Anonymous Cross in Oakdale Cemetery

This homemade wooden cross with no inscription is near the front entrance of Oakdale Cemetery in Irvine. Possibly an unknown soldier, or just a general memorial monument to all unknown soldiers?

World's Largest Lawn Dart

This gigantic item in someone's yard on Highway 60 near Shelbyville appears to be a giant lawn dart, or a replica of one. But....why?

Rainey Bethea

Ever seen a film or read a story where everyone on both sides, both the so-called good guys and the so-called bad guys, are unlikable and unsympathetic?

This is one of those.

A young African-American tobacco farm worker from Owensboro, Bethea was free on parole from a prior theft conviction in 1936 when, it is said, he climbed into a window of an apartment belonging to a 70-year-old woman named Lischia Edwards. Bethea later confessed to raping her, strangling her to death, and robbing her.

It was a peculiarity of Kentucky law in 1936 that unlike other capital crimes which carried a sentence of electrocution in Eddyville, rape carried a sentence of local public hanging. The prosecuting attorney chose not to pursue the more obvious murder charges and only charged Bethea with rape, to insure that he would be publicly executed and an example made of him in Owensboro.

Bethea expressed doubt in court whether Edwards was still alive during the rape, and this was a considerable point of contention during the trial, since at that time there was no law regarding sex with a corpse. Because of this, the prosecution very nearly risked the entire case by pushing for a rape conviction rather than murder.

Bethea’s lawyers called no witnesses and cross-examined no one. According to Bethea, they urged him to plead guilty against his better judgment. A new team of lawyers later tried to call for a new trial, but it was too late. Their request was denied by both the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court.

As so often happened with public hangings, throngs of sightseers and rubberneckers showed up for the spectacle, giving it an ambience not unlike a carnival or a county fair. The current sheriff was female, so there was a perverse excitement in the crowd about getting to see a woman killing a man live onstage. However, she ultimately chickened out and delegated the onerous task of pulling the trap door switch on the gallows to a police officer from Louisville.

There was so much ugliness - on both sides of the law - in this incident that it was directly responsible for the end of public executions in Kentucky.

The Kentucky State Fair

All states in America have their own annual State Fair - at least I assume they do - and I've been underwhelmed by the few of them I've visited. The very notion of the "State Fair" seems to be something fading into the past for many regions, either devolving into a mere modern carnival-ride event or degenerating into apathy.

Not so with Kentucky. The old-school rural charm of a real State Fair is still here, with 4-H awards, vast displays of corn and hay for absolutely no reason but for the sake of looking at corn and hay, sheep-shearing, goat-shaving, cow-polishing, and pig racing. (Yes, we said pig racing. Once you see it for yourself, you'll never care about the Kentucky Derby quite as much again.)

The immense seated (and talking) statue of Freddy Farm Bureau is dragged out to the fair every year to entertain the masses in much the same way that Muffler Man "Big Tex" addresses the crowds at the Texas State Fair.

An art exhibit is held at the fair every year, in which anyone in Kentucky is welcome to hang their own artwork, from toddlers to grandmas. And they do. No one I know has been able to take in the entire exhibit at once, including myself. For the first couple aisles of it, you're simply chuckling to yourself about the amateurish art, but then you gradually start to see the sheer raw genius in much of it and develop a dizzying sense of newfound respect for all humanity. But then it all becomes too much and you find yourself feeling fevered from the sensory overload of naive art. Crude drawings of fighter planes and pro wrestlers rendered on lined notebook paper in ball-point pen. Extremely labored and ill-conceived paintings of
angels, Biblical figures, cartoon characters, elves, puppies and babies. The horror. The horror. And yet, who can say it isn't beautiful?

Even wackier is the "Critters" display of the produce exhibit, in which people are encouraged to look for weirdly shaped and anthropomorphic vegetables, and show 'em off. (Sometimes considerable artistic license is taken, and faces are simply painted right onto a tomato.)

To truly know Kentucky, you simply have to attend its State Fair. I can't recommend it highly enough to everyone reading these words. Rodgers and Hammerstein it ain't.

The Bull of Battlefield Farm

The Battlefield Farm was a historic civil war battleground. Since the 1940s, this bull sculpture has been there, mounted high on a pole with a "Polled Charolais" sign overlooking U.S. 25 between Richmond and Berea. It was locally famous during the 1960s and 1970s because it became a tradition for EKU college students to climb the pole and paint the white bull's scrotum pink. The farm would have it painted white again, and someone would paint the bull's privates again shortly thereafter. This good-natured war went on for years.

A few years back, unfortunately, the Battlefield Farm has become the Battlefield Golf Course and the bastards took the sign down. After some snooping, however, we discovered the bull is currently residing in the backyard of a house near the original farmhouse. last we checked, it was still there, and hopefully it will remain safely for future generations to look at and say "um, okay".

The bull is just a few miles up Highway 25 from The Bull of Berea's current location, incidentally.

The Lost Maxwell Cemetery

A few years back, workers digging in a Lexington construction site where the former South Hill Station was being converted to condominiums made a disturbing find: very old human remains.

Archeologists descended upon the Bolivar Street site, and their digging produced many more bones. Apparently, they've rediscovered the lost and forgotten Maxwell Cemetery, which originally stood on the site until buildings were unceremoniously erected right over it. Oops.

According to an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader, among the persons buried there are John Maxwell, one of Lexington's original founders, and the Rev. Robert Cloud, an "eccentric minister". No wonder South Hill Station was such a miserable failure - obviously the place is cursed, and I'd say it's certainty there's a high likelihood of unfriendly hauntings in the condos that occupy the land now. (Have any reports of ghostly activity there? Contact us!)

Unusual plants of Kentucky

As the march of civilization encroaches on America's wooded areas, many states are quickly losing their indigenous flora to the bulldozers. Fortunately, Kentucky has managed to maintain more of its wilderness than most of its neighboring states, and among its more interesting plants are:

* Wormwood - a specific type of Artemisia known for its mind-altering properties. It's the key ingredient in Absinthe, and has even turned up in special batches of rural moonshine. Also popular with Wiccans and moon-goddess religions.

* Chicory - these ubiquitous powder-blue flowers can be seen growing everywhere in Kentucky, and they especially seem to thrive by busy roadsides despite the car exhaust. I wouldn't recommend using the roadside ones, but it's a popular plant for use as a coffee substitute or a coffee additive.

* Ginseng - after tobacco and marijuana, the aphrodisiac herb Ginseng is one of Kentucky's most popular cash crops. There are Asian companies paying top dollar for Kentucky Ginseng, and every Autumn, people head for the hills to hunt for it. Unfortunately, indiscriminate harvesting of wild Ginseng is ruining it for everyone. Greed induces people to pluck every plant in sight, rather than leaving enough to insure a crop for next year. This has led to concerns that wild Ginseng could actually become extinct, which increases its value and in turn only further encourages the "get all you can while you can" attitude among many seekers of "Seng". According to Kentucky law, harvested plants must be at least five years old, and seeds harvested are to be planted back into the location from which they are dug. Federal law prohibits transportation of non-certified Ginseng across state lines for the purpose of selling.

* Devil's Trumpet - Also known as "Jimson Weed" and "Zombie's Cucumber", this extremely malodorous plant is still common in Kentucky. It was once a staple of lawn decoration for our grandmothers and great-grandmothers because of its magnificent blooms and prickly thornapples, and it still grows in many a rural yard to this day. The Latin name for it is Datura stramonium, and science now knows why this plant has been regarded as magical, holy, or just plain scary by native Americans: it's extremely toxic and powerfully hallucinogenic. The Devil's Trumpet is said to induce true hallucinations that absolutely cannot be distinguished from reality, and is generally regarded as such a horrible and life-threatening experience that it has zero value as a recreational drug.

* Poke - the same plant referenced in the popular song "Polk Salad Annie", this peculiar plant has highly poisonous berries but delicious leaves and stalks that have been a Kentucky delicacy since before recorded American history. Although fried poke stalks are still a common dish in my old childhood stomping grounds of Madison, Estill, Lee and Wolfe counties, I can't go on record as recommending it. Many doctors insist that traces of toxins still remain in Poke even after being cooked, so this is one Kentucky tradition that really should come to an end.

* Witch Hazel - No one's really sure why this astringent plant (see picture) has such a Halloweeny name, but since it's a highly useful medicinal plant, it's not so much of a stretch to imagine that early Witches really did use it. What I find most fascinating about it is that it literally explodes periodically, ejecting its seeds for a considerable distance!

Madison Middle School

Formerly Madison High School, this building has a long checkered past of turmoil. I have spoken to a number of people who attended this school over the years, and many say it is a very unhappy and dreary-feeling place. There have been two murders here that I know of, both on the third floor. One was a teacher in the 1940s murdered in room 306 at 1:03am. The other was a cheerleader in the 1950s who, according to some sources, was raped and murdered in the girls' restroom on the third floor.

Ghostly apparitions and loud unexplainable noises/moans/ screams have been reported here, as well as the usual assortment of cold spots and anxiety spots.

The Squirting Photo Bug

In the 1950s Kodak had a mascot character called the Photo Bug, and these fiberglass camera-wielding bugs could be found here and there. They're extremely rare nowadays but we found this one at a low-budget water park in Slade, KY. It's now repainted as a Bee, and modified into a fountain, so that its camera squirts water.

In this modern hipster age where every detail of minutiae regarding The Muffler Men are painstakingly and obsessively recorded for posterity on the web, we're surprised and appalled that there is seemingly no cult following for the Photo Bugs.

Over Brandeis' Dead Body

The University of Louisville's law school has Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' complete writings and papers catalogued in their library archives, but that's not all - they've also got his corpse. Brandeis and his wife are buried under the concrete near the front door of the building as hundreds of students tromp over his resting place day after day.

Building balanced on four Silos

Hey, look. It's a house up there. Balanced atop four huge silos. In Winchester, KY. Huh. Ain't that somethin'.

Elmer Hill

According to the Adair County News, a strange and brutal murder, manhunt and subsequent lynching occured in November 1908.

The body of a Russell County schoolgirl named Mamie Womack was found assaulted and murdered about three miles from Russell Springs. Womack had disappeared during the time she had been supposed to be heading home after departing the Mt.Olive school, and search parties quickly discovered her remains.

The girl's family, it is said, immediately suspected a local eccentric named Elmer Hill because of the nature of the crime. It is not recorded exactly why they thought this, or what past incidents they based this assumption on. Solely on the assurance of the parents that it had to be Hill, a posse was formed and the manhunt began. Professional police bloodhounds were brought in from Lincoln County and although they soon picked up a scent that was followed for about a mile, they lost the trail just outside of Columbia, KY.

Wanted posters were hastily issued, presuming and proclaiming Hill's guilt and offering a $350 reward. These posters noted Hill's speech impediment and "bad reputation". Locals were whipped into a frenzy by the manhunt and by the time Hill was captured on November 13, 1908, there had formed a huge mob calling for his immediate lynching.

That night, a crowd of people broke into the jail at Jamestown, KY with the intent of kidnapping Hill, determined to mete out justice themselves rather than wait for his trial. But when they arrived, they found Hill's cell empty. Having foreseen such a mob uprising, the authorities had dressed Hill in drag and escorted him out under the pretense of being a woman. Apparently Hill was "passable" enough to make it past the lynch mob, and he was whisked off to another jail in Monticello, Wayne County. Ultimately, however, the lynch mob discovered his whereabouts and forceably spirited him out.

The original plan, called for by Mamie Womack's mother, was to drag Hill back to the scene of the crime and burn him at the stake. This plan was abandoned as too time-consuming and risky, and it was decided to take him to nearby woods and get the job done as soon as possible.

It's reported that Hill was placed astride a horse, and the noose around his neck attached to an overhead branch. When prodded for some last words, Hill is reported to have said that his only regret was not doing the same to all the other little girls in town as well. And with that, some unknown hand chose that moment to slap the horse's behind. Hill was dead instantly, and left hanging in the tree to be discovered the next day.

That's how the Adair County News originally reported it anyway. However, an online discussion about the matter here seems to indicate a lot of contradictory datums and unanswered questions.