The Kentucky River

“From the beginning of white settlement, the Kentucky has been exploited, abused, misused, misread, and now neglected,” writes William E. Ellis in his history of the Kentucky River. Ellis's research shows, however, that the river has also been loved and revered by many people because their lives depended on it so closely. They farmed land along its banks, fished it, worked on it as loggers, boat captains, and laborers, and drew sustenance from its waters in many ways. A major problem today, Ellis finds, is that Kentuckians still depend on the river (over 600,000 take their drinking supplies from it), but they no longer recognize their vital ties to the stream because they have become distant from it. Their only contact, Ellis argues, is just a fleeting glimpse of the waterway when they speed over it on a towering interstate highway bridge. In this volume, Ellis has combined the skills of a historian with his concern for the Kentucky River to provide a traditional synthesis of the old river's past that is suitable for a popular audience. Using archival material and oral histor y, he describes the geology, ecology, folklore, and history of the river. He details various human interactions with the Kentucky through discussions of river workers, logging and its effects, lock and dam construction, literature related to the river, and art, specifically the watercolors of Paul Sawyier

Archaeology · Folklore · Geography · Logging · Political science · Settlement (finance · Sustenance · White (mutation · American Environmental and Regional History · Archaeology and Natural History · History · Law