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TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

June 21, 1781, Daniel Boone represented the new Fayette County in Virginia’s General Assembly and presented a petition to Virginia’s House of Representatives for Lexington to become an established town.  It would take another year, but Lexington finally became official.

Localtonians wish a Happy Anniversary to President Zachary Taylor (25), who wed Margaret Smith near Louisville in 1810.

On June 21, 1875, the U.S. Postal Service issued a postage stamp in honor of President Zachary Taylor, who had died nearly 25 years earlier.  Taylor’s family moved to Kentucky in 1785 when he was eight months old, 1st living on Beargrass Creek and later living at the family plantation, “Springfield,” in Louisville.  Zachary lived in Kentucky twice as long as Abe and four times as long as Jefferson Davis.

June 21, 1893, Aristides passed away after winning the 1st Kentucky Derby 18 years earlier.  Hal Price McGrath bred the chestnut with a white star and two hind stockings, foaled in 1872.  Aristides raced 21 times with nine wins, five places, and one show.  In 1988, Churchill Downs inaugurated the Aristides Stakes.  They also placed a life-sized bronze statue of Aristides, by Carl Regutti, at the Clubhouse Gardens entrance as a memorial, one of two horse statutes on the grounds.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Ashland native Ann Rice O’Hanlon, born in 1908.  She painted a mural that UK took down because it depicted enslaved people.

Ann Rice O’Hanlon

June 21, 1912, a particular refrigeration car built for the Lexington & Interurban Railway to ship products from the Elmendorf Dairy went into service.  In 1905, James Ben Ali Haggin of Elmendorf Farm began expanding his dairy cattle herd to replace his thoroughbreds.  Eventually, Haggin, in collaboration with UK, developed one of the nation’s leading “model” dairies.  This collaboration led to the development of the modern dairy industry.

June 21, 1919, Man o’ War won the 7th running of the Youthful Stakes at Jamaica Park, going 5.5 furlongs in 1:06.60 to win $3,850 of the $5,000 purse.  He had already won his June 6 maiden and the June 9 Keene Memorial Stakes at 5 1/2 f at Belmont.  Big Red then won Aqueduct’s Hudson Stakes on June 24.  He won four races in 18 days.

On June 21, 1925, the public noticed the number of Kentucky women going in politics.  Several Kentucky counties had women on the ballot where men neglected vital community issues.

June 21, 1930, Constable W. P. Damron, Pike County Constable’s Office, died from a gunshot while assisting two Kentucky game wardens investigating illegal fishing near Nigh.

June 21, 1940, Newport native and inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, John T. Thompson passed.

On June 21, 1945, authorities speaking at the supreme headquarters conference in Paris, France, claimed the Allies had “very good evidence” Hitler was dead.  Meanwhile, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army, and 53 members of his official party returned home from Europe in a grand affair.

On June 21, 1945, David M. Look, owner of Castleton Farm, died.  As a child, he attended private schools in Louisville.  After a successful business career, in 1913, David bought one of Fayette County’s grand estates from the Castleton family.

On June 21, 1946, five women and 13 men graduated from the College of the Bible in Lexington.  The women received Masters of Religious Education degrees, and the men received Bachelors of Divinity degrees.

June 21, 1949, the University of Kentucky accepted enrollment of African-American students.  Among the 1st to register were Augustus Mack, center, vocational agriculture teacher at Douglass High School, and to his left, Mrs. Arnetta Neal, Douglass elementary school principal.  Both entered the UK graduate school for Masters Degrees in education.

June 21, 1952, Army PFC William M. Bennett from Hardin County died in the Korean War.

June 21, 1956, Governor A. Chandler appointed Robert Humphreys as a Class II Senator.  After Senator W. Barkley’s death, the seat sat empty for 52 days.  Robert only served 138 days.

June 21, 1957, Constable Arlin Elvis Curneal, Hopkins County Constable’s Office, died in an automobile accident while pursuing a speeding vehicle.

June 21, 1964, Southgate’s Jim Bunning pitched MLB’s 7th perfect game as a Philadelphia Philly, defeating the Mets 6-0 in the 1st game of a doubleheader at Shea Stadium.  A father of seven children at the time, Bunning pitched his perfect game on Father’s Day.  It was the 1st regular-season perfect game since 1922 (a perfect game occurred in the 1956 World Series).  He faced 27 batters, no one reached base, struck out ten, and threw only 89 pitches or fewer than ten an inning.  As the perfect game developed, Bunning defied the baseball superstition that no one should talk about a no-hitter in progress, speaking to his teammates about the perfect game to keep himself relaxed and loosen up his teammates.  Bunning had abided by the tradition during a near-no hitter a few weeks before, determining afterward that keeping quiet didn’t help.  South Portsmouth native John Stephenson was Bunning’s last strikeout of the game.  He was the only person to throw a perfect game and serve in the U.S. Senate.

June 21, 1967, Army SSG Billy J. Watkins from Paducah died in the Vietnam War.

June 21, 1968, Army SGT William L. Law from Greenup and Marine Corps James L. Luttrell from Owensboro, died in the Vietnam War.

June 21, 1974, local officials held groundbreaking ceremonies for Lexington Center/Rupp Arena.

June 21, 1975, Ruffian won the Coaching Club American Oaks (GI).

In the early hours of Saturday morning, June 21, 1980, Lexington’s WTVQ-TV, Channel 62, planned to leave the airwaves for 24 hours and return as Channel 36; it took 48.

June 21, 1987, Dayton native Todd Benzinger made his MLB debut for the Boston Red Sox.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Lawrenceburg native Tyler Childers, born in 1991.

In testimony before Congress on June 21, 1994, the FDA accused Brown & Williamson (B&W) of knowingly manipulating nicotine levels.  B&W Chairman Thomas Sandefur rejected the claim, and accused the FDA of “grandstanding” for political purposes.  Several members of Congress suggested that this proved that tobacco executives committed perjury when they denied knowing smoking was addictive in their April 1994 testimony before Congress.

June 21, 1994, Columbia (Adair County) native Lance Burton opened his $27 million production in the 274-seat Lance Burton Theater in Monte Carlo Resort in Las Vegas.  Entertainment Today magazine listed it as the #1 family magic act, and during its 13-year run, Burton earned an estimated $110 million.

June 21, 1999, Conservation Officer Bernard Dean Ratliff, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, suffered a fatal heart attack after participating in his agency’s physical fitness program.

June 21, 2000, for only the 3rd time in Kentucky history, the Judicial Conduct Commission removed a state judge, District Judge William R. Woods, from his bench.

On June 21, 2001, while the Backstreet Boys played Rupp for the 2nd time, Shane Ragland asked for his murder trial to be moved from the horse capital.  Meanwhile, Clay County attorneys filed the 1st lawsuit against Oxycontin in Kentucky.  The class action suit went after Purdue Pharma for making the drug, a Harlan County doctor, Dr. Ali Sawaf for prescribing it, and the Pineville Hospital.

June 21, 2001, Kentucky lawmakers made the Appalachian dulcimer the official musical instrument of Kentucky.

Kentucky Trivia:  The dulcimer 1st appeared in the early 19th century among Scotch-Irish immigrant communities in the Appalachians.  Historians speculate that early settlers could not craft the more complex, dramatically curved violin due to a lack of tools and time. The dulcimer has acquired several nicknames, including “harmonium,” “hog fiddle,” “music box,” “harmony box,” and “mountain zither.”

June 21, 2004, Marine Lance CPL Deshon E. Otey 24, of Hardin, died in Iraq fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

June 21, 2008, Andy Pelphrey from Stambaugh caught a state record Blacknose Dace weighing 0.008 lbs. in Hood Creek in Lawrence County.

Federal prosecutors, at the direction of President B. Obama, unsealed a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia on June 21, 2013, charging Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.

Obama Trivia:  The Obama administration prosecuted eight whistleblowers under the Espionage Act of 1917, more than all previous U.S. presidential administrations combined.  These prosecutions targeted government employees who leaked classified information to the press.  Notable cases included Manning, Snowden, Thomas Drake, Stephen Kim, and Jeffrey Sterling, with varying outcomes, including prison, plea deals and dropped charges.

June 21, 2013, Andy Pelphrey from Stambaugh caught a state record Spottail Shiner weighing 0.01 lbs. in Paintsville Lake.

June 21, 2019, disgraced Social Security disability attorney Eric Conn lost his prized replica of the Lincoln Memorial in his office parking lot, the center of the largest Social Security fraud investigation in U.S. history.  A local businessman donated the statue to Floyd County and placed it in the Middle Creek National Battlefield, a civil war battlefield near Prestonsburg.

Kentucky Trivia:  Floyd County Judge Executive Robbie Williams estimated the statue’s worth at about $200,000, plus $30,000 to move it.  It is the 2nd largest seated Lincoln Statue in the World after the Memorial on the National Mall.  However, the seated Lincoln statue in Boise, Idaho, is taller at 9 feet without a base.

On June 21, 2020, restaurants faced labor issues as they began to reopen, Keeneland canceled Picnic with Pops, and unemployment benefits ended for many locals.

June 21, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to allow athletes to receive payment for the use of their name, picture, and likeness (NIL). 

June 21, 2021, the Teachers’ Retirement System of Kentucky approved a new set of assumptions about the future that added $3 billion in unfunded liability to its books and required as much as $200 million more annually from the state budget.

On June 21, 2021, LifePoint Health agreed to buy Kindred Healthcare, both Louisville companies.  The two forces will combine to create a leading ….yadda-yadda-yadda…  America’s for-profit healthcare network strikes again at the working man’s expense.

On June 21, 2022, environmentalists and coal mining communities across the nation pressed the Biden administration to finally appoint someone to head the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement after more than 500 days in office.  More than 2,200 residents from Kentucky to Wyoming delivered a petition asking for help with desperately needed reclamation projects.

On June 21, 2022, Lexington approved 88 more houses off Harrodsburg Road near the Jessamine County line.  The vote came after a three-hour meeting where more than a dozen people spoke against the development.  Nick Nicholson, Keeneland’s ex-president, went to bat for Cowgill Properties and secured the victory.  Buddy Cowgill, a possible billionaire, can’t get enough, not that there is anything wrong with that. 

On June 21, 2022, our Andy B’s were doing what they do best; one handed out another “Big Check” while the other continued pushing the agendas of Big Banks and the MIC.  It is what makes America tick: Money & War.

On June 21, 2023, the 24-year-old Houston woman at the center of an intricate web of fraud who stole $4 million from the city of Lexington entered a guilty plea in federal court.  She had the money electronically but was never able to spend it.  The mayor hopefully had a Lessons Learned meeting.

On June 21, 2023, Big Cam got his feelings hurt and asked that some political ads be removed from the television as a candidate for governor.  A DNC unlimited money PAC with a catchy name, Defending Bluegrass Values, claimed he hired two employees who helped Bevin make questionable pardons.  It was a reach.  The Senate race might be tough on him.

On June 21, 2023, Thomas Massie pointed out the Vice President’s inconsistence stance on the vaccine, pinpointing the heart of the mandate debate.

On Friday, June 21, 2024, four elected officials posted, one is not like all the rest.