Ghosts of Sue Bennett College

In the 19th century, Kentuckian Sue Bennett was a teacher and social activist who sought to improve education in impoverished rural areas. She and her sister Belle Bennett (not to be confused with the vaudeville actress of the same name) raised $40,000 - a considerable sum of money in the late 1800s! - to found their own school. Sue died before the project was completed, and Belle opened it in London, KY in 1897, calling it the Sue Bennett Memorial School in her sister's honor.

After a century of success, Sue Bennett College was forced to close down in 1997. For reasons that are somewhat opaque to me, the Federal Government rescinded their funding, on which they had come to completely depend. Oprah Winfrey tried to intercede by calling attention to the school's plight on her TV show, but it was to no avail. Sue Bennett College joined the graveyard of defunct Kentucky colleges like Southeastern Christian College (Winchester), Bethel College (Hopkinsville), Lees College (Jackson), Lexington Baptist College (Lexington), Urania College (Glasgow), Pleasant J. Potter College, (Bowling Green), and Cedar Bluff College (Woodburn).


The buildings are still there, however. Some have been repurposed but the ghosts of the school remain. According to the Shadowlands: "They say the dorms and the theater are haunted and that Belle Bennett roams the halls all night playing the piano’s turning off and on lights and watching people sleep that still stay there if you go in your sure to find something." (misspelling and typos retained from original source).

Meanwhile, Theresa says: "a former student also shared information on a suicide that ocurred on the 2nd floor of Helm Hall. The apparition of the young lady who hung herself in that dorm is reported to have been seen more often than Belle." (I'm not sure how anyone would know whether the ghost in question is Belle or the suicide victim or someone else entirely, but there you have it.)

The biggest ghost haunting Laurel County seems to be that of the college itself. Many locals are still lamenting its passing, and hoping that some sort of higher education institution might form and put these college buildings back on track to their intended purpose.

Prisoner Escapes During Bathroom Break

A manhunt is underway in Laurel County tonight for 50-year-old Ricky Allen, who escaped from the courthouse by asking the judge for time to talk to his lawyer alone. Once they were in chambers, Allen then told his attorney that he needed to use the rest room - and he never came back.

Allen had been facing two dozen charges of theft and burglary in London, and was expected to plead guilty.

Carl Hurley Lane

Kentucky comedian Carl Hurley now has a street named after him in London, KY.

The former Eastern Kentucky University professor, perhaps best known for his best-selling book We Weren't Poor - We Just Didn't Have Any Money, recently had "Carl Hurley Lane" dedicated in his honor, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of Weaver's Hot Dogs on London's Main Street.

Hurley, who was born in East Bernstadt, is world renowned for his gentle, easygoing rural storytelling style, an example of which can be seen on YouTube by clicking here. He's been a regular on the Grand Ole Opry and Renfro Valley, and is currently finding popularity with a whole new younger audience on XM Satellite Radio.

Pirate Treasure in Kentucky

An article in the Hardin County News-Enterprise pointed me to an interesting-sounding book I wasn't aware of: Robert Prather's The Strange Case of Jonathan Swift and the real Long John Silver.

In it, Prather makes the case for the semi-mythical pirate Jonathan Swift and the semi-mythical pirate Long John Silver being one and the same man, and suggests that Swift may have buried his fabled treasure (and concealed a gold/silver mine) somewhere on his thousands of acres of property he owned in Kentucky.

(We're speaking here, of course, of the Jonathan Swift who is said to have discovered a vast gold/silver mine somewhere in Kentucky, not the Gulliver's Travels author.)

Prather suggests the Swift cache sits near the Hardin-Breckinridge county line, in the middle of an “X” formed by the towns of Eastview, Westview, Centerview and Grandview.

Furthermore, Prather points out an old newspaper article from 1902 that mentions a goldmine near Easy Gap, just a few miles from the area in question.

Wikipedia says:

"Tradition holds that he [Swift] was an established Indian trader, but some historians came to believe he was a pirate who preyed on Spanish merchants and made his frequent trips into the wilderness not to retrieve his treasure, but to hide and coin it. A resident of Laurel County, Kentucky named William Reams held that following Swift's visit to the mine in 1769 – the last trip recorded in the journal – he and his accomplices agreed not to claim any of the treasure they had hidden in the area until 1790. When they did return, Swift was overcome by the sight of the wealth and killed the other members of the party while they slept. Following this action, he was struck blind and unable to recover the treasure."

Henry Harvey Fuson's 1939 History of Bell County, Kentucky, on the other hand, pooh-poohs the whole notion and does so in a rather disingenuous manner:

"The mountain people in the past have been good subjects for the creation of this folk-tale, since no mines have been found that we can trace to Swift. They lived for a century far from railroads in a wilderness of mountain country. They made a living, a bare living in many instances, by the hardest of work. People in this condition dream of wealth and luxury.

The story of Swift fell into fertile soil of their dreaming minds and became fixed there as a fact. After it became fixed, and no mines could be found, then reasons were invented to account for not finding the silver. Hence, dark caves with heaped-up silver guarded by demons, great kettles of silver deep down in the ground protected by a league of devils, and many other stories grew up around this tradition. What better modern folk-tale could we have?"

(For those who find significance in synchronicities for their own sake, you may be intrigued to note the promixity of Swift's alleged buried treasure site to that of Fort Knox. Likewise, you may note the fact that the Long John Silver's restaurant chain is owned by the Kentucky-based Yum! Brands.)

White Castle Wedding in Laurel County

As Billy Idol sorta-almost said, "It's a nice day for a White Castle Wedding".

On Saturday, March 21, a couple who met and fell in love at the White Castle in London, KY, tied the knot in that same restaurant.

According to the Corbin Times-Tribune, "The White Castle closed its dining room Saturday morning and employees transformed the fast-food booths into a candle-lit reception area. Sun streamed in through the restaurant’s windows as the drive-thru window was briefly shutdown so that the smiling bride could make her way down the aisle and exchange vows with the man she loves".

Their cake was shaped like a giant White Castle burger, realistic down to details like onions made of frosting. White Castle burgers, fries and chicken rings were also served at the wedding reception.

Bride and groom were seen bolting hurriedly for the restrooms about 30 minutes later. (Okay, I made that part up.)

Space Debris in Southern Kentucky?

According to WKYT-TV last night:

27 NEWSFIRST started receiving phone calls tonight telling us a loud boom, or series of booms were heard this evening in Southern Kentucky. So we called emergency officals, to find out what is going on.

Brian Reams of the Laurel county EMS tells us they've had calls from Jackson to London, about a loud boom. He says there are no reports of any injuries or damage.

In the last little bit, Reams says he's been told by the state police in London that according to the FAA, the boom is from falling debris, coming from two satellites that collided in space. The debris re-entering the atmosphere caused the loud boom, and then burned up before hitting earth. Reams says it could have covered a 500 mile area.

I just checked and sure enough, there was a collision between two satellites in space, but it was last Tuesday.

So, if the FAA has indeed advised the police that pieces of satellites are raining on Kentucky, shouldn't that be considerable cause for alarm? It's a bit weird that this news story is more concerned with the 'boom' sound rather than the fact that chunks of hot metal are apparently falling on us, and I don't necessarily accept the assurance that they're all burning up before they reach the ground.

If anyone finds any burnt metal they believe to be a piece of the space debris, let me know! I'd be very interested in examining it.

The Silver Diner

The older you get and the more things change, the more stuff gets complicated. I find I'm gradually turning into one of those old codgers who, when asked directions, tell you "we-e-llll, you go down what used to be called Walnut Street, then take a right at what used to be Grimplemeyer's Florist, and then you'll see the vacant lot where the old Fonebone Building used to be."

Back in the day, there was Cain's Diner in downtown Richmond, across from where the old post office used to be on Water Street, see.

Meanwhile, in Laurel County, we had the fine, fine, super-fine establishment known as the Silver Diner in London, KY (see first photo). The Silver Diner was always a favorite retro-eatery of ours, and was featured on our old site for years. Sadly, I hear tell that The Silver Diner of London has closed its doors.

But this morning it was brought to my attention that Cain's Diner is under new management yet again (for like the third time - Cain himself passed on years ago) and has now changed its name to, yes, you guessed it, the Silver Diner (see second photo). As if all of this isn't confusing enough, the MySpace page for this new incarnation of Cain's/Silver Diner is called Mama Carol's Diner. It's baffling, it's mystifying, it's more than one man can stomach.

Just prior to starting this blog entry, I made a phone call out to this diner car once called Cain's and now called Silver and maybe also called Mama Carol's, to try to sort out the tangled strands of factoids like spaghetti in the chili. Unfortunately, I was told by whoever answered the phone that they were too busy to talk. And that's fair enough. If I was a businessman in a hurry at their lunch counter, I'd be sayin' "get off the raprod and bring me my damn pancakes, lady" myself.

I look forward to trying the grub at this new improved version of the diner and if you've eaten there lately yourself, send us a report!

Where is the Daniel Boone Parkway?

Ask anyone for directions in the vicinity between Laurel County and Perry County, and there's a good chance that they'll mention "The Daniel Boone Parkway". However, you may then be confused to find nothing but signs for a "Hal Rogers Parkway".

The matter is a serious bone of contention for many Kentuckians and non-Kentuckians alike. The controversy dates back to the year 2000, when then-Governor Paul Patton decided to rename the Daniel Boone Parkway after the sitting U.S. Representative from Kentucky, Hal Rogers. This was an extremely unpopular decision, and remains one to the present day. The outcry from insulted Kentuckians, outraged at the removal of Daniel Boone's name for the sake of a political favor, reached the national and even international news media, but in the end nothing was done.

The "Hal Rogers Parkway" signs are frequently targets of defacement and vandalism, and some have even been surreptitiously removed in protest. Complicating the matter further is the impending Interstate 66 project, which would combine the Hal Rogers Parkway with the Cumberland Parkway. It's not known for sure whether those parts of the new Interstate would retain their previous names, so we may end up with neither Boone nor Rogers, but a mere 66!

In 2005 Governor Ernie Fletcher, as a gesture of good will, renamed a small stretch of U.S. 25 the "Daniel Boone-Cumberland Gap Wilderness Trail". Not bad, but most of us would still rather have the Daniel Boone Parkway back.