Did you know ...

• the Confederate Monument (pictured) in Cynthiana, Kentucky was the first monument to the Confederate States of America in Kentucky, and long believed to be the first one anywhere?
• the Colored Soldiers Monument in Frankfort, Kentucky is the only one dedicated to Black Union soldiers in Kentucky?
• the Confederate Monument in Danville, Kentucky was built on grave plots local citizens had given up to fallen soldiers?
• the Confederate Monument of Glasgow, Kentucky honors Confederate soldiers of Glasgow and Barren County, Kentucky, who won more Southern Crosses of Honor than those from any other Kentucky county?
• the oldest firehouse still standing in Louisville, Kentucky was once a church?
• the Cumberland Gap Tunnel between Kentucky and Tennessee replaced a stretch of road that had been called "Massacre Mountain" because of the number of motorists killed there?
• the Battle of Blue Licks in Kentucky was the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War?
• the Kentucky bar examination is the only one in the United States that uses the Multistate Essay Examination without also using the Multistate Performance Test?
• one of Kentucky's first two judges, James John Floyd, was once a privateer?
• members of the Appalachian Volunteers were charged with sedition in 1967 for plotting the violent overthrow of Pike County, after the group's successful efforts led to closure of a Kentucky coal mine?
• pioneer James Harrod established the first permanent European settlement in the U.S. state of Kentucky on June 16, 1774?
• the 2007 dedication of the 1872-built Confederate Monument in Crab Orchard, Kentucky, included Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher and the United States Army?
• the Kentucky attorney and politician Fuller Harding died in 2010 in the same house in which he was born in 1915?
• the Commonwealth of Kentucky had a Confederate shadow government during the U.S. Civil War, although it never officially seceded from the Union?
• the Kentucky High School Athletic Association divides its member schools into separate enrollment classes in only three of the 13 sports in which it conducts state championships?
• the Kentucky Railway Museum (pictured), next door to an historic hotel, features the official state locomotive of Kentucky, a "Jim Crow" car, a four-star hotel on rails, and the only gas-powered motor rail car in the southeastern United States?
• the hiring of Tom Jurich by the University of Louisville was dubbed "the most significant day in the recent history of college sports in Kentucky"?
• the establishment of Camp Joe Holt, the first significant act to keep Kentucky from fully seceding to the Confederate States of America, had to be done in Indiana?
• the oldest black church in Kentucky is the Second Christian Church in Midway, Kentucky's historic district?
• the various state monuments to William Smeathers, a pioneer settler of Kentucky and Texas, use three different versions of his name (Smeathers, Smithers and Smothers)?
• while growing up in Kentucky, aerobatics pilot Gene Soucy would wash and refuel airplanes at a local airport in exchange for flight time?
• three years after tying for its final Kentucky State Football championship, Flaget High School closed due to falling enrollment?
• the Veteran's Monument in Covington in Kentucky is the state's only Civil War platform memorial and also the only one referring to that conflict as the "War Between the States"?
• the Valley View Ferry, Kentucky's oldest business, is seven years older than the state itself?
• the Old L & N Station in Bardstown, Kentucky, was the state's only dry stone railroad station?
• the old stone jail in Bardstown, Kentucky, an active prison from 1819 to 1987, is the last stone jail in operation in Kentucky, USA?
• the Pewee Valley Confederate Memorial (pictured) is the only American Civil War obelisk monument in Kentucky to be made of zinc?
• the Russellville Historic District in Kentucky, U.S. is the site of the first documented bank robbery of Jesse James?
• the Union Monument in Perryville is one of only seven monuments in Kentucky dedicated to Union soldiers, and it took an act of Congress to build it?
• the Shepherdsville train wreck, which caused about fifty deaths when two trains collided in December 1917, is the deadliest train wreck in the history of Kentucky?
• many of Kentucky's early political leaders were part of the Danville Political Club, a debating society whose existence was not known publicly until a century later?
• during a flood in 1937, Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky was partially submerged, and a worker caught a two-pound fish in the lobby?
• Kentucky's Livermore Bridge starts and ends in McLean County, but passes over two rivers and Ohio County to reach its destination?
• Kentucky's Great Saltpetre Cave, which produced saltpetre for the War of 1812, was later used to film part of the 1997 Steven Seagal film Fire Down Below?
• Kentucky's Paducah Freight House was bigger than required because it was originally intended to service a larger rail network?
• Presbyterian minister Robert Jefferson Breckinridge is known as the father of the public school system in Kentucky?
• Theodore O'Hara's Bivouac of the Dead, popularized in American Civil War memorials, was actually written for fallen Kentucky soldiers in Latin America a decade before the War?
• Republican State Senator Vernie McGaha of Russell County, Kentucky, considers his highest priority helping constituents "stuck in the red tape of government"?
• Kentucky's Cherokee State Park, now part of Kenlake State Resort Park, was the first blacks-only state park in the Southern United States?
• Kentucky's Union County largely supported the Confederacy in the Civil War and built a monument to its Confederate dead afterwards?
• Kentucky judge John Milton Elliott was murdered by a fellow judge after adjudicating in a case involving the latter's sister?
• Jim Bunning, currently a U.S. Senator from Kentucky, was the Pittsburgh Pirates' Opening Day starting pitcher in 1968?
• Kentucky State Representative Sam B. Thomas coached fellow army soldiers in Olympic basketball trials in Japan after World War II?
• Kentucky philanthropist Eli Metcalfe Bruce contributed more than $400,000 of his personal fortune to aiding Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War?
• Kentucky Senator Archibald Dixon was primarily responsible for the repeal of the slavery restrictions of the Missouri Compromise in Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory?
• Kentucky political boss Thomas Rhea was instrumental in getting delegates from Southern states to vote to nominate Franklin D. Roosevelt for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention?
• Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, who founded Alice Lloyd College in Kentucky, appeared on the TV show This is Your Life in 1955 to raise money for the college?
• Bethel Academy in Kentucky was the first Methodist school west of the Appalachian Mountains?
• Thomas Allin, an early settler of Kentucky, USA, laid out the cities of Lexington, Harrodsburg, and Henderson?
• Taylorsville Lake State Park is the most heavily stocked lake in Kentucky?
• Tom Gish's newspaper The Mountain Eagle was the first newspaper in eastern Kentucky to challenge the damage caused to the environment resulting from strip mining?
• Dr. Lillian H. South is credited with eliminating several contagious diseases from Kentucky, including hookworm?
• Sarah Beth Barnette, a senior at Lexington Christian Academy, is the first player from Lexington to win Kentucky's "Miss Basketball" award?
• Monk Estill, who was captured by the Wyandot prior to the Battle of Little Mountain and escaped during the battle, was the first slave to be freed in the state of Kentucky?
• Short's goldenrod (pictured), one of the world's rarest plants, grows only in parts of Kentucky and Indiana?
• Mordecai Lincoln House in Washington County is the only home of a member of Abraham Lincoln's family that still stands in Kentucky?
• Camp Beauregard, an American Civil War camp in western Kentucky, was abandoned in less than six months due to over 1,000 cases of typhoid and pneumonia?
• Bullitt's Lick was the first industry and supplier of salt in what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky?
• memorials to the Confederacy in Mayfield, Kentucky include a fountain and a series of cemetery gates?
• Damon E. Allen led the successful campaign by the Kentucky Optometric Association to empower optometrists in the state to prescribe medication for patients?
• Kentucky State University, with 2,300 students, is the smallest of the public state universities in the U.S. state of Kentucky?
• American pioneer John Bowman, granduncle of Kentucky University founder John Bryan Bowman, presided over the first county court held in Kentucky?