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A little history in KentuckyNov 11, 2009
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The ruins of an 1840s blast furnace, see the photo from last...
How an old time blast furnace worked
A Fallow deer, introduced in 1800's for hunting, has antlers like a...
| Tuesday, Nov. 10 Happy Birthday Marine Corps. Hmmmmm, why do I remember that? Overcast but nice morning. Packed up and hit the road, left the CG completely empty. Drove to the ferry boarding location on the Ohio River. I had Barb drive on so I could watch underneath the backend of the trailer to make sure it didn’t scrape. Sure enough, whoops, we be too long behind the wheels and she started to scrape. Whoa Barb! Back her off, on to Plan B. We need to find a bridge. Darn, I wanted to get ferried across the Ohio just like in days of old with our Conestoga Wagon. This meant about a 50 mile detour as we had to go north and cross. At least the bridge we crossed had concrete and was wide enough to meet semis. Lots of rolling hills and farm country. We drove into Kentucky to a place called Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area. I had read about it at some point cause when I saw it on the map I remembered something about it. Well here is the scoop. The Tennessee River and the Cumberland River both flow up from the south and dump into the Ohio. Only they are very close together for the last 70 miles they run, like only 10 -15 miles apart. So the piece of land came to be known as the land between the rivers (or “betwixt” as some yokels called it.) Since they only had ferries to rely on until the 30’s and 40’s the people who settled here were somewhat isolated tho both rivers were large and steamboats ran up and down them. More on the land later. Had to stop for groceries and were on narrow 2 lane roads so took us a while to get the 125 miles to here. There are several CG’s, a couple huge ones so we opted for a smaller one. There is one north – south road running the length of the area called The Trace. It is good blacktop but this country is very hilly and the road is curvy. The secondary roads are mostly paved but very narrow and slow. The CG we picked is not very big rig friendly, lots of low hanging tree branches (and we are paranoid about that now) and the sites are small and it was difficult to wangle into one. We are overlooking a small lake called Energy Lake (no I don’t know where the name came from, but there used to be a community called Energy near here.) We read some of the brochures we had picked up and today we went to the visitor center and went thru a small but extremely interesting museum explaining a lot about the area. Apparently this area was teeming with game; elk, buffalo, deer, turkeys etc. Of course the settlers killed most of it off in due time. But here is a damn interesting thing, they had a bunch, like 8, blast furnaces for making iron. Just like the one I had a picture of a couple days ago. So why all these things here? Well there was a bunch of hematite iron ore laying around that could be dug out with a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow. And there was an abundance of limestone which was used as a flux to remove the impurities from the ore and there were a lot of hardwood trees from which they made charcoal. Apparently when you throw all this stuff down a hole and burn it hot enough you get iron coming out the bottom. Who knew? The first furnace was built in 1844 but they were all shut down by the Yankees when they captured the area during the Civil War. Following the war new ways of making iron had been developed so all the furnaces were abandoned. After the war farming and logging continued, about 30 communities existed in this area. But then in the 1930’s, here comes the government to help. There had been many floods over the years but in 1937 there was a huge one. So a dam on the Tennessee River was built near its confluence with the Ohio. As with all reservoirs land had to be purchased before it was flooded. Unfortunately many people didn’t want to sell but tuff tootsies. Then in the late 50’s it was decided to dam the Cumberland River and all the remaining land between the rivers was condemned. All villages were destroyed and buildings torn down or moved. A recreation area was planned and when the reservoirs were full the area became the “Land Between the Lakes.” President Kennedy dedicated it in 1963. After going thru the museum we took in a show at a planetarium in the visitor center. I found out that since it is Veterans Day Barb and I can get in things free here, the planetarium, a drive in an elk and bison preserve and a visit to a nature center. Saved 20 bucks. Sheesh first time that has ever happened. Got back to CG just at dark. Another fine day. |
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