Kentucky Trivia
On July 29, 1826, horsemen organized the Kentucky Association “to improve the breed of horses by encouraging the sports of the turf.” They held their 1st race in October at Williams Race Course, now the Lexington Cemetery. The Squire’s Sketches of Lexington by J. Winston Coleman, Jr. pg: 34
July 29, 1893, Town Marshal Andrew J. Blunk, Parkland Police Department , died arresting a man on a warrant. The Marshal’s murderer would probably have escaped with his life had not the 18-year-old son of the marshal avenged his father’s death on sight.
July 29, 1894, Officer William W. Weathered, Lexington Police Department , died from a gunshot while attempting to arrest a drunk man near South Broadway and Bolivar Street.
July 29, 1920, staging an 8th inning rally, the Louisville Colonels beat the St. Paul Saints 8-7 in Louisville in the 3rd game of the series. When the umpire called a St. Paul player out at home, in the 9th inning, a riot broke out, the stands emptied, and, many assaulted the umpire. The police had to be called to the stadium to stop the violence.
July 29, 1933, Sheriff Willie McKinley Winningham, Clinton County Sheriff’s Department , died while attempting to serve a warrant on a man in the highway community. Sheriff Winningham got shot in the man’s home with a .38 caliber handgun; however, Sheriff Winningham, alone at the time, returned fire and killed the suspect.
July 29, 1939, Chief of Police George Morrison Dickey, Cynthiana Police Department , died while investigating a farmer about abusing a 15-year-old girl.
July 29, 1939, Old Latonia Race Course shut down . Standard Oil of Ohio bought and dismantled the facility during WWII.
July 29, 1948, President H. Truman told of his vision of the eventual end of segregation of blacks in the Army and Navy.
July 29, 1950, Army SGT Bish Boggs from Laurel County , Army PFC James T. Brammer from Rowan County , Army PFC Ernest Gray from Hancock County, and Army PVT Leslie B. Latham from Hopkins County , died in the Korean War.
July 29, 1962, a federal court fined four defendants in a Chicago-Louisville horse race scratch-sheet operation $17,000 . They broke a new law banning the inter-state shipment of gambling material.
July 29, 1967, Army CPL Ervil T. Bray from Somerset , Navy SN William D. Collins from Paris , Marine Corps CPL Lee R. Taylor from Coalgood in Harlan County, and Navy AN Kerry D. Wisdom from Princeton in Caldwell County , died in the Vietnam War.
July 29, 1968, Army PFC Paul D. Aton from Franklin in Simpson County died in the Vietnam War.
July 29, 1970, the Army announced plans to sink nearly 3,000 tons of obsolete nerve gas rockets encased in concrete and steel coffins in the Atlantic Ocean, 250 miles of the Florida coast.
July 29, 1975, the EPA banned the pesticides chlordane and heptachlor .
Friday night, July 29, 1977, about 65 die-hard Elvis fans began to camp out at Rupp Arena to buy tickets that went on sale Sunday . The 10,400 tickets cost $5 to $15, and each person could buy ten. Rupp Arena expected 10,000 people to stand in line with an expected sellout time at noon; however, they sold out that evening. Elvis died on August 16; and he scheduled the Rupp concert on August 23.
July 29, 1985, astronaut Franklin Story Musgrave, who considers Lexington his hometown , returned to Earth from the Space Shuttle Program’s 19th flight and the Space Shuttle Challenger’s 8th flight.
July 29, 1986, Detective Jack S. Deuser, Jefferson County Police Department , died from electrocution when he dived into a creek to save a woman already electrocuted.
July 29, 1990, UK paid a Washington lobbying firm nearly $700,000 to help win special congressional legislation for a new research center. Senator W. Ford commented, “I really don’t know much about it; you will have to ask UK if they got their money worth.”
July 29, 1999, fourteen UK anthropology students wrapped up a five-week dig at the Boone Station State Historic Site in rural southern Fayette County . The Boone family settled the land about six miles from Fort Boonesborough after the fort became too crowded.
July 29, 2000, George W. Bush told rained soaked Kentuckians that he would be the 1st Republican presidential nominee to carry the state since his father won its eight electoral votes in 1988.
July 29, 2000, a Kentucky bred and Keeneland graduate won Delmar’s GII $207,000 Bing Crosby Stakes for three-year-olds and upward.
July 29, 2010, Toyota Motor Corp. announced another recall in the U.S. , this time for a steering problem in 373,000 Avalon sedans built for the 2000-04 model years in Georgetown.
July 29, 2010, Rick Pitino told the court he worried that his wife and kids would find out about his one-night stand with a woman he met in a bar . That is why he didn’t immediately tell police about her demands for cars, cash, and housing because he wanted to keep the affair quiet.
July 29, 2014, Hamburg Pavilion sold for $185.7 million , considered the largest land transaction ever in Fayette County.
Kentucky Trivia: Bloomfield Manor, a 24,252 square feet building located at 1202 Delong Place in Lexington, is the largest single-family home in Kentucky. It belongs to Alan and Irene Bloomfield. Alan is the former owner of Galls Inc., an equipment-supply business for police and fire departments, federal agents and emergency medical teams.
On July 29, 2016, federal authorities released 67-year-old Stan Curtis from prison after serving his time. Presidents, mayors, and A-list celebrities appeared at his events when he asked. Curtis played a crucial role in landing Louisville’s 1st PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in 1996.
July 29, 2017, the Derby and Preakness winners battled in Saratoga’s GII $588,000 Jim Dandy Stakes for three-year-olds. A Kentucky bred won.
July 29, 2019, another Bob Baffert horse died in training , this time at Del Mar.
On July 29, 2019, Senator M. McConnell, on the Senate floor, launched a blistering attack on the Democrats for blaming Russia for all their problems . But unfortunately, Mitch only spoke out after the corporate TV news outlets called him Moscow Mitch and Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post called him a Russian asset. In 2017, the donkeys lost to a game show host/con man, and two years later, they still blamed their embarrassing campaign failures on Russia instead of their pro-corporate, pro-war policies that mimicked the elephants.
July 29, 2020, housing advocates asked Governor A. Beshear not to lift the eviction moratorium, possibly causing 220,000 Kentuckians to go homeless. Meanwhile, the governor announced 619 (28,727) new cases and five new deaths (724). The ages of those new deaths ranged from 58 to 87. Also, the governor told the press that Rich Storm was no longer the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources Commissioner, which started a long legal battle.
July 29, 2021, Governor A. Beshear recommended but did not mandate that all Kentucky students and staff, K-12, wear masks due to the delta variant. He did require face coverings in all state executive branch offices regardless of vaccination status for employees and visitors, according to a memo from state Personnel Cabinet Secretary Gerina Whethers.
On July 29, 2021, Bowling Green’s hospital, Med Center Health, announced the employee requirement for the COVID-19 vaccine . This included medical staff, students, residents, fellows, and vendors across the Med Center Health system. Those in leadership positions had till August 9 to receive their 1st dose, while all others had through September 1.
July 29, 2022, the Letcher County Jail evacuated 117 inmates during the historical flooding that started 24 hours earlier ; the facility had no running water. Letcher County jailer Bert Slone stated the water crested a few hundred feet from the jail, but much of town would be without water for two weeks. Governor A. Beshear confirmed 16 deaths so far, with more expected in the coming days.
July 29, 2022, Ted Cruz fist-bumped Mitch on the Senate floor after they killed a veterans’ bill at the last minute. The bill significantly improved healthcare access and funding for veterans exposed to toxic substances during military service. Many veterans, exposed to burn pits, continuously camped outside the U.S. Capitol in protest for five days. The bill finally passed in August.