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TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

June 13, 1775, with the main fort nearly finished, D. Boone set out to Snody’s Station in Virginia to bring his family back to Boonesborough.  Richard Callaway and Thomas Hart accompanied him for the same reason.  A group of men also hiked for the sole purpose to bring salt back they had to abandon on an earlier trip.

On June 13, 1789, Robert Sanders, a Lexington distiller, offered a reward for anyone who could return his 100 gallons of whiskey and runaway slaves, as reported by the Kentucky Gazette.

Kentucky Trivia:  In 1810, Tennessee produced 801,245 gallons of distilled spirits, Pennsylvania 6,552,284, Virginia 2,367,589, Kentucky 2,220,773, North Carolina 1,386,691 gallons and Ohio 1,212,266.

June 13-17, 1800, near the present-day community of Schochoh of Adairville in Logan County, Presbyterian minister James McGready began a normal sacramental service that turned into a multi-day revival at the Red River Meeting House.  Word spread of the Holy Spirit being present and hundreds arrived from a 100-mile radius and many were said to be “slain in the spirit.”  The crowd grew so large that the meeting was moved outdoors to hear McGready, John Rankin, William Hodge, and brothers John and William McGee preach.

June 13, 1874, Saxon won the 8th Belmont Stakes by a neck over eight others.  The 1 ½ miles went in 2:39 ½ and earned $4,200.  Belmont Park made their first distance change from a 1 5/8; however, they would continue experimenting with other distances.  The first Derby would be the following year.

Tuesday, June 13, 1889, Eric beat two others and won the 23rd Belmont Stakes, going 1 ½ miles in 2:47 ¼ for $4,960.  For 16 years, the distance was 1 ½, but it would change again in 1890.  This would be the last year Jerome Park would host the race.

Friday, June 13, 1913, Henry Payne Whitney’s Prince Eugene beat August Belmont’s Rock View and three other entries to win the 45th Belmont Stakes.  The distance was 1 3/8 miles and went in 2:18 to set a new track record.  Mr. Whitney received $2,825.  There was no legal gambling for this Belmont Stakes due to the Hart-Agnew Bill that banned all NY gambling.

By June 13, 1925, the Blue Grass Amusement Park, six miles from Lexington on Versailles Pike, began dismantling the last of the rides.  The scenic railway and other attractions that had made it a popular destination for many years had been gone for a year.  The only building that remained was the empty dance pavilion.

June 13, 1926, Deputy Sheriff James Robert “Bob” Wright, Letcher County Sheriff Office, died from a gunshot as he, a prohibition officer, and several other deputies served a search a warrant at a boarding house in Burdine.

June 13, 1931, Twenty Grand beat two others to win the 63rd Belmont Stakes.  The 1 ½ miles went in 2:29 1/3 and earned $58,770.  Twenty Grand placed 2nd in the Preakness which ran 34 days earlier and won the Derby a week after the Preakness.

On June 13, 1944, the Keeneland Association leased its grounds and facilities to the Breeders’ Sales Company.  The sales company dismantled its 1929 sales arena and moved it to Keeneland from its Paris Pike location.

On June 13, 1949, click for a picture of Lexington patrolman Joe Modica on his two-way radio on a new motorcycle bought by the police department’s traffic division.

June 13, 1968, the gray squirrel became the state wild animal game species.

June 13, 1969, Marine Corps PFC Kenneth R. Harris from Grays Knob in Harlan County died in the Vietnam War.

June 13, 1970, A.E. Sellers of Louisville set a state fishing record by catching a 7.63 pound Kentucky Bass.  Also known as a Spotted Bass, it is our state fish.  In Kentucky, adult spotted bass are commonly 8 to 15 inches in length, weighing 2 lbs. and 8 ozs.  Mr. Sellers caught the bass in a farm pond.  It’s believed that the fish got trapped in the pond by receding floodwaters, where it grew to such enormous size.

On June 13, 1971, around 75,000 people watched the Unlimited Hydroplane Kentucky Governor’s Cup from the banks of the Ohio River in Owensboro.  Bill Muncey took the $7,000 grand prize home.

On June 13, 1972, the National Register of Historic Places added the Glen Willis home in Frankfort.  In the 1790s, Willis Atwell Lee constructed a double log cabin and bestowed the name “Glen Willis” on it.

By Jwarf2

As part of the Boyd County bicentennial celebration, 57 boys ran with an American flag from Harrodsburg to Ashland.  It took two days.  The first boy left at 5:30 a.m. on June 13, 1974 from Fort Harrod.  The first stop was Frankfort to the Capitol steps where Governor W. Ford awaited.  It was then on to Morehead for an overnight stop.  The flag arrived at its final destination at 6:00 p.m. at the Putnam Stadium.

June 13, 1980, corporate nursing home executives attacked Dr. Grady Stumbo, Secretary for the Department of Human Resources.  The Courier-Journal exposed neglect and abuse in several Kentucky nursing homes, and Dr. Stumbo made some changes to improve residents’ lives.  However, the corporate nursing home executives claimed the state acted illegally and attacked Stumbo personally.

On June 13, 1983, a federal grand jury continued to look into allegations of illegal gambling and cocaine trafficking among some leading Kentucky horsemen, jockeys, trainers, veterinarians, reporters, public officials, former police officers, socialites, and politicians, culminating in a yearlong investigation.  Police found cocaine, weapons, documents, and personal papers during raids of Jimmy Lambert’s two Lexington homes.  They also raided Arnold Kirkpatrick’s residence, president of Latonia racetrack.  Lambert had been missing since the April raids.

Kentucky Trivia:  Evidence presented to the grand jury centered on James P. Lambert, a long-time friend of sitting Governor John Y. Brown.  Authorities were curious about the transfer of millions of dollars between the two men. Brown was not the target of the inquiry; however, they were interested in their relationship.  Brown acknowledged Lambert placed many bets for the governor, but no law was against that.  The interest in their connection peaked when the raid uncovered memos from Justice Secretary Neil Welch to the governor.  Brown said he did not know how they got there.

On June 13, 1990, Coach Rick Pitino introduced Bernadette Locke as the newest assistant basketball coach, the 1st woman to hold such a position on a Division I men’s team in a crowded Wildcat Lodge.  Asked if she felt like a pioneer, she laughed and replied, “Not really, but I hope it opens the door for other women.”

June 13, 1995, a rate increase by Kentucky’s largest health insurer, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kentucky, violated a promise they made a year earlier not to raise rates.  “We have raised questions on two or three issues, and none of them have been answered,” Insurance Commissioner Don Stephens stated.

June 13, 1995, UK approved a gift from alumnus and Muhlenberg County native C.M. Bill Gatton.  UK’s College of Business and Economics received what they say was the largest financial gift from a single donor in the university’s history.  The amount was not made public.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Lexington native DeVore Ledridge, born in 2001.  DeVore rose to fame as a teen starring as Amelia in the Disney television series Bizaardvark.  She created a popular YouTube channel, and 2.6 million fans follow her on TikTok.

June 13, 2003, Western Kentucky reported the 1st case of Monkeypox in the state.  The woman had handled prairie dogs.

June 13, 2003, one miner working for the Cody Mining Company died in an underground explosion in McDowell, Floyd County.  After the investigation, federal authorities stated the company ran its #1 mine in an “appalling and egregiously unsafe manner.”  Cody Mining received 71 citations and fined $4.2 million.

June 13, 2007, Chief of Police Randy Lacy, Clay City Police Department, died when a prisoner sitting in the back seat of his patrol car produced a gun and shot him.  The chief was transporting the assailant to jail for driving under the influence of alcohol.

On June 13, 2007, Frankfort received the new numbers from the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), which is responsible for setting telephone numbers.  They assigned 364 to be Kentucky’s latest area code, covering the western portion of area code 270, which included Henderson, Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Murray, and Paducah.

June 13, 2015, Paducah native Mike Broadway made his MLB debut with the San Francisco Giants.

On June 13, 2016, a former chief regional social security judge pleaded guilty to scheming to retaliate against an employee who blew the whistle on crooked disability lawyer Eric Conn.  Eric, the con man, finally started serving his sentencing in December 2017 when they handcuffed him at the Blue Grass Airport.  The fraud ran deep.

On June 13, 2017, Paris in Bourbon County voted 5-0 to allow Sunday alcohol sales.  The city commission voted after holding two public hearings.  When the vote ended, many in the audience stood and clapped.  Local Joseph Clay called the decision historic: “We are now a tourist destination.”

On June 13, 2020, a protest that started on the 12th became very tense at times, and guns were involved.  It continued past midnight.  Some Brandenburg (Meade County) locals, with weapons, protected a Confederate Veteran’s Monument after they accepted it from Louisville.  The river city had dismantled it in 2016 after several protests.  Louisville removed the John B. Castleman statue from the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood days earlier.

June 13, 2020, Kentuckian Jefferson Davis and his legacy departed Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda when the state removed the 12-foot marble statue commemorating the lone president of the Confederate States of America.  Workers assembled a rig that lifted the five-ton marble sculpture off the pedestal where it stood for 84 years — just a few feet behind the bronze statue of fellow Kentuckian Abraham Lincoln.

June 13, 2021, the Lexington Herald-Leader spotlighted Ryan Sullivan and his Los Angles clothing business.  It started as a Henry Clay High School project and turned into a $1.6 million clothing company thanks to TikToK and hard work.

On June 13, 2021, Kentucky still had not found a home for the Jefferson Davis statue that stood in the Capitol Rotunda a year earlier.  However, the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site in Fairview, Todd County, does plan to take possession once costly structural reinforcements are made.

On June 13, 2022, we learned that 2,250 Kentuckians died from drug overdoses in 2021, a 14.5% increase compared with 2020.  For the same year, the U.S. reported more than 107,000 overdose deaths.  Isolated locals mandated by virus restrictions with a rise in Fentanyl use drove the morbid stats.

By June 13, 2022, Louisville had made considerable strides in its troubled past in managing human waste with the completion of the Waterway Completion Tunnel.  The enormous subway lies 18 stories below the city, stretches four miles, and can hold 55 million gallons.

On Tuesday, June 13, 2023, Governor A. Beshear announced a new steward would be working at Kentucky tracks during live meets. The announcement came three weeks after the 12th horse died at Churchill in less than a month and days after HISA began their ADMC Program. The new “Executive level position” will monitor daily activities at the barns and racetrack focusing on a wide variety of operations.

On June 13, 2023, members of Congress grilled Rochelle Walensky, the outgoing director of the CDC.  The partisan hearings pressed her on the CDC’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.  Topics included vaccine effectiveness, school closures, and the CDC’s communications with social media companies.  When Rep. Comer took the spotlight, he focused on social media platforms and the control of information they let stay up or took down.

On June 13, 2024, Rep. Thomas Massie posted a question.