All About Kentucky
Two hundred years after it was wrested from the Native Americans, Kentucky still hasn't quite made up its mind as to whether it belongs in the North or the South. Both the rival presidents in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, were born here, and divisions were acute between slave-owning farmers and the merchants who depended on trade with the nearby cities of the industrial North. Officially neutral, seventy thousand Kentuckians joined the Union army and forty thousand the Confederates. After the war Kentucky sided with the South in its hostility to Reconstruction, and since then it has remained solidly Democrat.
Kentucky's rugged beauty is at its most appealing in the mountainous east and the small historic towns of the Bluegrass Downs, with visits enlivened by the varied attractions of bourbon whiskey, thoroughbred horses and bluegrass music. Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby, is a busy manufacturing and arts center; the more reserved Lexington, eighty miles east, is a major horse-breeding market.
The fertile Bluegrass Downs, just eighty miles across, form the base of America's thoroughbred racing industry, with Lexington quietly prospering at its heart. The name comes from the unique steel-blue sheen of the buds in the meadows, only visible in early morning during April and May. Kentucky's first white pioneers, who trekked in the 1770s through the 150 miles of wilderness now called the Daniel Boone National Forest, were amazed to find this ''Eden'' deserted while the Indians lived in much less attractive terrain. Anthropologists have now discovered that the area's twelfth-century inhabitants were plagued by fatal bone diseases, due to mineral deficiencies in the soil.
In heavily rural Kentucky, the manufacturing giant of Louisville stands out, with its lively cultural and racial mix. Only occasionally does it bother with the laid-back Southern image other parts of the state are so keen to promote. In the southern hinterland, numerous small towns retain their tree-shaded squares and nineteenth-century townhouses - and their strict Baptist beliefs - while the endless caverns of Mammoth Cave National Park attract spelunkers and hikers in their thousands. The west, where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi, is flat, heavily forested and generally less attractive.
Kentucky's limited public transportation can be a real headache. There's full Greyhound service along the interstates south of Louisville and Lexington (and both have surprisingly good city transportation), but a lot of ground is left uncovered. Amtrak doesn't operate here at all. Cycling is a pleasant and manageable option; if you're driving, be sure to keep small change for the tolls on the state highways. Lexington has its own small airport, but it's also within easy reach of the airport for Cincinnati, Ohio, which is in Covington, Kentucky. Louisville is served by Louisville International Airport.
