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Midi playing is "My Old Kentucky Home"
"My Old Kentucky Home"
The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,
�Tis summer, the people are gay;
The corn top�s ripe and the meadow�s in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright;
By �n by hard times comes a-knockin� at the door,
Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!
Weep no more, my lady!
Oh weep no more today.
We will sing one song for my old Kentucky home,
For my old Kentucky home, far away.
Written By Stephen Collins Foster -1853
Welcome
To The State Of Kentucky
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| The Kentucky State Flag
Kentucky's General Assembly adopted a state flag in 1918 but could not agree on the the final specification for ten years. Yes, it took ten years to reach satisfactory agreement from all concerned. In 1928, the General Assembly gave final approval for the flag and actually incorporated a drawing of the flag in the statutes |
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Kentucky's State Symbols:
- State song: My Old Kentucky Home
- State bird: Cardinal
- State tree: Tulip poplar (replaced Kentucky Coffeetree in 1994)
- State flower: Goldenrod
- State fish: Kentucky Bass
- State wild animal: Gray Squirrel
- State horse: Thoroughbred
- State insect: Viceroy Butterfly
- State fossil: Brachiopod
- State Gemstone: Freshwater pearl
Some Kentucky Facts:
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Kentucky became the 15th state on June 1, 1792
- Origin of the Name Kentucky - Kentucky is from the Iroquois Indian word "Ken-tah-ten," which means "land of tomorrow."
- Motto: United we stand, divided we fall
- Nickname: The Bluegrass State
- Capital: Frankfort
- Governor: Paul E. Patton, D (to Dec. 2003)
- Population Rank: 25 of 50 states (2000 Census rank)
- Area: 40,411 sq. miles, of which 39,732 is land
- Area Rank: 37 of 50 states
- Frankfort is the capital city
Famous natives and residents:
- John Adair...pioneer and political leader;
- Muhammad Ali...boxer;
- Alben W. Barkley...vice president;
- Louis D. Brandeis...jurist;
- John Mason Brown...critic;
- Kit Carson...scout;
- Champ Clark...politician;
- George Clooney...actor;
- Rosemary Clooney...singer;
- Irvin S. Cobb...humorist;
- Jefferson Davis...president of the Confederacy;
- Johnny Depp...actor;
- Irene Dunne...actress;
- Crystal Gayle...singer;
- David W. Griffith...film producer;
- John M. Harlan...jurist;
- Elizabeth Hardwick...writer;
- Casey Jones...locomotive engineer;
- Ashley Judd...actress;
- Naomi Judd...singer;
- Wynona Judd...singer;
- Barbara Kingsolver...writer;
- Abraham Lincoln...president;
- Loretta Lynn...singer;
- Bill Monroe...bluegrass musician;
- Carry A. Nation...temperance leader;
- Patricia Neal...actress;
- George Reeves...actor;
- Wiley B. Rutledge...jurist;
- Diane Sawyer...broadcast journalist;
- Phil Simms... -football player;
- Adlai Stevenson...vice president;
- Allen Tate...poet and critic;
- Hunter Thompson...writer;
- Frederick M. Vinson...jurist;
- Robert Penn Warren...novelist.
Some Trivia
- 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.
- Kentucky was a popular hunting ground for the Shawnee and Cherokee Indian nations prior to being settled by white settlers.
- 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.
- 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.
- Fleming County is recognized as the Covered Bridge 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.
- 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 first town in the United States to be named for the first president was Washington. It was named in 1780.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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 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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E-mail:Kathy
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