
Kentucky Facts, State Trivia & Information
- 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.
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