Kentucky is the home of bourbon, and there are a proud few who helped usher the industry into prominence. Learn about men like bourbon baron Isaac Bernheim, who founded the Bernheim Forest and Research Center, or John Douglas, who built a racetrack for the trotter racing industry and was known as the "Prince of Sports." George Garvin Brown and his business partner, George Forman, formed the Brown-Forman Company, which today is one of the largest American-owned companies in the spirits and wine business. With such enormous wealth came the temptation for fraud, which led to several bourbon leaders becoming involved in some of Kentucky's famous scandals. Author and Kentucky historian Bryan S. Bush details the intoxicating history of bourbon's biggest historical names.
Kentucky is the home of bourbon, and there are a proud few who helped usher the industry into prominence. Learn about men like bourbon baron Isaac Bernheim, who founded the Bernheim Forest and Research Center, or John Douglas, who built a racetrack for the trotter racing industry and was known as the "Prince of Sports." George Garvin Brown and his business partner, George Forman, formed the Brown-Forman Company, which today is one of the largest American-owned companies in the spirits and wine business. With such enormous wealth came the temptation for fraud, which led to several bourbon leaders becoming involved in some of Kentucky's famous scandals. Author and Kentucky historian Bryan S. Bush details the intoxicating history of bourbon's biggest historical names.
The author describes the history of whiskey in the Bourbon Belt, from the practices and personalities of old-time distillers to the present-day bourbon barons.
The Golden Age of Gambling in Louisville Louisville experienced a golden age of gambling between 1860 and 1885, thanks to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers by steamboat and foot. They played faro, keno, roulette and other games of chance, such as chuck-a-luck. Entire city blocks were devoted to betting. Horse racing and lotteries emerged. Gaming houses became grand palaces, with names such as the Crockford, the Crawford and the Turf Exchange, frequented by famous gamblers like Richard Watts, Colonel "Black" Chinn and actor Nat Goodwin. Author Bryan Bush offers up these stories and more about "The City of Gamblers."
A few days before the Kentucky Derby, a rising star jockey is found murdered near Churchill Downs. Louisville homicide detective Laurel Arno's investigation takes her from the private back rooms of elite gamblers, to the ancestral mansions of Kentucky bourbon barons, to the treacherous corridors of the State Capitol. Along the way, she exposes a shadowy world of political corruption, secret societies, and ancient feuds. As she closes in on a hidden killer, she discovers that a killer may also be closing in on her.
Small town controversies can be murder. When a newcomer to Erin, Ohio, proposes to tear down the historic Bijou Theater and erect in its place a boutique hotel, Sebastian McCabe adds civic activist to a long resume that already includes magician, mystery writer, professor, and amateur sleuth. With the strategic help of brother-in-law Jeff Cody, Mac launches a far-reaching campaign to Save the Bijou. The issue becomes highly political when three eccentric mayoral candidates stake out their positions - which one of them switches after a hefty campaign contribution. The plot machinations of grand opera seem positively guileless by comparison! Mac cries. Can homicide be far behind? The opera comparison is a natural one, for the new Erin Opera Company is staging an original work with a Mardi Gras theme. As murder strikes again, this time back stage, Sebastian McCabe becomes aware that many of the actors in this real-life drama are wearing metaphorical masks as well. Lynda Teal, Jeffs wife, records much of Macs sleuthing for a podcast series, never imagining that the most dramatic audio of the concluding episode will come from the murderer.
Outspoken Appalachian writer Harry M. Caudill analyzes the exploitation and decline of the eastern Kentucky mountain lands, which have rendered "no people in the nation...more forlorn than the Appalachian highlanders in our time." Frontier attitudes, a strong attachment to the land, and isolation have produced in Appalachia a backwoods culture which made its people susceptible to an outside exploitation of their resources that has perpetrated on them a passive society largely dependant on relief. But the times, says Mr. Caudill, are changing. A growing world population and global industrialization have created a drastically altered situation in eastern Kentucky. The area's resources of energy are essential to the progress and well-being not only of the nation but also of the world; and the world is prepared to court the favor of the people who control these resources and is prepared to pay the price demanded by those owners. Mr. Caudill makes an eloquent plea for Kentuckians to reclaim the resources that lie in their mountains and to demand their fair share of the wealth generated by those resources. If they are willing to do this, the state and especially the people in eastern Kentucky can have a bright and prosperous future. But they can delay no longer. They must break the mold of passivity and take destiny into their own hands. An attorney in Whitesburg, Kentucky, Harry M. Caudill is the author of such well-known books as Night Comes to the Cumberlands, Dark Hills to Westward, and My Land is Dying. The Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf is a celebration of two centuries of the history and culture of the Commonwealth.
"From George Washington's still to today's craft distilleries, Americans have had a thirst for whiskey. Legend says Joseph Greenhut arrived in Peoria with household goods worth fifty dollars and left for the East Coast worth millions."--Page 4 of cover.
" The first comprehensive history of the state since the publication of Thomas D. Clark's landmark History of Kentucky over sixty years ago. A New History of Kentucky brings the Commonwealth to life, from Pikeville to the Purchase, from Covington to Corbin, this account reveals Kentucky's many faces and deep traditions. Lowell Harrison, professor emeritus of history at Western Kentucky University, is the author of many books, including George Rogers Clark and the War in the West, The Civil War in Kentucky, Kentucky's Road to Statehood , Lincoln of Kentucky, and Kentucky's Governors.
When originally published, A New History of Kentucky provided a comprehensive study of the Commonwealth, bringing it to life by revealing the many faces, deep traditions, and historical milestones of the state. With new discoveries and findings, the narrative continues to evolve, and so does the telling of Kentucky's rich history. In this second edition, authors James C. Klotter and Craig Thompson Friend provide significantly revised content with updated material on gender politics, African American history, and cultural history. This wide-ranging volume includes a full overview of the state and its economic, educational, environmental, racial, and religious histories. At its essence, Kentucky's story is about its people—not just the notable and prominent figures but also lesser-known and sometimes overlooked personalities. The human spirit unfolds through the lives of individuals such as Shawnee peace chief Nonhelema Hokolesqua and suffrage leader Madge Breckinridge, early land promoter John Filson, author Wendell Berry, and Iwo Jima flag–raiser Private Franklin Sousley. They lived on a landscape defined by its topography as much as its political boundaries, from Appalachia in the east to the Jackson Purchase in the west, and from the Walker Line that forms the Commonwealth's southern boundary to the Ohio River that shapes its northern boundary. Along the journey are traces of Kentucky's past—its literary and musical traditions, its state-level and national political leadership, and its basketball and bourbon. Yet this volume also faces forthrightly the Commonwealth's blemishes—the displacement of Native Americans, African American enslavement, the legacy of violence, and failures to address poverty and poor health. A New History of Kentucky ranges throughout all parts of the Commonwealth to explore its special meaning to those who have called it home. It is a broadly interpretive, all-encompassing narrative that tells Kentucky's complex, extensive, and ever-changing story.
