Letter
from Dr. Rankin Skinner
Road Research by Karl Raitz
Wildflowers Galore!
FALL 2004
Dear Friends of Lower Howard’s Creek Nature and Heritage Preserve,
WOW!! It’s been an extremely busy time for all of us involved with LHC. We have been moving along at warp speed, completing projects that were only a dream three years ago. We have hired Ms. Clare Sipple as our executive director of the LHCN&HP, hired a new architect and completed our stone entrance and security gate. A protective structure has been completed over the Martin house to protect it from the elements until stabilization is completed. The Clark County Road Department has completed a gravel entrance road and parking area. We are using a temporary structure as our staging and interpretation center. The abandoned house on site, facing Athens-Boonesboro Road, was razed and the area cleared. We are in the process of completing a foot bridge over the creek and have completed some archaeology studies, with more planned. We are in the process of restoring some of the stone walls and our historic structure’s report on the Martin house and mill is complete. We have completed some trail work and are in the process of planning and building more and nearing completion of a Master Plan for LHC. We are in the process of upgrading our website and historical research is underway. A major dump site has been cleaned up and many scheduled hikes have taken place. We have acquired new land adjoining our property, expanding the park boundaries and continue to try and recruit new members and volunteers, Friends of LHC have had cookouts, workdays and hikes. We continue to apply for grants and the executive board meets on a regular basis to carry on the important work of managing the park. This is a simple overview and in no way touches on all our activities. But, as you can imagine, incredible progress continues to be made.
This park is not only a community asset, but a national treasure. Keeping this in mind, I would like to say that our executive board has maintained an incredible level of professionalism in making decisions concerning LHC and has worked closely with the Clark County Fiscal Court to ensure that this treasure continues to be a shining jewel in Clark County’s crown. Complete professionalism and integrity has been evident in every aspect of the LHC’s development, including all our contractors. I am convinced this is why we continue to carry such a passion for this project. It is an honor for me to work with such people.
Every organization need and depends on membership and volunteers to achieve a high level of success and ours is not different. Anyone familiar with our project realizes that it is something special. our challenge in the coming months and years is to involve more people in this wonderful project through volunteerism and membership. This will ensure that this treasure will be here for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. I hope to see you on the creek.
Dr. Rankin Skinner
Chairman
Friends of Lower Howard’s Creek
Karl Raitz of the Department of Geography at UK has received a small TEA-21
grant from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to conduct research on the
Wilderness and Limestone Roads. The archival and fieldwork will be completed
in collaboration with Nancy O'Malley of the UK archaeology office and Richard
Schein, also in the geography department. These two roads were the primary
routes of entry into America's first trans-Appalachian frontier, the Bluegrass
Region of Kentucky. Thus, both roads were reflections of the imperial intentions
of national and state governments and the overland transportation technology
of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The roads were similar in
that they both focused on the Bluegrass, but they were very different in the
territory they traversed
and the people who used them. The Limestone Road was the preferred route for
migrants from northern Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. And because this
route entailed river travel on the Monongahela and Ohio rivers it was the
more expensive route. It is likely that the Limestone Road carried more freight,
at an earlier date, than did the Wilderness Road. For those migrants from
the south, North Carolina and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, they likely
chose the Wilderness Road.
Though this route crossed very difficult and dangerous it was the economical entry into Kentucky. The early road was not a road at all but a horse path blazed through some two hundred miles of the Appalachian Plateau. This route had several sections that had shortcuts and alternate paths that braided together. Major branches led to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg. The western branch included an extension that connected Harrodsburg to the Falls of the Ohio by way of Bloomfield and Bullitts Lick at Shepardsville. In 1796 the Kentucky Legislature authorized the widening of the Wilderness Road to accommodate wagon traffic. Thereafter, the road passed into toll road status and was eventually bypassed by the railroad. After 1926, the Limestone Road became a part of US 68 and US 25E approximated the Wilderness Road route.
Our research will focus on several aspects of early road development including
the role of each road in early economic development, locally and regionally.
One question that we will try to address is the possible relationships between
the early industrial sites on Lower Howard’s Creek and either of these
roads. Also of long term interest is the issue of public commemoration of
these two roads. Why is it that arguably the most important trans-Appalachian
route in America, the Wilderness Road, has not been chosen for commemoration
in the same manner as has the Natchez Trace (a much less important route in
the grand scheme of things), the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon
Trail, etc. Why is the exact route of the Wilderness Road largely unknown
today and not marked in any significant manner by state or federal parks or
road markers? US 25E marks the exact trail in only a few places. Why did the
creation of Cumberland Gap National Park in the 1930s require that local landowners
had to donate land for the park in lieu of state or federal support for the
project? Today we find a new $230 million tunnel under Cumberland Gap and
an interest by the Park Service in reestablishing the original trail through
the Gap, but this is incidental to the building of the tunnel, which was authorized
as an economic development device.
Karl Raitz
Department of Geography
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
WILDFLOWERS GALORE!!!
Wildflowers begin blooming in the Lower Howard’s Creek Valley late in March
with the emergence of hepatica, bloodroot and early saxifrage. Their diminutive
white blooms are soon joined by the more colorful yellow (and white) troutlilies,
woods poppies, red trillium, blue phlox, Virginia bluebells, and Jacob’s
ladder, and even later, by the orange and yellow of the columbine. In the springtime,
alone, there are over forty species of wildflowers to delight visitors to the
LHC Preserve. As the seasons change, so too does the palette of plants. As the
canopy of leaves unfurls, the shade deepens along the valley floor, and plants
that crave the sun are found only in small clearings and along the creek banks,
while their shade-loving cousins abound over most of the site. A site visit
in late July offered viewers milkweeds, meadow phlox, jewelweeds, ironweed,
tall bellflower, soapwort, agrimony, vervain, euphorbias, slender yellow flax,
and blackberry lilies, along with bergamots and assorted eupatoriums. Late summer
will produce the blooms of lobelias, solidagos, asters, rudbeckias, heliopsis,
and helianthus, along with other species too numerous to mention! There will
be plenty of color provided by the wildflowers of Lower Howard’s Creek
until the first frost, at which time the numerous hardwood trees and shrubs
of the preserve will make their substantial contribution to the palette through
their changing foliage hues.
See some of these flowers
on our Native Flower and Plants page!
Do you have information that needs to be included in the next newsletter? Please send it to Wes Moody. Please send images as jpegs or gifs . Thanks!
