TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

On March 5, 1850, the General Assembly chartered the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), the 1^st train from Louisville and Nashville.  They laid the 1^st track and operated it in 1855 in downtown Louisville, and in 1858, the 1^st passenger station became operational.  During the Civil War, the L&N was the West’s only North-South rail link, a vital part of the Union’s supply route.

On March 5, 1850, businessmen formed the Lexington and Danville Railroad Company with the intention to build a bridge over the Kentucky River Gorge between Jessamine and Mercer Counties.  John Roebling finished the landmark in 1877.  The Kentucky River by William E. Ellis, pg: 91

March 5, 1921, Frankfort native Albert Bacon Fall became the 28^th U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

March 5, 1921, a Louisville Patrolman found a mail sack and several opened registered letters by a trashcan.  Proof that whoever had dynamited two safes in the Paris County Post Office, three days earlier, had escaped with $15,000-$20,000.  They possibly came to Louisville to riffle through the mail.  Today that Post Office is the Hopewell Museum.

March 5, 1948, jockey Al Snider and two friends set off to fish near Sandy Key, FL.  One minute, Snider and his friends were fishing while sitting.  The next minute, under gusting winds and rolling waters, they were gone forever.

“A total mystery because there was never a trace of them found, not even a piece of clothing,” said Tommy Trotter, a Gulfstream Park and Keeneland steward whose father, Tobe, also disappeared on the boat.  Al Snider was going to be king of the racing world.  Just days earlier, the 28-year-old rider had won the Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah Park aboard Calumet Farm’s Citation.  Snider was the colt’s regular rider, and the day before he set off to go fishing, he had a contract to ride full time for the prestigious Calumet Farm.  Citation went on to win the Triple Crown.

March 5, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King and former baseballer Jackie Robinson led a march of 10,000 people to the Kentucky Capitol steps.  The men and women called for an end to legal segregation and enforced equal access and treatment in stores, restaurants, hotels, theaters, other businesses and public places.

Kentucky Trivia:  Kentucky became the 1^st state in the South to pass legal segregation laws.  M.L. King called the Kentucky Civil Rights Act “the strongest and most comprehensive civil rights bill passed by a southern state.”

March 5, 1980, a Mercer County man, a Fayette County man, and a Jessamine County man received indictments on firearm violations in federal court.  The charges stemmed from a Lexington storage unit that contained stolen military weapons from California.  The book, The Bluegrass Conspiracy, provides further details.

March 5, 1980, Louisville hosted a celebrity bash for the release of Coal Miner’s Daughter with Kentucky First Lady Phyllis George Brown, Oliver “Mooney” Lynn, Loretta Lynn, Sissy Spacek, and many others.

March 5, 2015, Lieutenant Clifford Scott Travis, Bullitt County Detention Center, suffered a fatal heart attack while clearing snow from the walkways in front of the Bullitt County Detention Center.

March 5^th, 2015, Lexington received 10” of snow, a March record and #5 all-time for the city.

March 5, 2020, in Governor Andy Beashear’s 1^st coronavirus update, he wore a coat and tie, the Kentucky Department of Health announced they could conduct 800-1,000 coronavirus tests if the need arose.  Meanwhile, Dr. D. Brix, sitting next to V.P. Pence, told congress, “Wearing a mask as a healthy person will not protect you.”

On March 5, 2020, the Wild Lights Asian Lantern Festival opened in the Louisville Zoo for the nation’s largest Lantern festival.  Meanwhile, West 5^th Street Brewery opened a store in UK’s Cornerstone Eatery, the 1^st time the university offered beer in a public campus setting.