Kentucky shares the Cardinal as state bird with Illinois,
Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
High Bridge located near Nicholasville is the highest railroad
bridge over navigable water in the United States.
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.
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.