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Kentucky Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff

One day a year Kentucky is the most famous state in the union. That's Kentucky Derby Day, the first Saturday in May when the annual Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill Downs. On that day, Kentucky is the home to fast horses, beautiful women, and great whiskey. For the other 364 days it is home to fast women, beautiful horses, and people recovering from too much whiskey.

This duality — hey, we're important today; but tomorrow we're nothing — is a perfect reflection of a state of great contrasts.

Kentucky is the home of the most famous people in the world, Muhammad Ali. It is also the home of the most infamous, Charles Manson (his boyhood home is in Ashland — unmarked, of course).

Novelist Robert Penn Warren was a Kentuckian, as was gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

Illinois may have Land of Lincoln on its license plates, but Kentucky was where Honest Abe was born. He just moved away rather quickly.

These contrasts extend down to our counties: you can't buy a drink in Bourbon County (it's against the law to sell alchohol there) but you can in Christian County.

Kentucky is one giant curiosity.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 224
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780762723270
  • Settings
  • Kentucky
  • Genres
  • travel
  • Release date
  • 2002