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Historical sites in Central Kentucky

By tom eblen | teblen@herald-leader.com

[Get directions using an interactive map of the places in this story.]

Lexington's history began long before the arrival of Daniel Boone, who, by the way, was short and wouldn't have been caught dead wearing a coonskin cap.

Native Americans started roaming Central Kentucky about 10,500 B.C., and woodland tribes began settling here about 1,000 B.C. They left behind stone tools, clay pots and some really big mounds of dirt.

Unfortunately, most surviving Indian mounds around Lexington aren't accessible to the public. Perhaps the largest is at Adena Park (Mount Horeb Pike; reservations required: (859) 257-3928), which is owned by the University of Kentucky and available for use by people affiliated with the school.

Long before white people started fighting over Kentucky land, it was a popular pastime of the Shawnee, Iroquois, Cherokee and other tribes who came here to hunt buffalo. You can see some of the buffalo's old hangouts in the communities of Stamping Ground and Great Crossing in Scott County and along the Kentucky River in Frankfort at the Buffalo Trace Distillery (1001 Wilkinson Boulevard, Franklin County; 1-800-654-8471; 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat., tours on the hour). [Find out more about Kentucky's bourbon distilleries.]

Nobody's sure whether the French or English were the first Europeans to visit Kentucky, but perhaps the first explorer was Gabriel Arthur in the 1670s. Dr. Thomas Walker led the first survey party in 1750. Daniel Boone, wearing a normal hat, spent more than two years exploring Kentucky from 1767 to 1769.

By the 1770s, the British colonies along the East Coast were getting crowded and real estate speculators began eyeing land beyond the Appalachians. Richard Henderson bought much of Kentucky from the Cherokee in one of the biggest private land deals in American history.

Henderson tried to form his own colony, Transylvania, and he hired Boone to blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap. Boone also built Fort Boonesboro, not far from James Harrod's fort at Harrodsburg, the first permanent pioneer settlement.

Harrod's fort has been reconstructed at Old Fort Harrod State Park (100 South College Street, Harrodsburg; (859) 734-3314; usually 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily but hours are seasonal; $5, less for seniors, children, groups).

You also can see what pioneer life was like at Fort Boonesboro State Park (4375 Boonesborough Road, Richmond; (859) 527-3131; tours 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily April 1-Oct. 31; $7, less for children, seniors and groups).

British authorities were not amused by Henderson's land grab, and they voided his claim. Kentucky became a county of Virginia and then, in 1792, the 15th state in the union. (The Valley View Ferry flies both the Kentucky and Virginia flags, because this was Virginia when the little boat started plying the Kentucky River at the end of Tates Creek Road in 1785.)

Boone became one of America's first celebrities, thanks to an "autobiography" written by John Filson as part of his 1784 best-seller, The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke. Filson would have made a great state commissioner of economic development or tourism. In addition to hyping Boone's exploits and publishing an early map, he breathlessly described Kentucky as a "New Eden."

Kentucky has changed a lot since Filson passed through, but one still-recognizable description is of the Kentucky River Palisades near the Dix River. You can see them on the one-hour Dixie Belle River Cruise from Shaker Landing (U.S. 68 near Pleasant Hill; 1-800-734-5611; cruises at noon, 2 and 4 p.m. daily June 21-Nov. 2, $6, free for children younger than 6).

One group that bought into the whole New Eden notion was the Shakers, a religious sect that in the early 1800s founded a utopian community in Mercer County. The Shakers made elegantly simple furniture, architecture, crafts and music, and they didn't believe in sex. All of that explains why they are famous — and gone.