Caching on Saturday and Raining Again 5/2/2009

We left Saturday morning for a trip into Lexington, KY to do some caches and on the way we also did a few. The first cache was at the abandoned Old Taylor Distillery and the second and third were at the Old Crow Distillery also abandoned and both supposedly haunted and just down the road from one another. The Old Crow Distillery story is as follows: In 1823, a gentleman physician, Dr. James Crow, arrived in the area. A man apparently trying to escape from a less-than-completely-responsible past (involving bankruptcy and abandonment), Crow was beginning to get his new life in order when he went to work for Colonel Willis Field, a distiller on Grier's Creek near Woodford County. Crow brought his scientific and medical training to what had been a very rough-and-tumble process and the results were astounding. He was able to achieve a consistency of quality never before imagined, one which would give a distiller the ability to make production commitments that could actually be met. Dr. Crow soon moved to the town of Millville on Glenn's Creek and for the next twenty years he was in charge of the Oscar Pepper Distillery (later to become Labrot & Graham) on McCracken Pike. Later he went to work for the Johnson Distillery a couple miles north on Glenn's Creek Road. That distillery later became Old Taylor. He worked there until his death in 1856. Because of his development of methods that would ensure continuity and consistent quality (including the use of measuring devices and the knowledge of how the sour-mash process actually works) many consider Dr. James Crow to be the true father of Bourbon. The man who became the new master distiller, William Mitchell, had worked directly with Crow and knew all his methods. His continuation of Old Crow whiskey was identical to the original. He in turn taught this to his own successor, Van Johnson. Dr. Crow never actually owned a distillery, though. The enormous Old Crow distillery which sits on Glenn's Creek today was built around 1872, 16 years after he died. Old Crow whiskey was made here, in essentially the exact same way, until Prohibition, and then again after Repeal. National Distillers owned it then, but they had made no changes in the way the bourbon was made. Then, sometime during the 1960's, the plant was refurbished and formula was changed. The new version was different, and there was some public outcry, but National continued to use it until they were purchased by Jim Beam Brands in 1987.
The Old Taylor story is as follows: Two decades after James Crow's death, the second "father" of Bourbon began his work, also here along Glenn's Creek. Colonel Edmund H. Taylor began his distillery-owner's career at the O.F.C. distillery in Leestown (which later became Ancient Age). After turning over ownership to his partner George T. Stagg, Taylor built a new distillery on Glenn's Creek. It has been called one of the most remarkable sights in the bourbon industry. The main distillery building is made entirely of limestone blocks, in the form of a medieval castle, complete with turrets. A drawing of the castle appears on the label of Old Taylor Bourbon. The castle wasn't just a facade, either; inside were gardens and ornate rooms where Colonel Taylor used to entertain important government officials and politicians. Taylor's contribution was the guarantee of quality in an industry that had lost nearly all credibility. Very few distillers were selling quality product, and virtually none of what good bourbon was being made ever got to the public without being diluted, polluted, and rectified. Edmund Taylor crusaded tirelessly to have laws passed that would ensure quality product, and he was successful. He was the originator of what became known as the Bottled-in-Bond act of 1897. This was essentially a federal subsidy by tax deferral for product made to strict government standards and stored under government supervision. In the process, he was responsible for documenting what those standards would be. And therefore, Edmund H. Taylor, Jr. was given the task of defining Straight Bourbon Whiskey. As a result of the success of this act, other federally enforced standards for food products were enacted, and we can say we owe much of our current standards in many consumable products to this gentleman with a distillery on Glenn's Creek. Well, maybe a couple of distilleries. Actually, Col. Taylor owned or had an interest in several plants, including the Pepper distillery and Frankfort distillery, and even the Stagg distillery in Leestown was actually known as the E.H.Taylor Jr. Company. Edmund Taylor remained a very powerful figure in the bourbon industry well into the twentieth century. He died, at the age of 90, in 1922.
Nest cache was a virtual at a small cemetery across the street from the working distillery Woodford Reserve. We could find no history or name on the cemetery but as you can see from the pictures it was very small.
As we drove through the countryside to our next cache we passed some of the most awesome horse farms that you could ever imagine. The barns on the farms would make your houses look like one room shacks as again you can see from the pictures. We drove into Versailles a small town for our next cache which was at the Big Spring Church which is now the Woodford County Historical Society. The old church was a Georgian design brick building which was built in 1854 and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Then it was on to the Pisgah Church and Cemetery for a traditional and a virtual cache which were both in the cemetery. The name Pisgah was given to the church by the Presbytery of Transylvania in 1784, and it is thought that the first pastor of the church might have selected the name. Originally the church was called Mt. Pisgah Presbyterian Church. The name Pisgah comes from a biblical mountian mentioned in the Old Testament. The mountain is located in modern-day Jordan east of the Dead Sea and is part of the mountian range (including Mt. Nebo) from which Moses looked across the plains of Moab to see the land of Canaan.
The first church building was made of logs, erected in the spring of 1785 and stood below the site of the present church, to the west. In 1812, the congregation moved farther up the hill and built a meeting house of dry stacked stone. This building was remodeled in 1868 in a Gothic effect that remains today. Around 1900, stained glass windows replaced the clear glass windows of the 1868 rennovation. A pipe organ was given to the church in 1932 and installed in the balcony. It replaced a pump organ on the nave level. There is a stone church building with priceless stained glass windows, a dignified and charming stone chapel which housed the original Kentucky Academy, that pioneer educational institution to which President George Washington, among others, contributed. There is also an historic cemetery that could pass for an English church yard, wherein lie the remains of seven Revolutionary soldiers. We found the traditional cache and then went to find the virtual which come to find out was at the grave site of Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler. To most of you that name doesn't mean much but to a baseball fan like myself and Sean it does. He was the Commissioner of Baseball from 1945 to 1951, was Governor of KY twice, a Senator from KY and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 and was from the small town we had just come from Versailles.
Next we were on to a castle in KY for a virtual cache. The Martin Castle, also known as Post Castle, is a castle in Kentucky, outside Lexington, near the Woodford County line. Construction on the castle was started by Rex Martin and his wife Caroline Bogaert Martin in 1969, after they had returned from a trip to Europe and were inspired by the architecture and many famous buildings they had seen. The finished project was to have seven bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, a fountain in the driveway, and a tennis court. In 1975, the Martins divorced and left the castle unfinished. Over the years, it became a popular oddity and roadside photo-op for tourists. It had been for sale for many years at a price rumored to be more than 3 million dollars, and there had been talks that it would be turned into a medieval-themed restaurant or a museum.
On May 10, 2004, after months of renovations, newly installed woodwork and wiring caught fire in the main building. Tom Post, the castle's new owner, who was at his home in Miami at the time, had already spent months renovating it and vowed to rebuild. Approximately twice the castle's original cost has gone towards the reconstruction project. Post, an attorney from Miami, graduated from the University of Kentucky and plans to use the castle for charity fund raisers and other special events. His wife, M. Judith Donovan Post M.D., graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, and is now a prominent Neuroradiologist at Jackson Memorial Hospital and Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. They have two children, Kathryn and Christopher, both recent graduates of Cornell University.
Reconstruction has started on the castle and will probably be finished by the summer of 2008 - the castle is scheduled to open in fall 2008. New additions include twelve luxury suites, a library, game room, music room, dining hall, ball room, swimming pool, formal garden and tennis court. It will be used primarily for fund raisers, but will also be available for weddings, special events, and corporate functions. The pictures are quite something and it was nice to see and by the way is for sale for $800,000.
Next cache, also a virtual, was at Floral Hall a.k.a. Standardbred Stable of Memories. Floral Hall is located near the Red Mile Harness Racing Track in Lexington, KY. It was built in 1882 by John McMurtry.The building was originally an exhibition hall for floral displays on what was then the Fair Grounds of the KY Ag. & Mech. Assoc..
John McMurtry built Floral Hall in 1882. The building was originally an exhibition hall for floral displays on what was then the Fair Grounds of the Kentucky Agricultural & Mechanical Association. The large, brick octagonal shaped building is approximately four stories tall surmounted by a large windowed cupola. The interior of the building is a large open space, a functional design for use as an exhibition hall.
During the Civil War the site was used as a military campground. Beginning in 1875, the Fair Grounds and Floral Hall were leased for race meets by the Trotting Association, which eventually evolved into the Red Mile Trotting Track. In 1896, the Trotting Association purchased the fair grounds and the exhibition hall was converted into a horse barn. In 1963, after a renovation, the name of the building was changed from Floral Hall to the Standardbred Stable of Memories. Although not currently open to the public, there are plans that the Standardbred Stable of Memories would be opened as a museum.
Next cache was located at another small cemetery right smack dab in the middle of a industrial and office complex and near a dog park. It was surrounded by wood plank fencing and you couldn't get in and it was completely overgrown with vines, weeds and brush. We could see just a few grave sites from outside the fence and it really is a shame it has been let go like that.
Next cache was at Waveland State Historic Site and was located along a trail in the park. The Bryan family accompanied Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap to the Bluegrass region, and established Bryan’s Station in 1779 one of Kentucky’s first settlements. Family tradition holds that Daniel Boone surveyed the land where Waveland now stands for his nephew and namesake, Daniel Boone Bryan.
Indian fighter, historian, and farmer, Daniel Boone Bryan erected a simple stone house on the 2000-acre site. He began developing the land in the early 19th-century, and by the time of his death in 1845, he had built a plantation that included a blacksmith shop, a gunsmith shop, a powder mill for producing gunpowder, a distillery, a gristmill, a paper mill, a female seminary, and a Baptist church. The prosperity of the Bryan family contributed to the area’s progress as well. In 1845, Joseph Bryan inherited his father’s homeplace, and built Waveland where the stone house once stood. After possibly consulting with the celebrated Kentucky architect John McMurty, Joseph built his Greek Revival masterpiece, Waveland, for his wife Margaret Cartmell, and their five children.
Waveland exemplifies plantation life in Kentucky in the 19th-century; from the acres of grain and hemp waving in the breeze (hence the Waveland name), to the raising and racing of blooded trotting horses. The outbuildings of Waveland, the slave quarters, smokehouse, and icehouse, are important reminders of the social and economic climate of the time.
Joseph Henry Bryan, son of Joseph Bryan, was the second heir of Waveland. He built a racecourse and amphitheater near the estate, and raced many world-famous trotters. "Wild Rake," the most celebrated of all the Bryan trotters, was sold to William Rockefeller in the 1880s for $7,800.
The Greek Revival architectural style of Waveland was very popular in Central Kentucky between 1830-1860. The style features grand symmetry and a graceful Ionic-columned portico. The house is lavishly furnished with Sheraton and Empire-style furniture, and many family heirlooms.Waveland passed out of the Bryan family in 1894, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky became its owner in 1956.
Today, Waveland prides itself not only as one of Kentucky’s best examples of the Greek Revival style, but as a living house museum. Many personal effects, from needlework, to handwritten letters, lay undisturbed, as if the household has briefly departed in preparation for your visit. A tour through Waveland is a step back in time to Kentucky in the mid-nineteenth century.
After we finished this cache it was back to the RV after a stop at DQ for lunch and a Blizzard. Mom did our logs and I worked on our pictures and the the blog from the day before. Then it was time for dinner and time to call it a day. Well until next time we love you all. Mom & Dad