Kentucky Trivia ● Kentucky Tweets
April 10, 1673, Abraham Wood, active in opening Virginia’s western frontier to trade, funded the exploration of James Needham, Gabriel Arthur and their axmen. This team, is the 1st known group to travel the Warrior’s Path and cross the Cumberland Gap. The Shawnee captured Gabriel Arthur by the following spring.
On April 10, 1783, John Floyd died at Bullitt’s Lick, two days after riding into an ambush on his way to the salt works from Floyd’s Station on Beargrass Creek. John’s brother carried him to safety. His family returned him to the family’s station for burial. One of Louisville’s 1st families, the Floyds, arrived in 1774, bought 2,000 acres, and built Floyd’s Station, a mile from present-day St. Matthews.
April 10, 1823, Danville established the Kentucky Asylum for the Tuition of the Deaf and Dumb, later called the Kentucky School for the Deaf (KSD). The state’s 1st supported school of its kind in the nation was also the 1st school for the deaf west of the Alleghenies. Gen. Elias Barbee, a Kentucky state senator, whose daughter, Lucy, could not hear, pushed the legislation to law.
April 10, 1901, Officer John T. Crum, Danville Police Department, died while investigating illegal alcohol sales at a local establishment. Kentucky executed him in a public hanging in December.
April 10, 1906, Newport native Nathaniel Southgate Shaler passed over. Born into a slave holding family, he became a paleontologist and geologist who wrote extensively on the theological and scientific implications of the theory of evolution. A Harvard fixture for over 20 years, they now considered his work scientific racism. Early in his professional career, Shaler leaned toward broad creationism and anti-Darwinism.
April 10, 1918, Sergeant Thomas J. Fitzgibbons, Louisville Police Department, succumbed to a gunshot wound sustained the previous day while attempting to arrest a robbery suspect at his home.
April 10, 1920, following a three-hour session of Kentucky Wesleyan College’s Executive Board, Professor Ralph Demaree agreed he would not discuss evolution again. But, to keep his job till June 1, he wrote an apology statement, which The Courier-Journal printed.
April 10, 1931, Ashland native Clyde McCoy’s orchestra performed Black And Tan Fantasy, written by Bud Miley and Duke Ellington.
April 10, 1948, Officer Oscar Roberts, Fayette County Police Department, died from a gunshot while making a misdemeanor arrest at the Keeneland track. Locals acquitted the 26-year-old twice.
April 10, 1950, the yearlong “War of the Barrels” ended. The fact is that whiskey must age in new charred-oak kegs. From 1944 to 1946, some Northern U.S. distilleries utilized used barrels because new ones were unavailable. Used barrel forces successfully lobbied U.S. regulators to change the definition of whisky in April of 1949. After a year-long battle, the new parties eventually won.
April 10, 1968, Army SP4 Clyde C. Collins from Jackson in Breathitt County died in the Vietnam War.
April 10, 1970, Lynn native and Cincinnati Red Don Gullett debuted on the road against the San Francisco Giants. He had an outstanding rookie season, appearing in 44 games (42 in relief), posting a 5-2 record and a 2.43 earned run average.
April 10, 1975, directors decided to delay the opening of Kentucky Horse Park for two years. Officials wanted the 963-acre facility to open in 1976; however, they moved it to the mid-1978 to coincide with a new I-75 interchange to serve the park better. They opened in September 1978 and it is now 1,224 acres.
On April 10, 1980, Octagon Hall, in Simpson County, near Franklin, was admitted to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The haunted Octagon Hall is well known amongst ghost hunters and the like.
By Kenton DickersonApril 10, 1984, allegedly Jerome Jernigan kidnapped Wallace Wilkinson after a business dispute. Mr. Jernigan would say otherwise. Mr. Jernigan died three months later, and three years later, Wallace became governor.
April 10, 1986, government experts claimed that unless Congress made substantial changes, the children of today’s working-age Americans will be financially overwhelmed in the early 21st century due to a human tidal wave of retirees. Meanwhile, Frankfort relaxed gun controls, and Scott County approved the Toyota plant site location.
April 10, 1990, Keeneland bugler George “Bucky” Sallee played Boots and Saddles at Leslie Combs II’s funeral at the Lexington Cemetery. Combs, 89, who founded Spendthrift Farm, died of cancer.
April 10, 1997, Louisville native Michael Anthony Dorris passed over. The novelist, scholar, and 1st Chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth College; wrote A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987) and the memoir The Broken Cord (1989).
April 10, 2000, Randy Kimbrough, former finance chief for the State Department of Education, pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $500,000 in state and federal education money. Her husband faced a mail fraud charge concerning the case.
April 10, 2006, Army SPC James W. Gardner, 22, of Glasgow, died from a non-combat related issue during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
April 10, 2011, Army PFC Brandon T. Pickering, 21, of Fort Thomas, died in Germany of wounds sustained in Afghanistan fighting in Operation Enduring Freedom.
April 10, 2015, the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame inducted Lexington natives and cousins Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell.
April 10, 2017, Governor M. Bevin and Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Kentucky (TMMK) President Will James announced a $43.5 million incentive package to modernize the Georgetown plant.
On April 10, 2018, former House Speaker Jeff Hoover reached another settlement in his sexual harassment case, this time with the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission. He admitted he violated ethics laws and received a $1,000 fine; however, he kept his House seat with the secrets that brought him down.
April 10, 2020, Kentucky announced 242 new positive coronavirus cases, the largest single-day increase, bringing the state total to 1,693. Eleven new deaths brought that total to 90. Governor Beshear stated that anyone attending Easter Sunday services would violate his executive order. Senator Rand Paul tweeted: Taking license plate numbers at church? Quarantining someone for being Christian on Easter Sunday? Someone needs to take a step back here.
April 10, 2022, from the category of the more things, change, the more things stay the same: While Governor A. Beshear and the legislative branch battled for power, the federal government, backed by corporate media, pushed another war, this time in Ukraine.
