Previously part of colonial Virginia, Kentucky was admitted into the Union as the fifteenth state on June 1, 1792. It is known as the "Bluegrass State" in reference to Kentucky bluegrass, a species of grass introduced by European settlers which has long supported the state's thoroughbred horse industry.
The fertile soil in the central and western parts of the state led to the development of large tobacco plantations similar to those in Virginia and North Carolina, which utilized enslaved labor prior to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Kentucky ranks fifth nationally in goat farming, eighth in beef cattle production, and fourteenth in corn production. While Kentucky has been a long-standing center for the tobacco industry, its economy has diversified into non-agricultural sectors including auto manufacturing, energy production, and medicine. Kentucky ranks fourth among US states in the number of automobiles and trucks assembled. It is one of several states considered part of the Upland South. (Full article...)
Access to the Big Four Bridge is limited to pedestrian and bicycle use. A pedestrian ramp on the Kentucky side was opened on February 7, 2013. The original approaches that carried rail traffic onto the main spans were first removed in 1974–1975, earning the Big Four Bridge the nickname "Bridge That Goes Nowhere". The George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge downstream, which carries U.S. Route 31 across the river, was previously the only bridge allowing bicyclists and pedestrians to travel between Louisville and the neighboring Indiana cities of New Albany, Clarksville, and Jeffersonville. (Full article...)
Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, regarded as one of the principal pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
... that in 1977, Appalachian folk singer Phyllis Boyens performed at a Christmas benefit concert to support Kentucky coal miners who had been on strike for 17 months?
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