Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets

July 11, 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker and his men returned to Charlottesville, VA, after exploring the Kentucky Wilderness for the Loyal Land Company.  They built the first known “house” near Barbourville, during their extended stay.

July 11, 1862, Morgan’s Raiders take Lebanon, capturing 200 of the enemy and a large depot of supplies.

July 11, 1892, two hundred blacks, armed with rifles, congregated at the Paducah jail prepared to stop the hanging of a black inmate.  The Sheriff gathered a posse of sixty armed white men.  The original beef was the hanging of Charles Hill for assault.  The black men were at the jail to support Thomas Burgess, a black male, arrested for robberies and assaults.  The standoff would turn violent.

July 11, 1917, Sergeant Christopher Kolhoven, Newport Police Department, DIED while attempting to arrest three drunk and disorderly soldiers who had attempted to steal milk from a local grocery store owner following a night of binge drinking.

July 11, 1917, Richmond Native James Park, of the St. Louis Browns, played his final MLB game.

July 11, 1920, Patrolman Russell S. Wooten, Hazard Police Department, died after being struck on the head with a heavy piece of timber while attempting to arrest a drunk man.

July 11, 1932, Chief of Police Hoover Hinton, Dwale Police Department-Floyd County, succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained one week earlier while attempting to arrest two men for being drunk.

On July 11, 1942, the first aircraft, a B-25 Mitchell bomber landed at Bluegrass Field.  Versailles native Lt. Col. Charles J. Jones commanded the plane.  The bomber made a “causionary” landing at the field.  While the plane was being inspected, Jones visited his family.

Kentucky Trivia: In August 1944, the field was officially named Blue Grass Field.  This was a compromise between factions that wanted the field named Lexington Field, Havely Field (after Mayor Havely), Chandler Field (after Governor A. B. “Happy” Chandler) and Umstead Field (after Lt. Col. Stanley M. Umstead, a Lexington native and test pilot).

July 11, 1943, Lorne Eli from Dawson Springs caught a state record white bass in Kentucky Lake weighing five pounds which tied the 1957 catch in Herrington Lake.  Lorne has the oldest fishing record out of 64 species.

July 11, 1950, Army PVT William G. Holloway from Jefferson County, Army CPL Simon Terry from Knott County, and Army PVT George Schoulthies from Campbell County, died in the Korean War.

July 11, 1953, Marine Corps 1STLT Samuel T. Stumbo from Lancer in Floyd County died in the Korean War.

July 11, 1968, a long-termed suppressed study by government recreation experts recommended that the the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River should be preserved as a wilderness river – not dammed up by the Army Corps of Engineers for another reservoir.

July 11, 1967, Army PFC Francis A. Hughes from Paris died in the Vietnam War.

July 11, 1968, Marine Corps PFC Edwin Z. Floyd from Lexington, Army PFC Herman D. Roberts from Bowling Green, and Marine Corps PFC Ernest W. Rutherford from Smiths Grove in Warren County, died in the Vietnam War.

July 11, 1970, Glory Kalarama, Redd Crabtree up, captured the Five-gaited $2,000 Gran Championship at the Lexington Junior League Horse Show, where 11,000 watched at the Red Mile.

July 11, 1977, former UK Coach Adolph Rupp told the NCAA he would consider it a personal honor if Lexington could host the final four.  Governor J. Carroll, UK AD Cliff Hagan, and Lexington officials declared it would be a tribute to Coach Rupp.  Unfortunately, coach Rupp died six months later, and Lexington’s Final Four occurred in 1985.

At 6:20 p.m. on July 11, 1980, The Who played Rupp Arena.  They finally returned to the area where the December 1979 Cincinnati concert happened, where 11 young people died while trying to get into Riverfront Coliseum.  At least four undercover police narcotics officers and an estimated 150 off-duty police and private security officers watched for trouble.  Over 21,000 fans attended.  No injuries were reported, but 40 people were arrested on a variety of drug charges.  Tickets for the show cost $8 to $12.

July 11, 1990, by a vote of 7-4, the Kentucky Board of Education allowed a for profit television channel into the classroom.  The state mandated only 2 minutes of advertising for every ten minutes of programming.  A Berea board member told the press Kentucky sold the kids out.

On July 11, 1997, the Woodford County Board of Education told students and their families the new High School would not open on time, and high school classes would meet in the Woodford Junior High and downtown office spaces.  Ironically, in 2022 there is a significant debate about the newest high school in the works.

July 11, 2000, Kentucky asked the Wild Turkey Distillery to pay nearly a half-million dollars to restock the Kentucky River after a fire in May released thousands of gallons of bourbon, killing thousands of fish.  Wild Turkey thought it was excessive and disputed it.  They already paid $300,000 to the federal EPA.

July 11, 2006, Louisville native Dan Uggla played 2^nd base as a reserve in Major League Baseball’s 77^th All-Star game.

July 11, 2020, a Kentucky bred won the GII $600,000 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes which ran in July because of the deadly flu strain called coronavirus.

July 11, 2021, 71-year-old Richard Branson and his five crewmates from the Virgin Galactic space-tourism company reached an altitude of 53 miles above the New Mexico desert.  This height allowed the crew to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the earth.  He beat Jeff Bezos to space.