öolitic limestone, resembling the Bedford limestone of Indiana, and
best known under the name of the finest variety, the “Bowling
Green stone” of Warren county; and sandstones good for structural
purposes are found in both coal regions, and especially in Rowan
county. In 1907 the total value of limestone quarried in the state
was $891,500, and of all stone, $1,002,450. Fire and pottery clay
and cement rock also abound within the state. The value of clay
products was $2,406,350 in 1905 (when Kentucky was tenth among
the states) and was $2,611,364 in 1907 (when Kentucky was eleventh
among the states). The manufacture of cement was begun in 1829
at Shippingport, a suburb of Louisville, whence the natural cement
of Kentucky and Indiana, produced within a radius of 15 m. from
Louisville, is called “Louisville cement.” In 1905 the value of
natural cement manufactured in the state (according to the United
States Geological Survey) was only $83,000. The manufacture of
Portland cement is of greater importance.
There are mineral springs, especially salt springs, in various parts of the state, particularly in the Blue Grass Region; these are now of comparatively little economic importance; no salt was reported among the state’s manufactures for 1905, and in 1907 only 736,920 gallons of mineral waters were bottled for sale. Historically and geologically, however, these springs are of considerable interest. According to Professor N. S. Shaler, state geologist in 1873–1880, “When the rocks whence they flow were formed on the Silurian sea-floors, a good deal of the sea-water was imprisoned in the strata, between the grains of sand or mud and in the cavities of the shells that make up a large part of these rocks. This confined sea-water is gradually being displaced by the downward sinking of the rain-water through the rifts of the strata, and thus finds its way to the surface: so that these springs offer to us a share of the ancient seas, in which perhaps a hundred million of years ago the rocks of Kentucky were laid down.” To these springs in prehistoric and historic times came annually great numbers of animals for salt, and in the marshes and swamps around some of them, especially Big Bone Lick (in Boone county, about 20 m. S.W. of Cincinnati) have been found many bones of extinct mammals, such as the mastodon and the long-legged bison.[1] The early settlers and the Indians came to the springs to shoot large game for food, and by boiling the waters the settlers obtained valuable supplies of salt. Several of the Kentucky springs have been somewhat frequented as summer resorts; among these are the Blue Lick in Nicholas county (about 48 m. N.E. of Lexington), Harrodsburg, Crab Orchard in Lincoln county (about 115 m. S.E. of Louisville), Rock Castle springs in Pulaski county (about 23 m. E. of Somerset) and Paroquet Springs (near Shepherdsville, Bullitt county), which was a well-known resort before the Civil War, and near which, at Bullitt Lick, the first salt works in Kentucky are said to have been erected.
Pearls are found in the state, especially in the Cumberland River, and it is supposed that there are diamonds in the kimberlite deposits in Elliott county.
Transportation.—Kentucky in 1909 had 3,503.98 m. of railway. Railway building was begun in the state in 1830, and in 1835 the first train drawn by a steam locomotive ran from Lexington to Franklin, a distance of 27 m. Not until 1851 was the line completed to Louisville. Kentucky’s trade during the greater part of the 19th century was very largely with the South, and with the facilities which river navigation afforded for this the development of a railway system was retarded. Up to 1880 the railway mileage had increased to only 1,530; but during the next ten years it increased to 2,942, and railways were in considerable measure substituted for water craft. The principal lines are the Louisville & Nashville, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Illinois Central, and the Cincinnati Southern (Queen & Crescent route). Most of the lines run south or south-west from Cincinnati and Louisville, and the east border of the state still has a small railway mileage and practically no wagon roads, most of the travel being on horseback. The wagon roads of the Blue Grass Region are excellent, because of the plentiful and cheap supply of stone for road building. The assessment of railway property, and in some measure the regulation of railway rates, are entrusted to a state railway commission.
Population.—The population of Kentucky in 1880[2] was 1,648,690; in 1890, 1,858,635, an increase within the decade of 12.7 %; in 1900 it was 2,147,174; and in 1910 it had reached 2,289,905. Of the total population of 1900, 284,865 were coloured and 50,249 were foreign-born; of the coloured, 284,706 were negroes, 102 were Indians, and 57 were Chinese; of the foreign-born, 27,555 were natives of Germany, 9874 were natives of Ireland, and 3256 were natives of England. Of the foreign-born, 21,427, or 42.6 %, were inhabitants of the city of Louisville, leaving a population outside of this city of which 98.4 % were native born. The rugged east section of the state, a part of Appalachian America, is inhabited by a people of marked characteristics, portrayed in the fiction of Miss Murfree (“Charles Egbert Craddock”) and John Fox, Jr. They are nearly all of British—English and Scotch-Irish—descent, with a trace of Huguenot. They have good native ability, but through lack of communication with the outside world their progress has been retarded. Before the Civil War they were owners of land, but for the most part not owners of slaves, so that a social and political barrier, as well as the barriers of nature, separated them from the other inhabitants of the state. In their speech several hundred words persist which elsewhere have been obsolete for three centuries or occur only in dialects in England. Their life is still in many respects very primitive; their houses are generally built of logs, their clothes are often of homespun, Indian corn and ham form a large part of their diet, and their means of transportation are the saddle-horse and sleds and wheeled carts drawn by oxen or mules. In instincts and in character, also, the typical “mountaineers” are to a marked degree primitive; they are, for the most part, very ignorant; they are primitively hospitable and are warm-hearted to friends and strangers, but are implacable in their enmities and are prone to vendettas and family feuds, which often result in the killing in open fight or from ambush of members of one faction by members of another; and their relative seclusion and isolation has brought them, especially in some districts, to a disregard for law, or to a belief that they must execute justice with their own hands. This appears particularly in their attitude toward revenue officers sent to discover and close illicit stills for the distilling from Indian corn of so-called “moon-shine” whisky (consisting largely of pure alcohol). The taking of life and “moon-shining,” however, have become less and less frequent among them, and Berea College, at Berea, the Lincoln Memorial University, and other schools in Kentucky and adjoining states have done much to educate them and bring them more in harmony with the outside community.
The population of Kentucky is largely rural. However, in the decade between 1890 and 1900 the percentage of urban population (i.e. population of places of 4000 inhabitants or more) to the total population increased from 17.5 to 19.7 and the percentage of semi-urban (i.e. population of incorporated places with a population of less than 4000) to the total increased from 8.86 to 9.86 %; but 48.3 % of the urban population of 1900 was in the city of Louisville. In 1910 the following cities each had a population of more than 5000. Louisville (223,928), Covington (53,270), Lexington (35,099), Newport (30,309), Paducah (22,760), Owensboro (16,011), Henderson (11,452), Frankfort, the capital (10,465), Hopkinsville (9419), Bowling Green (9173), Ashland (8688), Middlesboro (7305), Winchester (7156), Dayton (6979), Bellevue (6683), Maysville (6141), Mayfield (5916), Paris (5859), Danville (5420), Richmond (5340). Of historical interest are Harrodsburg (q.v.), the first permanent settlement in the state, and Bardstown (pop. in 1900, 1711), the county-seat of Nelson county. Bardstown was settled about 1775, largely by Roman Catholics from Maryland. It was the see of a Roman Catholic bishop from 1810 to 1841, and the seat of St Joseph’s College (Roman Catholic) from 1824 to 1890; and was for some time the home of John Fitch (1743–1798), the inventor, who built his first boat here. The Nazareth Literary and Benevolent Institution, at Nazareth (2 m. N. of Bardstown), was founded in 1829 and is a well-known Roman Catholic school for girls. Boonesborough, founded by Daniel Boone in 1775, in what is now Madison county, long ago ceased to exist, though a railway station named Boone, on the Louisville & Nashville railroad, is near the site of the old settlement.
In 1906 there were 858,324 communicants of different religious denominations in the state, including 311,583 Baptists, 165,908 Roman Catholics, 156,007 Methodists, 136,110 Disciples of Christ, 47,822 Presbyterians and 8091 Protestant Episcopalians.
Administration.—Kentucky is governed under a constitution adopted in 1891.[3] A convention to revise the constitution or to draft a new one meets on the call of two successive legislatures, ratified by a majority of the popular vote, provided that majority be at least one-fourth of the total number of votes cast at the preceding general election. Ordinary amendments are proposed by a three-fifths majority in each house, and are also subject to popular approval. With the usual exceptions of criminals,
- ↑ For a full account of the “licks,” see vol. i. pt. ii. of the Memoirs of the Kentucky Geological Survey (1876).
- ↑ The population of the state at the previous censuses was: 73,677 in 1790; 220,955 in 1800; 406,511 in 1810; 564,317 in 1820; 687,917 in 1830; 779,828 in 1840; 982,405 in 1850; 1,155,684 in 1860 and 1,321,011 in 1870.
- ↑ There were three previous constitutions—those of 1792, 1799 and 1850.
