent all the people of the state. They are acting out the state motto--"United We Stand; Divided We Fall". The Seal is encircled by a wreath. The lower half has sprays of blooming goldenrod (state flower). The upper half says "Commonwealth of Kentucky". The flag, adopted in 1918, was amended in 1928 and 1962.

You know you are from Kentucky if...

No matter how much you think you talk normally, when you're up North they all think you talk like a redneck.
Your English teacher says things like "Y'all" and "Ain't Got None".
The best restaurant in town is the Cracker Barrel.
No matter how bad UK's basketball team is, you still believe they'll pull it off and make it to the Final 4.
You still believe the South should be it's own nation.
You believe the Civil War was not a fair fight.
It's not an uncommon site to see a fat man in overalls and a cowboy hat drivin' down the road in a beat up Chevy with a confederate flag hangin' off the back with music from Johnny Rebel blastin' out of his radio.
Biscuits, gravy, and grits is your favorite breakfast.
Wakin' up with coons and squirrels on your back porch is not an uncommon thing.
To you, huntin' ain't killin', its sorta like grocery shoppin'.
You own at least ten country or southern rock CD's.
You only own a pair of church shoes and winter shoes.
In the summer you don't wear shoes.
Even your grandmother chews tobacco.
You consider the northern part of the country "The Union".
A rebel flag doesn't symbolize racism to you.
Your church parking lot is filled with pickups.
The first words out of your mouth every time you see friends are "Howdy!", "HEY!" or "How Y'all Doin'?"
You actually know who Toby Keith, Brooks & Dunn, Keith Urban, Montgomery Gentry, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Garth Brooks, and George Straight are.
A carbonated soft drink is a COKE, regardless of brand or flavor.
You refer to Louisville as "The Ville."
You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Kentucky.

Songs about Kentucky

Blue Kentucky Girl - Emmylou Harris (1979)
Blue Moon of Kentucky - The Earl Scruggs Revue (1980)
Blue Moon Over Kentucky - The Blue Grass Boys (1947)
Blue-Eyed Kentucky Girl - Loretta Lynn (1995)
Bus Fare to Kentucky - Skeeter Davis (1971)
Down Home in Kentucky - Frankie Jaxon (1937)
Down Kentucky Way - Wendell Hall (1927)
East Kentucky Mountains - Anne Hills (2011)
Green Kentucky Eyes - Pal Rakes (1988)
I Can Hear Kentucky Calling Me - Chet Atkins (1981)
I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky - The Bluegrass Boys (1969)
In the Hills of Old Kentucky - Billy Ray Cyrus (2007)
Kentucky - The Osborne Brothers (1965)
Kentucky Bluebird - Keith Whitley (1991)
Kentucky Bootlegger - The New Lost City Ramblers (1962)
Kentucky Derby - Chet Atkins (1954)
Kentucky Downpour - The Band (1998)
Kentucky Gambler - Merle Haggard (1974)
Kentucky Girl - The Fortunes (1977)
Kentucky Gold - The Reno Brothers (1992)
Kentucky in the Morning - Charlie Sizemore (2002)
Kentucky Means Paradise - Glen Campbell (1962)
Kentucky Moonshine - Pure Prairie League (1975)
Kentucky Rain - Elvis Presley (1970)
Kentucky Rainbows - Lisa Hartman-Black (1976)
Kentucky Straight - Johnny Cash (1972)
Kentucky Sunshine - Wayne Kemp (1973)
Kentucky Turkey Buzzard - Ed Anderson (2003)
Kentucky Waltz - The Southern Grass (2001)
Kentucky Wind - The McLain Family Band (1985)
Kentucky Woman - Ronnie Milsap (1975)
Lucky Kentucky - Paul Whiteman Orchestra (1924)
Message to Martha (Kentucky Bluebird) - Adam Faith (1964)
Moonshine Over Kentucky - Bunny Berigan Orchestra (1938)
My Kentucky Dream - Alan Munde (2004)
My Rose of Old Kentucky - The Blue Grass Boys (1948)
Old Kentucky Waltz - Tommy Sosebee (1950)
Roll Along, Kentucky Moon - Homer (1949)
Rose of Old Kentucky - Byron Berline and Vince Gill (1995)
Sweet Kentucky Ham - Dave Frishberg (1981)
Sweet Kentucky Lady (Dry Your Eyes) - Harry MacDonough (1915)
Sweet Kentucky Rose - Kitty Kallen (1955)
Take Me Back to Kentucky - Cross Country Grass (1981)
Those Kentucky Bluegrass Hills - Jimmy Work (1945)
Warm Kentucky Sunshine - The Bluegrass Cardinals (1983)
Wild Dog of Kentucky - Nervous Norvus (1956)
Wild Kentucky Skies - Marty Brown (1993)

Songs about Kentucky Cities

Cartersville, Kentucky Country Boy - Josh Logan (2002)
Fort Knox - Don Cornell (1956)
Hamilton County Breakdown - Alan Munde (1980)
Harlan County Five-String - Steve Sparkman (1997)
Take Me Back to Renfro Valley - Mac Wiseman (1979)
Hazard, Kentucky - Phil Ochs (1989)
Eight More Miles to Louisville - Mac Wiseman (1973)
Louisville - Jann Browne (1990)
Louisville Lady - Smiley Burnette (1946)
You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive - Brad Paisley (2001)