Whitley County

Our first stop this weekend was Whitley County.  The main stop on this trip was Cumberland Falls.  We decided to take a little more time here, since it is such a unique place.  But Whitley County also has some interesting history.

WHITLEY COUNTY HISTORY

Whitley County was formed in January of 1818, when it was seperated from Knox County.  The county was named after William Whitley, noted pioneer and indian fighter.  The intial plans for the city of Williamsburg, were layed out in June of 1818.  Williamsburg still serves as the county seat today.

Whitley County's growth was very slow during the first 50 or so years.  However, after the Civil War, it started to grow very quickly with communities springing up all over the county.

In 1883, the L&N Railroad completed it's line through Whitley County.  This has changed the make-up of the county ever since.  This allowed industry to grow and expand, as they could easily ship goods in and out.  The first booming industries were lumber and coal.
 

Cumberland College, now known as the University of the Cumberlands was formed in 1888.  It was the idea of 18 Baptist Churches from the Mount Zion Association.    The story of this university is so long and interesting that I could never fit it all in here.  If you haven't followed any of the links I have provided, I encourage you to follow this one.  I have visited numerous college campuses and there are very few as nice as Cumberland.  It sets on 70 acres and has 34 buildings and two sports complexes and has an endowment approaching $57 million.

 

Whitley County is also home to Kentucky Splash, a full service water park.  It has an 18,000 sq ft wave pool, a lazy river, a kiddie pool, multiple slides, mini-golf, batting cages and a lot more.

OUR VISIT

Like I mentioned earlier, we started our visit to Whitley County at Cumberland Falls.  It is the widest falls south of Niagra.  Cumberland Falls became a State Park at 1:30 pm on August 21, 1931 under the direction of Dr. Willard Rouse Jillson, who served as Kentucy's first director of parks.  Cumberland Falls is one of only two waterfalls in the world that create the effect of a Moonbow.  A moonbow is created during a full moon when the sky is clear. A "bow" is created from the base of the falls to spot downstream.  It is said you have to travel to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe to have this same experience.

Cumberland Falls truly is a natural wonder that we are blessed to have right here in Kentucky.  It has been visited by millions of people from all over the world.  If you've never had the opportunity to visit.  This is one place we highly recommend.

After we left the falls, we headed over to the University of the Cumberlands campus.  Just like in Georgetown, the school was still on summer break and there were no students around and the buildings were all closed.  But we enjoyed walking around and seeing the sites.  Roadkill seemed to like it too.

Since campus is so close to downtown, we headed over there next.  We walked around for a few minutes checking out all we could, on a Sunday afternoon.  The county is in the process of building a new judicial center across from the current courthouse.

 We had a great visit to Whitley County.  There is so much to do, this is one of those places we will definately visit again.

McCreary County

Let me start off by saying again, time is against us.  But the "rules" of our game are, that we put our feet on the ground in each county, snap a picture or two and try to learn something we didn't know.  That being said, one of the first stops on this weekend's jaunt was McCreary County.  Before we get into what we did, first a little history:

McCREARY COUNTY BACKGROUND

McCreary County was the last of the 120 Kentucky Counties to be formed.  It wasn't formed until 1912, less than 100 years ago.  It was taken from portions of Wayne, Whitley and Pulaski counties and was named for then Kentucky Governor, James B. McCreary.  The early days of the county were heavily influenced by the coal and lumber industries.  Today, tourism plays a big part in the county.  It lays within the Daniel Boone National Forest and shares one of Kentucky's rarest treasures with neighboring Whitley County, that being Cumberland Falls.  McCreary County also is home to a U.S. Federal Prison, located in Pine Knot.  

There is one definative characteristic to McCreary County that makes it different from the other 119 counties.  It is the only one that does not contain an incorporated city.  However, there are several communities within McCreary County, including Whitley City, Pine Knot and Stearns.  Whitley City is the county seat and with no incorporated cities, the fiscal court the governing body for the entire county.

OUR VISIT

We visited McCreary County as we were passing through, on Sunday evening.  It was starting to get dark, and we were not real sure where to go or what to see.  Then I noticed a sign that pointed to a Federal Prison.  We didn't even know there was a prison there, so we took off looking for it.  At this point, we were still in Whitley County and we drove for what seemed like forever.  We were about to give up, when I said lets go 5 more miles and if we don't see anything, we will turn back.  Around the very next bend, we saw the county line, so we kept on driving.  About the time we were ready to give up again, we saw a sign pointing towards the prison.  Once we made the turn, we saw the lights and knew we weren't far away.  Not wanting to fool around on federal property we stopped along the road and took a picture of the NO TRESPASSING sign.  When we turned around, we headed on into Pine Knot.  It's a small community of about 1,800 people. 

Unfortunately, it was getting dark and we didn't know where else to go.  If anyone has suggestions on where to visit, please let us know.  We are talking like the 120 in 12 may be an ongoing adventure, once we've seen all 120.

As a side note, we did visit Cumberland Falls, but not the McCreary County side.  I'll talk about that in my Whitley County post.

What z thinks

I want to see all the things Kentucky has to offer and all the fascinating things that we have never seen. For example I hope to see things like Cumberland Falls, Mammoth Cave and all the State Parks. I love to take pictures, I will be taking pictures of everywhere we go. I will probably share some of them here.

I'm glad I get to do this with my family. I'm also glad I get to do this because I think it will be good experiences that I can remember for a long time. I think this is something that I will eventually be able to tell my kids about. I hope this will lead us to be able to travel to other states more and see all the things they have to offer and maybe even to other countries.