TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

Kentucky Trivia

December 10, 1861, Confederate Kentucky was admitted into the Confederate States of America.

December 10, 1861, Union General Albin Shoepf’s forces are pushed out of Somerset by Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer and his men.

December 10, 1895, William O’Connell Bradley becomes Kentucky’s 32nd governor and Kentucky’s 1st Republican governor.  In his first legislative session, he wanted to ban the manufacture of cigarettes, outlaw concealed weapons, ban gambling at racetracks and church fairs.  Bradley did advance the cause of blacks using his power of pardon and signing an anti-lynching bill.  The Republican/Democrat relationship, or lack thereof, was born during his administration.  Their pettiness reached new heights when the governor’s mansion burned while waiting for lawmakers to allocate funds to make needed repairs.  One legislative session ended when the militia rode into Frankfort after the senate failed to elect a U.S. Senator.  The father of the Republican Party in Kentucky died while serving as a U.S. Senator in Washington D.C.

Dec. 10 Bradley

Localtonians wishes a Happy Birthday to Covington native Una Merkel, born in 1903.

December 10, 1905, Deputy Sheriff Ulysses Grant Holliday, Breathitt County Sheriff’s Office, was shot and killed as he attempted to serve a warrant on two brothers.  He and two deputized civilians located the brothers outside of the Jackson city limits and informed them they were under arrest.

December 10, 1907, Augustus E. Willson became the 36th governor of Kentucky.  The 3rd Republican had many enemies, especially after pardoning several individuals related to the assassination of Governor Gobel.

Dec 10 Willson

December 10, 1914, Special Deputy Marshal James Wood, Upton Police Department, was shot and killed while assisting the town marshal arrest a man wanted for robbery in Elizabethtown.  The marshal had verbally deputized Deputy Marshal Wood to assist with arresting the man.  The subject opened fire on them as they approached him at the Louisville & Nashville Railroad depot.

December 10, 1916, Chief of Police Guthrie Diuguid, Murray Police Department, was shot and killed after responding to a disturbance call.  He was shot by one of three suspects he encountered on a city street and died of his wounds the following day.

December 10, 1921, Deputy Jailer Albert Roberts, Breathitt County Jail, was shot and killed as seven men attempted to break four men out of jail who had been sentenced to life after being convicted of murder.  The jailer’s daughter was also shot and killed and his wife was seriously wounded.  Four suspects were eventually apprehended and charged with murder.  Three others were never apprehended.

December 10, 1922, Special Deputy David George Treadway, Menifee County Sheriff’s Office, was shot and killed while attempting to arrest the murderer of Federal Prohibition Agent the previous day.

Localtonians wishes a Happy Birthday to Jean Byron, born Imogene Audette Burkhart, in 1925 in Paducah.  She is best known for the role of Natalie Lane, Patty Lane’s mother in The Patty Duke Show.

December 10, 1933, Lexington native Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) became the first Kentuckian to be awarded a Nobel Prize.  Morgan distinguished himself as an evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and embryologist.

December 10, 1935, Happy Chandler became the 44th governor of Kentucky and the 41st man to hold the office.

Dec. 10 Chandler

Localtonians wishes a Happy Birthday to Louisville native Thomas Lee Kirk, born in 1941.

December 10, 1946, Patrolman Auldon LeGrande, Louisville Police Department, succumbed to injuries received two years earlier when he was involved in an motorcycle accident while on duty.

December 10, 1963, Edward Thompson Breathitt Jr. became the 51st governor of Kentucky.  Breathitt defeated two-time former Governor Happy Chandler in the Democratic primary.  It would be Happy’s last campaign.

Dec.10 Breathitt

December 10, 1976, UK graduate William Lipscomb was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in nuclear magnetic resonance, theoretical chemistry, boron chemistry, and biochemistry.

December 10, 1977, as top-ranked UK is defeating Kansas on “Adolph Rupp Night” in Allen Field House in Lawrence, Kansas, Adolph Rupp dies.

Kentucky Trivia:  Kentucky has 13,000 miles of streams, and 1,500 miles of navigable waterways.  The state’s streams pour an estimated 30 billion gallons of water into the Ohio River annually.

December 10, 1991, Brereton Chandler Jones becomes the 58th governor of Kentucky.

December 10, 1995, Louisville native and former State Supreme Court Justice Charles M. Leibson, who wrought profound changes in Kentucky jurisprudence died, hours before his successor was sworn in.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002, Deputy Jailer Howard E. “Buck” Callis, Trimble County Jail, succumbed to injuries sustained one week earlier when his transportation vehicle was struck by a tractor trailer on the Western Kentucky Parkway in Hopkins County.  He and another jailer were en route to pick up a prisoner.

December 10, 2006, Army Staff SGT Thomas W. Clemons 37, of Leitchfield, died from a non-combat health-related incident in Iraq, fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

December 10, 2006, Hopkinsville native Artose Pinner ran for 125 yards and three touchdowns for the Vikings, against his old team Detroit.

December 10, 2016, University of Louisville sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson won the Heisman Trophy, Lamar was the first player from Louisville to do so.  Lamar was the youngest player to win the Heisman, at 19 years, 337 days — five days younger than the previous youngest winner, Jameis Winston.

December 10, 2016, Crittenden County native Shelby Hearon passed away.  Shelby authored more than 15 novels, including Footprints, Life Estates, and Owning Jolene, which won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award.  She received an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant as well as fellowships for fiction from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

December 10, 2019, Andrew Graham Beshear became the 63rd governor of Kentucky.