Joseph Smith in Louisville

Did you know that Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, spent time in Louisville? According to lds.org:

Joseph Smith, the first President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, likely preached in Louisville, Kentucky, on his way to Missouri. He stayed in the city for three days and later revisited in 1832. An Indiana covert began the first congregation in Licking River. In 1835, two missionaries baptized 22 people. The first group of Kentucky Saints to join other Church members in the West left for Missouri in September 1836. In July 1843, Church leaders Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff preached in Kentucky. Though persecution existed, some 1,170 members of the Church lived in the state in 1900.

Automobiles and road improvements caused Bradfordsville, Kentucky, to become a main gathering place for Church members. One traditional Church-sponsored activity in Bradfordsville was a July 4th fish fry with fiddle and banjo music and food for up to 200 people, including many who were not members of the Church.

According to church doctrine, when Smith was 14 years old, God and Jesus Christ both appeared to him and said that "the true Church of Jesus Christ" had not yet been established on Earth, and that they had chosen Smith to make it happen. A few years later, Smith had a visitation by an angel called Moroni, who instructed him what to do to establish The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Harry Dean Stanton

Get down on your knees, Planet Earth, and thank Kentucky once again for bringing you raw talent at its best. Harry Dean Stanton, one of Hollywood's greatest maverick actors, and known for being a character offstage as well as on, is a Kentuckian.

Harry was born in Irvine in 1926, and graduated from the University of Kentucky in Lexington before moving on to a theatre and film career in California. His long film oeuvre includes How the West Was Won (1962), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Repo Man, (1984), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), and Inland Empire (2006), among others. Youngsters today probably know him best as Roman Grant, the elder in the Mormon-themed HBO show Big Love.

While he's still kickin', I'd love to do some research about Harry's Lexington years, and find out what clubs, bars and taverns he frequented - it's entirely possible that he and the great writer/pool hustler/drinkin' man Walter Tevis' paths may have crossed, either knowingly or unknowingly. Tevis was born in 1928, and spent a lot of time in both Irvine and Lexington. Since Winchester and Richmond lie directly between Irvine and Lexington (on Route 89 and Highway 25, respectively) it's a certainty that these cities were part of Harry's teenage stomping grounds as well.

The 76th Operating Mormon Temple

One of the most unique and visually striking buildings in Oldham County is this Temple for the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints. It has the authentic look and feel of an old marble Temple but was actually built in the year 2000.

The Temple is also known as the 76th Operating Temple, and/or the "Louisville Kentucky Temple", even though it's not actually located in Louisville. According to the LDS Church Temples website:

Elder John K. Carmack of the Seventy and president of the North America East Area who presided over the groundbreaking services for the Louisville Kentucky Temple, spoke on the importance of temples in the life of the eternal family. Joseph Smith was intensely interested in the work of temples in the later years of his life, he noted. Having built the Kirtland Temple, laid the groundwork for two temples in Missouri, and nearly completed the Nauvoo Temple, the Prophet was "preoccupied" with temples and seeing that the Quorum of the Twelve had received the ordinances. Elder Carmack pointed out that "the way we live here has consequences in the next life." He then quoted Hugh Nibley in saying that ordinances create order from chaos, and that like an observatory, the temple helps one get a bearing on the universe.

The exterior of the edifice is white marble (quarried in Vermont) with a solid gold statue of the angel Moroni on its spire. Joseph Smith said this angel visited him on September 22, 1823 and several other subsequent occasions.