Mine 18

McCreary County's Mine 18 was operated by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company from 1937 to 1962, in the now-defunct town of Blue Heron. The community originally stood on the banks of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River.

For many years, Blue Heron remained a "ghost town" as its few remaining buildings quickly fell into disrepair and collapsed. But in the 1980s, a strange project to rebuild Blue Heron as closely as possible was enacted, and now visitors can travel to what amounts to an enormous full-scale museum replica of a Kentucky coal town as it looked during its heyday. Most of the buildings are only empty shells meant to be viewed from the exterior, and are referred to on the National Park Service website as "ghost buildings".

Unfortunately, you can't go exploring deep into the mines, which to me would be a lot more interesting than seeing a fake coal tipple. Someone should open some sort of underground resort in a Kentucky mine; if not this one, then perhaps the abandoned mines in Boonesboro.


You can see photos of Blue Heron the way it was back in the day by clicking here, and also note the photo gallery of the nearby town of No Business, KY with plenty of nice abandoned buildings.

Museum Plaza Breakthrough

In Weird Kentucky, I wrote: "By the time you hold this book in your hands, dear reader, the Museum Plaza construction will be underway." Well, so I was wrong; that does happen occasionally. Very occasionally. The idea of Museum Plaza remains just an idea, but finally, it may indeed be slouching towards Louisville to be born, its hour come round at last.

I just noticed a month-old press release on Yarmuth's website that announces "major progress" in securing make-or-break HUD funding for the project. They've received a letter from HUD officially acknowledging that the process is a go.

Governor Steve Beshear noted, “It is very exciting that HUD is formally expressing its interest in helping finance Museum Plaza. This is a project that will create thousands of jobs for low- and moderate-income Kentuckians and will stimulate the economy across the Commonwealth. My administration will continue working with the development team, HUD, and Congressman Yarmuth to make this project a reality.”

With the receipt of this letter from HUD, the Museum Plaza development team will continue its efforts to complete the financing for this $465 million project. 70 percent of the project’s financing will be secured with this commitment. $140.5 million of the project’s financing still remains to be committed; it is expected that this will be provided in the form of a traditional, first mortgage construction loan representing 30 percent of the project’s cost. However, the development team is pursuing many financing strategies given the current challenging environment for financing new construction projects. The Museum Plaza partners have already invested more than $50 million in the development of the project and are confident they can secure the remaining financing.

Whenever the Plaza does finally exist, it's my intention to have office space and gallery space there. (Who knows, though, by the time the building is ready I may have retired!)

Falls City (the City)

Nationwide drinkers of Falls City Beer probably thought the stuff was named after Falls City, Nebraska or Falls City, Oregon, if they even gave much thought to it at all.

But Falls City is actually an old nickname of Louisville's, one which may seem confusing at first since, after all, Louisville doesn't have any waterfalls, right? And then it hits you, oh yeah, we do - the Falls of the Ohio.

The Falls of the Ohio is generally associated with the Indiana side of the river, mainly because they've (sort of) preserved the fossil beds on their side, and built a park and "Interpretive Center" museum celebrating it. Unfortunately, there's not much left to celebrate - the original falls has been nearly decimated by removal of most of its limestone by the city of Louisville in the late 19th/early 20th century. What was once a towering and grandiose waterfall is now a gentle step only a few feet high.

And the much-touted fossil beds have frankly become a bit of a pathetic joke. According to the official Falls of the Ohio website, "The 386-million-year-old fossil beds are among the largest naturally exposed Devonian fossil beds in the world." And yet, tourists are allowed to tromp all over them, there is essentially zero security to keep people from plucking the beds clean of fossils, and at any given time, the place is filled with garbage, driftwood, dead appliances, chemical drums and other debris. It's not a very pleasant place to be.

Museum Plaza

I hyped this building on page 162 of Weird Kentucky, and for good reason: once built, it will instantly be the most unusual and unique structure on the Louisville skyline. Not to mention the tallest. It will be a major architectural revolution for Louisville, and indeed the whole Ohio Valley.

The construction on the building has been temporarily postponed, but fear not: co-Developer Craig Greenberg has recently issued a public assurance that the project is in no danger, and it's still, in principle, all systems go. According to WLKY:

"We are a 'shovel-ready' project that can begin construction as soon as we receive construction financing for this project," he said, adding that he couldn't commit to a time-line for that taking place. "Financing projects like Museum Plaza can be difficult if not impossible today," he said. "Nonetheless, we continue to make progress." Greenberg said LG&E has been relocating underground electrical lines and moving a large transmission tower currently on the property.

Sooner or later Museum Plaza will be up and running, and when it does, I will have office space there, both for my artwork and my theatre company.

The Dollhouse Museum

Next time you're anywhere near Danville, KY, swing by to check out their swanky new Dollhouse Museum.

Even if you're an all-American he-man red-blooded male who thinks dollhouses are girly stuff, give it a chance and prepare your senses for the disquietingly vertiginous feeling of walking amongst expertly prepared miniature buildings and people. It's like you're Godzilla walking through Tokyo (except Tokyo looks more like Little House on the Prairie or Wuthering Heights).


Actual dolls don't interest me so much, but I'm obsessed with miniatures in general (I know, I know, I'm obsessed with a lot of things), like the teensy-tiny pictures on the wall, the miniscule frying pans and ears of corn no bigger than a pinky fingernail on the tiny kitchen tables. If you haven't really paid attention to craft miniatures, like in the minatures aisle at Hobby Lobby, you probably don't get what I'm talking about. Immerse yourself in this museum and you might develop the same fascination with ever-diminutive size and scale and proportion.

They have a playroom for kids to actually get hands-on with some more durable examples of dollhouses, and a gift shop filled with books about dollhouse culture and miniature culture.

They're at 344 Swope Avenue and you can call 'em at 859-583-8000 if you get lost on the way. As Melvin Goins used to say on his WSKV radio show, "Tell 'em *I* sent you *by!*"

World's Largest Baseball Bat

The World's Largest Baseball Bat leans against a building in downtown Louisville, and at 68,000 pounds it's certainly an enormous attention-getter for the Louisville Slugger Museum.

The Louisville Slugger bats have been manufactured here since 1884, and are the official standard bat of Major League Baseball. Currently, two of their galleries are closed for renovations and will be unveiled in April 2009. They're still conducting factory tours while the renovations are underway, however, and most exhibits are still on display.

Baseball's the only major "two teams of guys try to get the ball" kind of sport I remotely care about, and even then primarily for its mythic resonance. This place has that mythic resonance and then some.

The Behringer-Crawford Museum

The Behringer-Crawford Museum, located near Covington, KY, is a small but amazing collection of all manner of natural wonders and curiosities, highly recommended.

What really tends to pack in the crowds, though, would be the museum's crown jewel of an exhibit: a genuine human shrunken head. Shrunken human heads are increasingly only in the hands of private collectors and as far as I know, this is the only opportunity to view one up close in Kentucky. You don't see shrunken heads at the Speed.

Also in their archives: a hairball taken from the stomach of a cow. Why? I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with The Mad Stone. There's also a two-headed calf, as well as a giant Elk and a stuffed specimen of the now-extinct miniature breed of English terrier. It's a taxidermist's wet dream.

According to their website, a most intriguing event is coming up in 2009: a culinary celebration of Dixie Highway restaurants. Save a table for me.

World's Largest Baseball Bat

Without a doubt, this is the world's largest baseball bat, which can be found at the Louisville Slugger Museum, 800 West Main Street, Louisville, KY. It's 120 feet tall and said to be modeled after Babe Ruth's bat. Someday in the future, after giant radioactive mutant cockroaches rule the Earth, their archeologists will find this and be utterly confused.