Roadside Menifee

  Continuing on from the sunken grave just down 36 You will see the sign for entering Frenchburg .Here also is an interesting item few probably know is even there. There is a stone marker with bronze plaque commemorating the breeding of the forage grass  tall fescue Kentucky 31.It was put there in 1948 in honor of local farmer William M. Suiter. The University of Kentucky had heard about  "wonder grass" that grew on a hillside in Frenchburg even during a drought and came and took seed samples. As far as I know At this time I found nothing on the internet showing this monument or acknowledging this interesting side note in history so I think it is worth including in my blog.

  Up Next is an interesting marker also. As You enter Frenchburg hook left and you will get on 1274 and find a slab of stones from the Old  BEAVER CREEK FURNACE .The Town of Scranton and the furnace are all completely underwater now.

This stone pillar is made up of stones from the iron furnace

 

 

 

Menifee county has so many interesting things just off the roadside you could do a blog just on this area alone .Leaving no stone unturned in this area of the country, I always investigate sites like this for Native American or Masonic symbols. Forever obsessed with Archeology, Appalachian heritage and lost knowledge I will travel on, never knowing what I might discover. 

 

 

 



On The Stone Slab are many interesting carvings including this one
which appears to be a symbol of the Freemasons


 

The Sunken Grave

                            I stumble upon an old cemetery in the woods

                          

Hiking around Carrington Lake in Menifee County,I by chance found
something I did not expect to find.

This is the most Primitive Grave yard I have seen.
Mostly just rocks Only One headstone has any inscription.

In This Pic You can somewhat see the sunken area of the body below.

 

 

This Headstone was so craggy getting a rubbing was
impossible so I just rubbed charcoal into the carvings

 

 

The name was H. Derosett .Most of the dates
were too faint to determine .Died 1911? or was it 1811?

Walking up the hill I discovered a total of 14 Headstones

Most of the other stones consist of nothing more than flat rocks buried half way .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuing my Trek in Menifee I Got in my Vehicle and drove
down 36 a mile or two to visit the old ''MINES'' on Benson Ln.

 

 

There Used to be  two wide Openings side by side just to the
side of the road you could see as you drive by a rocky hilltop.
Now one seems to have collapsed in the last few years. 

Cave in, This one at one time had about a 15 foot ceiling.

I used to assume these strange openings in the ground were man made Mines of some sort ,However knowing more about Geology I can see the are most likely just natural caves.

Continuing on you will be intrigued by what I
find next just a few miles down the road, to be revealed in my next post.




 

Waving Alien Shack

 

 

I always come across something unusual while I am out riding around in search of something else.In This case One recent weekend I was in the Red River Gorge Area .Red River is a big destination spot for Hikers ,Rock climbers and outdoor enthusiasts.In my search for landmarks to the location Of Swift's Lost Silver Mines[ a story which I will do more on in future posts] I ran across this weird little shack or shed.I had to get a picture as in all honesty it looks like someone is depicting an Alien Gray waving through a painted on window. Maybe its just me but either the artist was painting a human silhouette and just did not get the head proportionate or they were quite the'' cosmic'' joker.

 

 

 

The Shack is located on a road which leads to some rental cabins

The Abandoned Thing

 

 

 

 

    The Object, which is over twenty feet long and six feet wide is a baffling sight. I must admit I don't know what it is,It lays abandoned on a country road called Columbia In Bath County.

    One Of my Gigs these Days is delivering books to rural areas and I regularly pass this strange object on my book route .It seems it has been there for some time and I finally stopped and got a few pictures of it. Inquiries brought forth the notion that it was most likely brought there to be used as a makeshift culvert ,but for some reason instead it was cast aside in a field at the mouth of the road. It is strange since it appears so industrial looking [as if it was part of something else ]and the surrounding area is about half wilderness .It is made of sheet metal covering a steel frame and now partially tagged with graffiti .What it was originally and why it was abandoned still remains a mystery.

The Ruth Mullins Fire

                                             Underground Mine Fire In Kentucky




The Tiptop Coal Seam fire in Kentucky Is named "the Ruth Mullins fire" for the resident who  discovered it In the area of Breathitt County .This massive underground fire is burning out of control at this very moment just below the Earth's surface, and It is basically unstoppable.

As it turns out No one seems to know how long the mine has been on fire, or how many miles it covers ,but it has already extended over a huge area that occupies both Breathitt and Perry counties. In those counties There are several outgassing areas in the ground where the subterranean conflagration is spewing out Hot Carbon monoxide and tar.

The Mystery Of Lincoln's Cabin

 

The Author at Abe Lincoln's Cabin 

   I have to admit I seem obsessed with visiting the Iconic homes of famous Kentuckians, So it is no wonder I would eventually visit the Birthplace of President Lincoln - our Nation's as of this writing only Kentuckian President. This particular stop was a must since Having for a long time noticed [and I will write about it more it in the future probably]That Kentuckians today have this sad tendency to not get out and travel and see every corner of Our great State. I don't ever want to be that way so I make sure I always have a bucket list of places to be and see.Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park Is basically Two farm sites in LaRue County,  where Lincoln was born and lived until he was seven. He was born at the Sinking Spring site south of Hodgenville Then the family moved to the Knob Creek nearby in Hodgenville .The Sinking Spring site is the location of the park visitors center and that has the Memorial Building with the ''original'' Cabin. Is It The real thing or not? Let us look into History and see.

 

   The original log cabin that Lincoln was reputed to have been born in was Supposedly taken down sometime before 1865.Now as it turns out  Local lore held that some of the logs from the cabin were used in construction of a nearby house. A New York businessman A.W. Dennett purchased the Lincoln farm in 1894 and used the logs from this house to construct a cabin similar in appearance to the original cabin where Lincoln was born. Unfortunately the cabin was dismantled and re-erected for exhibition.  Soon the logs for this cabin went on a National tour which also had a replica cabin of logs That may or may not have belonged to Jefferson Davis's birthplace .At some point the cabins were dismantle so many times and moved around they got mixed up. After the tour Most of the logs were purchased by the Lincoln Farm Association (LFA), which believed they had acquired only Lincoln logs. Workers tried to reconstruct the cabin in the Memorial building but it was quite large and had to be reduced from 16-by-18 feet to 12-by-17 feet. Today, historians say former claims that these logs were from Lincoln's birth cabin was essentially Incorrect .

   Knowing this, it is strange when you go to the Park and walk up the steps and  into the huge Memorial building ,Then go check past a park ranger who sits and watched over the Room. There are even ropes around the cabin and it seems it is almost treated like the Ark of the covenant.

 

 

Sinking Springs

 So Is it a really Lincolns cabin? my opinion is it really does not matter, The Park is a great place to visit and there is a museum that is great and lots of hiking trails all over. Go ahead and Visit as soon as you get the chance.

Up  the road a bit is Knob Creek which has another replica cabin

Open Graves

       The Following Series of Photographs Reveal some very interesting Above ground Burial sites. It seems wherever I go I always turn up Things worthy of a Good photo session .This all started when residents Next to Longview Cemetery In Bethel, KY reported ''strange goings on'' at night .Intrigued I set out to take a few pics with both B/W Film and Digital from the same angle hoping to at least catch a few Orbs or some mists. Interestingly I did not detect anything paranormal that night but it is so strange that these ancient sarcophagi are so dilapidated [ in some cases completely collapsed] that the corpses are no longer within.This is a very old section of the Cemetery, and as for What ever happened to the bones I can only speculate.