This is the first of a two-part look at The Kentucky River, a book published in 2000 by William E. Ellis (University Press of Kentucky, 2000). My hope is that readers will see the river as I do, as part of the heart and soul of our state’s heritage, as well as being vitally important today.
By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
I believe one of the most informative and enjoyable reads about our state’s history is a book I finished recently, called The Kentucky River. It was written by William E. “Bill” Ellis, a longtime history professor at Eastern Kentucky University, and published in 2000 by the University Press of Kentucky.
Though being aware of the important water landmark most of my adult life, Ellis’s work has helped me to mentally personify the river, seeing it as part of the heart and soul of our state’s heritage, as well as being important today.
The book is academic in tone, yet highly readable for most all, especially when Ellis (and other interviewers he cites) portray the thoughts and feelings of some 150 people closely affected by the river, stretching 255 miles from the eastern Kentucky town of Beattyville. There, the Kentucky flows from the confluence of the North and South Forks generally on a northwesterly course to the Ohio River at Carrollton, northeast of Louisville.
I like the way the book is laid out, with the first two chapters developing a general historical and geological survey of the Kentucky River, followed by economic and cultural aspects covered over the last six chapters. In “Riding the Tide,” the third chapter, we learn of the importance of timber found in the mountainous areas surrounding the river.
Log farmers used the timber to make log rafts to sell, which in the 1890s could bring the amazing price of $150 to $300 each if well-constructed. Thousands of tagged logs also were floated downriver to sawmills, often during terrible weather conditions. One person mentioned seeing “men with frozen britches legs.” Locks and dams along the Kentucky waterway often proved a hindrance to rafts and logs.
A big feature of Ellis’s reporting focuses on small towns and communities interspersed along the length of the Kentucky and its tributaries. Towns and their inhabitants such as Beattyville, Valley View, Ford, Monterey, Oregon, Doylesville, Oneida, Frankfort, Carrollton, and High Bridge bring mention throughout, showing both positive and negative influences the river has brought to the communities.
“Harnessing the River,” the fourth chapter, describes ways man has attempted to adjust to the severe challenges of weather on the river, namely of heavy rains causing flooding and little rain causing drought and the resultant navigating issues. Ellis maintains that the “human history of the river has always been inextricably tied to manmade features,” and early on as Kentucky became settled, “trade, animals, and people had to be moved if the commerce of Kentucky was to grow with the expanding population.”
Ferries, like the one Richard Callaway chartered at Boonesborough in 1779, along with the one at Valley View, both in Madison County, served important purposes early. There were many others, including Clay’s Ferry until a bridge was built to span the river. John Craig established Valley View, at the mouth of Tate’s Creek, in 1785. It still operates today.
Ironically, some ferries consisted of only a rope or metal cable suspended across the river and a sliding hitch attached to a boat.
And there were once covered bridges as well as regular bridges we see today. Ellis spends much time telling the story of High Bridge, near Wilmore, whose construction was completed in 1877.
The celebration on April 20 of that year was huge and dramatic. Railroad officials from Cincinnati Southern broke out the champagne, and, said Ellis, with “the surrounding hillsides lined with hundreds of spectators, an engine, drawing twenty-four loaded cars, entered the bridge at 20 miles and hour, and then slammed on all of its brakes The bridge did not even wobble, and engineer Charles Shaler Smith could not have been prouder.”
The bridge was replaced by a new bridge in 1911 standing thirty-one feet higher, though there was not a lot of fanfare. And in the mid-twenties, another structure was built on the nearby tributary Dix River.
I live on the ky river.the banks and erosion is bad.real bad.the locks are closed after lock 4.all of the locks need to be operational it’s sad the river is in sad shapeits filling up with silt.so flooding is more prone.ive had enough after 15 years I’m selling