68 Fun Facts About Kentucky

What is the capital of Kentucky?

Frankfort has been the capital since Kentucky's statehood in 1792; with roughly 28,000 residents it is among the smallest state capitals, far smaller than Louisville or Lexington.

Kentucky's capital city takes its name from what 1780 incident?

The crossing was called Frank's Ford in his memory, and the name wore down to Frankfort.

Kentucky was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1792, as which state in order?

Kentucky became the 15th state on June 1, 1792; Congress had passed its admission act in February 1791, two weeks before Vermont's, but Vermont entered first as the 14th.

Before statehood, Kentucky was part of which state?

Kentucky was Virginia's western district, organized as Kentucky County in 1776; ten statehood conventions met at Danville between 1784 and 1792 before Virginia consented to separation.

Kentucky's nickname, the Bluegrass State, refers to a grass that was what?

Kentucky bluegrass, Poa pratensis, was introduced by European settlers; it is native to Europe and northern Asia and spread across the region's limestone soils, giving the Bluegrass its name.

What is Kentucky's official English-language state motto?

'United we stand, divided we fall' has appeared on Kentucky's seal since 1792; in 2002 the legislature added a Latin motto, Deo gratiam habeamus, 'let us be grateful to God'.

The two men shaking hands on Kentucky's state seal symbolise what?

They stand for the unity of frontiersmen and statesmen; legend names them Daniel Boone and Henry Clay, but the 1792 seal law described only 'two friends embracing'.

Kentucky's flag has a navy field with the state seal above sprigs of which state flower?

Sprigs of goldenrod, the state flower, flank the seal on the flag; art teacher Jesse Cox Burgess designed it and the legislature adopted it in 1918.

What is Kentucky's state bird?

The northern cardinal became Kentucky's state bird in 1926; it is the most popular state bird in the country, shared with six other states.

Kentucky is one of only four US states that officially call themselves what?

Kentucky calls itself a commonwealth, a title it shares with only Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and one other state; the word signals government for the common good and has no distinct legal status.

How many counties does Kentucky have?

Kentucky has 120 counties, more than any state except Texas and Georgia; Jefferson County, merged with Louisville Metro, is the most populous and Pike County the largest by area.

Kentucky's northern border is defined by which river?

The Ohio River forms Kentucky's whole northern boundary with Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; the Supreme Court fixed the line at the river's northern low-water mark as it stood in 1792.

How many states border Kentucky?

Seven states border Kentucky; only Missouri and Tennessee, each with eight neighbours, touch more, and Kentucky's entire boundary with Missouri is a river line.

The Kentucky Bend, surrounded by Missouri and Tennessee, exists because of what?

A surveying error in fixing the 36°30' Kentucky-Tennessee line, combined with a tight loop of the river, left this pocket attached to Kentucky; it is reachable by road only through Tennessee.

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is notable as the world's what?

Mammoth Cave is the longest known system of passages in the world, with more than 400 miles surveyed, well ahead of the runner-up, Sistema Sac Actun in Mexico.

In 1842-43 the owner of Mammoth Cave ran what inside the cave, believing its vapours would heal patients?

Owner Dr. John Croghan ran a tuberculosis hospital of stone huts inside the cave in 1842-43; several patients died there, and Croghan himself died of the disease in 1849.

Cumberland Falls in Kentucky claims to be the only place in the Western Hemisphere where what is regularly seen?

A moonbow, or lunar rainbow, forms in the falls' mist on clear nights around the full moon; the 68-foot falls on the Cumberland River are nicknamed the Niagara of the South.

Kentucky produces roughly what share of the world's bourbon?

Kentucky makes about 95% of the world's bourbon, by the Kentucky Distillers' Association's count; the barrels ageing in its warehouses outnumber the state's roughly 4.5 million people.

By US law, bourbon must be made from a grain mixture that is at least what percentage corn?

Federal rules require a mash of at least 51% corn, ageing in new charred oak containers and distillation to no more than 160 proof; Congress declared bourbon a distinctive US product in 1964.

Maker's Mark bourbon, made in Loretto, Kentucky, is instantly recognisable by what feature of its bottle?

Each bottle gets a wax seal, dipped in red by hand, a touch Margie Samuels devised for the first run in 1958; the dripping red wax is a registered trademark.

The Kentucky Derby is run on the first Saturday of which month?

The Derby is run on the first Saturday in May, opening the Triple Crown; it has been held every year since it began, though 1945 and 2020 were postponed to June and September.

The Kentucky Derby is nicknamed the Run for the Roses because of what?

The winning horse is draped in a blanket of 554 red roses; New York columnist Bill Corum coined the nickname in 1925, and roses were first presented to a Derby winner in 1896.

Which drink is the traditional beverage of the Kentucky Derby?

The mint julep, bourbon with mint and sugar syrup over crushed ice in a frosted silver cup, has been the Derby's official drink since 1938; Churchill Downs serves about 120,000 each Derby weekend.

Which horse set the Kentucky Derby record of 1:59.4 in 1973?

Secretariat ran each successive quarter-mile faster than the last, finishing in 1:59 2/5, the only sub-two-minute Derby until Monarchos ran 1:59.97 in 2001.

Churchill Downs has hosted the Kentucky Derby since the track opened in which year?

The track opened in 1875 and ran the first Derby that spring, won by Aristides; with the infield open, the grounds have held more than 170,000 on Derby day.

Lexington, Kentucky, calls itself the capital of the world for what?

Hundreds of horse farms surround the city, plus Keeneland, the Red Mile and the Kentucky Horse Park.

Louisville, Kentucky, was named in 1780 in honour of which monarch?

The town was chartered in 1780 and named for Louis XVI of France, whose country had allied with the rebelling colonies in 1778; George Rogers Clark had founded the settlement two years earlier.

The Louisville Slugger traces its origin to an 1884 bat hand-made for which slumping Louisville Eclipse star?

Company legend says 17-year-old Bud Hillerich made the bat in his father's woodworking shop and Browning got three hits with it the next day.

Which boxer was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville in 1942?

Muhammad Ali, who changed his name in 1964 after joining the Nation of Islam, took up boxing at 12 when policeman Joe Martin told the boy fuming over a stolen bicycle to learn to fight first.

Near which Kentucky town was Abraham Lincoln born in 1809?

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, at Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville; Jefferson Davis, his Confederate counterpart, had been born about 100 miles away in Fairview eight months earlier.

Kentucky's official position during the Civil War was what?

A shadow Confederate government was set up at Bowling Green, but the state stayed in the Union and Lincoln worked hard to respect its declared neutrality.

The 1862 battle that ended the Confederate campaign to take Kentucky was fought at which town?

At Perryville on October 8, 1862, Braxton Bragg won a tactical victory over Don Carlos Buell but withdrew to Tennessee, and the Union held the border state for the rest of the war.

The Cumberland Gap sits near the point where Kentucky meets which two other states?

The gap lies near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee, about 1,600 feet up; physician-explorer Thomas Walker recorded it in 1750, and Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road ran through it in 1775.

Daniel Boone founded which fortified Kentucky settlement on the Kentucky River in 1775?

Boone's party cut the Wilderness Road and built Boonesborough in April 1775; he brought his family there that September, and the fort withstood a Shawnee siege in September 1778.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud pitted the McCoys of Kentucky against the Hatfields of which neighbouring state?

The Hatfields lived on the West Virginia bank of the Tug Fork, the McCoys across the river in Pike County; one flare-up in 1878 was over the ownership of a hog.

Fort Knox holds roughly what share of the federal government's gold?

The Bullion Depository holds about 147 million troy ounces, a little over half of the Treasury's roughly 261 million; the vault was built in 1936 to move gold away from coastal cities.

Colonel Harland Sanders first sold his fried chicken from a roadside restaurant in which Kentucky town?

Sanders served chicken at his Corbin service station and café from 1930; the first franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken opened far away in South Salt Lake, Utah, in 1952.

Louisville's Hot Brown sandwich, created in 1926, is a variation of which traditional dish?

Chef Fred K. Schmidt devised it at the Brown Hotel as a variation on Welsh rarebit, an open-faced turkey and bacon sandwich under Mornay sauce, to replace late-night ham and eggs.

Kentucky's fourth-largest city, Owensboro, styles itself the world capital of what?

Owensboro calls itself the Bar-B-Q Capital of the World and has hosted the International Bar-B-Q Festival since 1979; mutton is the local barbecue specialty.

Bill Monroe's genre took its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, itself named after what?

Monroe, born near Rosine in 1911, named the Blue Grass Boys for the bluegrass of his home state; the 1945-46 lineup with Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt set the genre's template.

Who recorded 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' for his first Sun Records single?

Elvis Presley cut it at Sun Studio in July 1954 as the B-side of 'That's All Right', turning Bill Monroe's 1946 waltz into an up-tempo number.

Under what title did Patty and Mildred Hill write the melody of 'Happy Birthday to You' in 1893?

The Louisville sisters published the tune as 'Good Morning to All' in their 1893 Song Stories for the Kindergarten; Warner/Chappell collected fees on it until a court voided the copyright claim in 2015.

Country singer Loretta Lynn, the Coal Miner's Daughter, was born in which Kentucky county?

Lynn was born at Butcher Hollow, near Paintsville in Johnson County; Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar playing her in the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter.

Which sports car has been built exclusively in Bowling Green, Kentucky, since 1981?

The state made it the official state sports car, and the National Corvette Museum sits next to the plant.

What happened at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green on the morning of February 12, 2014?

Before dawn a sinkhole swallowed eight cars from the museum's Skydome; all eight were recovered, but only three, including the one-millionth car built, were restored.

Kentucky men's basketball ranks second all-time in NCAA titles behind which school?

UCLA leads with 11 NCAA titles, ten of them under John Wooden; Kentucky's eight came under five coaches, from Adolph Rupp's four to John Calipari's 2012 title.

In which league did the Kentucky Colonels play from 1967 to 1976?

The Colonels played all nine ABA seasons and won the 1975 ABA championship, yet owner John Y. Brown took a buyout instead of joining the 1976 ABA-NBA merger, and the team folded.

Berea College in Kentucky, founded in 1855, was the first college in the South to be what?

Founded by abolitionist John G. Fee, Berea was the South's first college both coeducational and racially integrated; Kentucky's 1904 Day Law forced it to segregate until the law was amended in 1950.

Which small Kentucky city is nicknamed Quilt City and hosts the National Quilt Museum?

Paducah has hosted the National Quilt Museum since 1991 and the annual AQS QuiltWeek; it joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for crafts and folk art in 2013.

Kentucky's Big Bone Lick State Park is named for the fossils of which Ice Age animals?

Mammoths and mastodons came to the salt springs and left their bones in the bog, along with bison, ground sloths and musk oxen; the site is called the birthplace of American palaeontology.

Ark Encounter, the theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky, is built around a full-size replica of what?

The 510-foot wooden Noah's Ark, built to the dimensions given in Genesis, opened in 2016; Answers in Genesis runs it and the Creation Museum about 45 miles away.

Land Between the Lakes lies between Kentucky Lake and which other reservoir?

Lake Barkley, impounded on the Cumberland River in 1966, runs parallel to Kentucky Lake; a canal links the two, and the long peninsula between them is Land Between the Lakes.

Kentucky's Derby Festival kicks off with Thunder Over Louisville, which is what kind of event?

Thunder Over Louisville is an airshow and fireworks display, with daytime flyovers and an evening show fired from barges and a bridge; billed as one of North America's largest fireworks displays, it opens the Derby Festival.

The Belle of Louisville, moored on the Ohio downtown, holds what distinction?

Built in Pittsburgh in 1914 as the Idlewild, she began as a ferry between Memphis and West Memphis.

Which Kentucky-born inventor demonstrated a battery-powered wireless telephone in 1902?

Nathan Stubblefield, a melon farmer from Murray, demonstrated voice transmission without wires at Murray and in Washington in 1902 but never commercialised it, and died in seclusion in 1928.

Garrett Morgan, born in Paris, Kentucky, in 1877, invented an early version of which everyday device?

Morgan patented a three-way traffic light, a three-position signal adding a warning interval between stop and go, in 1923 and sold the rights to General Electric for $40,000; his smoke hood saved workers in Cleveland's 1916 tunnel disaster.

Which 1883-87 Louisville fair lit its halls with thousands of Edison's new light bulbs?

The Southern Exposition, opened in 1883 by President Chester Arthur, ran for five seasons and lit its main building with some 4,600 Edison incandescent lamps, then the largest such installation.

Glasgow, Kentucky, celebrates its Scottish namesake each year with what event?

The Glasgow Highland Games, with caber tossing, pipe bands and clan tents, have drawn visitors to the Barren County town since the 1980s; it is also journalist Diane Sawyer's birthplace.

Which Hollywood star was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1963?

Johnny Depp was born in Owensboro on June 9, 1963, and moved to Florida as a boy; Jennifer Lawrence (Louisville) and George Clooney (Lexington) are also Kentucky natives.

Kentucky's restocked elk herd hit its project goal in 2009 at how many animals?

The herd reached its 10,000-animal target in 2009, a dozen years after the first elk were released in the eastern coalfields in December 1997; about 1,500 were brought in from western states.

Roughly what share of US Thoroughbred foals are born in Kentucky?

Kentucky registers over 30% of the US Thoroughbred foal crop, more than any other state; Keeneland's September yearling sale alone grossed about $360 million in 2019.

Kentucky's official state fruit is which berry?

The blackberry was designated Kentucky's official state fruit in 2004; the wild bramble grows along fencerows and roadsides throughout the state, and blackberry cobbler is a summer staple.

The Old Fashioned cocktail is claimed as the invention of which Louisville institution?

The Pendennis Club, a private club founded in 1881, is credited by legend with the Old Fashioned in the 1880s, with bourbon distiller James E. Pepper carrying the recipe to New York's Waldorf-Astoria.

What nickname did Newport, Kentucky, earn for its Monmouth Street casinos?

Newport was known as Sin City in the 1940s and 50s, when Monmouth Street's mob-run casinos drew Cincinnati gamblers; reform campaigns and federal probes closed them in the 1960s, and the Newport Aquarium opened in 1999.

What is the highest point in Kentucky?

Black Mountain rises to 4,145 feet in Harlan County on the state's southeastern border, making it Kentucky's highest point; the ridge belongs to the Cumberland Mountains, not Pine Mountain.

Which settlement, founded by James Harrod in 1774, became Kentucky's first permanent European settlement?

Harrodsburg, laid out by James Harrod in June 1774, was abandoned during Dunmore's War and resettled in March 1775, a month before Boone's party built its fort on the Kentucky River.

For most of the 20th century, which crop was Kentucky's leading cash crop?

Tobacco, mostly air-cured burley, was Kentucky's leading cash crop through the 20th century; the state ranked second only to North Carolina until the 2004 federal buyout ended production quotas.

The 1811–12 earthquakes centred near the Kentucky Bend made which river flow backwards in places?

Three great New Madrid quakes in December 1811 and early 1812 sent the Mississippi surging upstream for hours in places and formed Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee; the Bend lies inside the river's loop.