Sightseeing and Caching in Lexington & Still Raining 5/3/2009

We left early again Sunday morning to drive into Lexington to do some more sightseeing and to do a few Virtual and a few Earthcaches. Our first cache was on the way into Lexington at Keeneland. Keeneland is a thoroughbred horse racing facility and sales complex in Lexington, Kentucky and ranked #1 by the Horseplayers Association of North America of over 65 tracks in North America. Keeneland was founded in 1935 as a nonprofit racing–auction entity on 147 acres of farmland west of Lexington, which had been owned by Jack Keene, a driving force behind the building of the facility. From its onset it has used proceeds from races and its auctions to further the thoroughbred industry as well as contributing back to the surrounding community. The racing side of Keeneland, Keeneland Race Course, has conducted live race meets in April and October since 1936. It added a grass course in 1985. The spring meet contains several preps for the Kentucky Derby (held the first Saturday in May), the most notable of which is the Blue Grass Stakes. The fall meet features several Breeders' Cup preps.
Keeneland takes pride in maintaining racing traditions; it was the last track in North America to broadcast race calls over its public-address system, not doing so until 1997. Most of the racing scenes of the 2003 movie Seabiscuit were shot at Keeneland because its appearance has changed relatively little in the last several decades.
Lately, however, Keeneland has adopted several innovations. The most significant of which is the reshaping of the main track and replacement of the dirt surface with the proprietary Polytrack surface over the summer of 2006 in time for its fall race meeting. Rogers Beasley, current (2006) director of racing at Keeneland, prefers to stress the track as selectively conservative.
In the thoroughbred racing world, Keeneland is equally famous for its other side—its sales operation. It holds four (previously five) annual horse auctions that attract buyers worldwide.
Keeneland Association, Inc. also owns half interest in Turfway Park at Florence, Kentucky; casino and race track giant Harrah's Entertainment owns the other half interest. Through Turfway, Keeneland also owns a part of Kentucky Downs, near Franklin, Kentucky.
Keeneland Association's influence is felt throughout the industry and in Kentucky politics. In recent years, its opposition to allowing slot machines at race tracks in the Commonwealth has largely squelched the issue on the floor of the General Assembly, though competition from riverboat casinos (and Keeneland's "strange bedfellows" partnership with Harrah's at Turfway) is starting to reduce that opposition by the association's members. This ownership arrangement also partially explains Keeneland's fondness for tradition.
The track has a one and one-sixteenth mile Polytrack oval and a seven and one-half furlong (1509 m) turf oval. As noted earlier, the Polytrack surface was added between the 2006 April and October meetings. The turf course uses two configurations: the Keeneland Course setup has a temporary rail set fifteen feet out, while the Haggin Course has no temporary rail. We were told that when they hold the auctions the Emirates fly into the Lexington Airport, which is across the street, in their 747's and attend the auctions then fly back out with whatever they bought.


Our next cache was a Virtual cache in Lexington in the Western Suburb Historic District at the Mary Todd Lincoln House. Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the sixteenth president of the United States, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on December 13, 1818. The fourth of sixteen children, Mary was daughter to one of the town’s wealthier and more prominent men, Robert Smith Todd. A businessman and politician, Todd provided his children from two marriages with the social standing and material advantages Abraham Lincoln lacked in his own youth.
Although a town of less than seven thousand residents in the 1830s, Lexington was compared to Philadelphia and Boston in its wealth and cosmopolitan sophistication. Mary moved in the highest levels of Bluegrass society and acquired an extensive education from Frenchwoman Madame Charlotte Mentelle. At her father’s large home on Main Street, maintained by household slaves, Mary mingled with influential political guests. The most prominent of these was Senator Henry Clay, three-time presidential candidate and leader of the young Whig party. Clay, a family friend, resided less than two miles from the Todds. He once promised young Mary she would be among his first guests in Washington should he become president. Mary Todd’s path to the White House, however, ran in a different course.
In 1832, Mary’s older sister Elizabeth married the son of a former governor of Illinois. After his graduation from Lexington’s Transylvania University, Ninian Edwards moved with Elizabeth to Springfield, which soon became Illinois’ new state capital. Mary followed in 1839. At a dance she met a junior partner in cousin John Todd Stuart’s law firm, Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln and Mary Todd were a study in contrasts. Nine years older, Lincoln came from a comparatively poor and undistinguished background. He was socially awkward, with less than two years of formal education. Her vivacity and occasional flashes of the “Todd temper” was in marked contrast to his self-deprecating personality. Yet many things brought them together, including a love of poetry, literature, and a deep interest in Whig politics. Mary recognized Lincoln’s intellectual depth and political ambition before many others did. They wed in November, 1842.
In marrying Lincoln, Mary exchanged her life of relative ease and privilege for that of a working lawyer’s wife. While he was gone for extended periods riding circuit, she was doing much of the household labor and raising four sons. But Mary continued to advance her husband’s political career. He valued her judgment and once observed he had no reason to read a book after Mary had reviewed it for him. Still, Lincoln’s career progressed slowly. One term in Congress came amidst several failures to gain his party’s nomination for political office. Defeat in a race for the United States Senate in 1858 came at the hands of Mary’s former suitor, Stephen A. Douglas. Yet as the division between the northern and southern sections of the country widened, Lincoln’s much admired speeches on limiting the spread of slavery while preserving the union secured him election as the nation’s first Republican president in 1860.
Mary Todd Lincoln’s life in the White House was marked by controversy and tragedy. Many felt she was simply a rustic from the “west ” out of her depth in Washington. Some unfairly assumed that as the product of a slave-holding Kentucky family she had confederate sympathies, while others felt her partnership with Lincoln was a betrayal of her Southern heritage. Furthermore, several of Mary’s siblings supported the Confederacy through marriage or military service. Not surprisingly, the divided loyalties within the Todd family fueled much controversy in the nation’s press.
Mary’s own behavior, however, at times alienated those who might otherwise have sympathized with her situation. Her expenditures on the White House were publicized as extravagant and pretentious, even scandalous, in time of war. And her sometimes public displays of temper overshadowed her valuable work with contraband slaves and wounded soldiers.
Yet few denied that Mary Todd Lincoln suffered greatly in the White House. The pressures and anxieties of the war were unrelenting. Mary watched her husband age visibly under the strain. In early 1862 when she lost eleven year-old son Willie to typhoid fever, Mary was prostrate with grief. And in early 1865 the heaviest blow fell. Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater on April 14th was a shock from which Mary never recovered. Although she lived for seventeen years after her husband’s death, Mary never escaped from the shadow of that event.
With a small circle of family and friends she could look to for support and aid, Mary took solace in travel and a growing interest in the practice of spiritualism. After an extended sojourn in Europe with his mother, eighteen year-old Tad died of pneumonia and pleurisy in 1871. Increasingly dependent on medications such as laudanum and chloral hydrate for a variety of physical and emotional ailments, the bereft Mary's episodes of erratic behavior resulted in a brief period of confinement in 1875 at an asylum in Batavia, Illinois, at son Robert's instigation. Estranged from her only surviving child, Mary retired to Europe to live out her life in some semblance of peace. Illness eventually forced her to return to the United States where she died July, 1882, having spent much of her last year in seclusion at her sister Elizabeth's home. Mary is entombed, along with her husband, in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.



Next cache was an Earthcache just down the street at a historic marker called Town Branch. Lexington was founded in June 1775 in what was then Virginia (15 years before Kentucky became a state in 1792). A party of frontiersmen, led by William McConnell, camped on the Middle Fork of Elkhorn Creek (today called Town Branch and rerouted under Vine Street)
Little do people realize when standing here is that they are directly above the Elkhorn Creek. Before the 1930s, the city of Lexington had problems with the Elkhorn Creek flooding the downtown area. There was once a time boats would go up and down Vine Street when it was a very large and deep creek. A steamboat was launched here at this site in the 1700's.
Eventually in the 1930's the city of Lexington built a large underground water channel called "Town Branch" to control the creek flow. Elkhorn Creek now flows underneath Vine Street.



Our next cache was another Virtual at the Lexington Triangle and Triangle Park. Triangle Park is just what it implies a triangular park in the center of downtown with 100 fountains, sculptures and benches. It is surrounded by many Victorian Shoppes, Rupp Arena, The Convention Center and the Lexington Opera House is only a block away.



Next cache was another Virtual at Thoroughbred Park near downtown. The most publicly visible collection of Gwen Reardon's work is in Lexington, Kentucky's downtown Thoroughbred Park. The park, is a tribute to the thoroughbred race horse, and features thirteen scuptures. Seven life size bronze race horses and jockeys rush dramatically to the finsih line. Also in the park are brood mares and foals and the great stallion Lexington. Also in the park are plaques set in the ground of the prominent people who play into Lexington's heritage.



Then it was on to another Virtual at Pope Villa. The Villa is situated in the Aylesford Historic District, which has a mixture of turn of the 19th Century Victorian, Craftsman, and Colonial Revival homes. It is the only surviving suburban dwelling designed by B.H. Latrobe, known as the father of American architecture.
In 1810-11, architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe designed a suburban villa in Lexington, Kentucky, for Senator John and Eliza Pope. Latrobe met the Popes in Washington during Pope's U. S. Senate term(1807-1813). Pope, a Kentucky lawyer and politician, and later territorial governor of Arkansas, worked closely with Latrobe on a proposal for vast internal improvements of Western America, including highways, bridges, and canals.
A talented Lexington builder, Asa Wilgus, is believed to have been the local architect who implemented Latrobe's design, although the Popes most certainly slightly altered the outcome. (Latrobe's original plans survive in the Library of Congress; the builder's plans were lost.) Wilgus and Pope made some alteration to Latrobe's plans for the home's façade, but kept the room layout virtually intact, with Latrobe's interior pathway creating a "scenic progression of spaces."
The Pope Villa is one of only three surviving resedential designs by Latrobe. (The other two are The Decatur House in Washington D.C. and Adena in Chillicothe, Ohio.) Its plan is unique in American residential architecture. According to architectural historian Patrick Snadon, Latrobe's fusion of classical sources and Picturesque theory places the Pope Villa among the most important buildings of Federal America.


Then we drove to the Lexington Cemetery for 2 Virtual caches one at the "Granite Planet". This is a special monument to a great University of Kentucky professor Francis J. Ockerman, a Kentucky native and UK graduate who volunteered her time for 26 years hosting and tutoring international students and editing manuscripts for students and visitors. The type of granite this monument is made of is called Azul Noce granite. Its imported from Spain.
The next cache was at the grave site of Adolph Rupp a prominent coach in college basketball and especially in Kentucky basketball. Adolph Frederick Rupp (September 2, 1901–December 10, 1977) was one of the most successful coaches in the history of American college basketball. Rupp ranks third (behind Bobby Knight and Dean Smith), in total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach, winning 876 games in 41 years of coaching. He set a remarkable standard of excellence at Kentucky that exists to this day. Rupp is also second among all coaches in all-time winning percentage (.822), trailing only Clair Bee. Adolph F. Rupp was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on April 13, 1969.


Our last cache another Virtual was at the Henry Clay Mansion in Ashland a suburb of lexington. Ashland is the name of the plantation of the nineteenth-century Kentucky statesman Henry Clay, located in Lexington, Kentucky, in the central Bluegrass region of the state. It is a registered National Historic Landmark.
The Ashland Stakes, a Thoroughbred horse race at Keeneland Race Course run annually since the race course first opened in 1936, was named for the historically important estate.
Henry Clay came to Lexington, Kentucky from Virginia in 1797. He began buying land for his plantation in 1804.1 The Ashland farm--which during Clay's lifetime was outside of the city limits--at its largest consisted of over 600 acres (2.4 km²). It is unclear whether Clay named the plantation or retained a prior name, but he was referring to his estate as "Ashland" by 1809.2 The name derives from the ash forest that stood at the site. Clay and his family resided at Ashland from c. 1806 until his death in 1852 (his widow Lucretia Clay moved out in 1854). Given his political career, Clay spent most of the years between 1810-1829 in Washington, DC. He was a major planter, owning up to 60 slaves to operate his plantation.
Among the slaves were Aaron and Charlotte Dupuy, and their children Charles and Mary Ann. Clay took them with him to Washington, DC. Their lives have recently gained new recognition in an exhibit at the Decatur House, where they served Henry Clay for nearly two decades. In 1829, seventeen years before the more famous Dred Scott challenge, Charlotte Dupuy sued Henry Clay for her freedom and that of her two children in Washington circuit court. She was ordered to stay in Washington while the court case proceeded, and lived there for 18 months, working for Martin Van Buren, the next Secretary of State. Clay took Aaron, Charles and Mary Ann Dupuy with him when he returned to Ashland. When the court ruled against Dupuy and she would not return voluntarily to Kentucky, Clay's agent had her arrested. Clay had Dupuy transported to New Orleans and placed with his daughter and son-in-law, where she was enslaved for another decade. Finally in 1840 Clay freed Charlotte and Mary Ann Dupuy, and in 1844 freed her son Charles Dupuy.[2]
Clay had divided the Ashland estate among three sons. After Clay's death, son James Brown Clay owned and occupied Ashland proper and a surrounding approximately 325-acre (1.32 km2) tract. James Clay rebuilt the house and his family resided there until his death in 1864. His widow Susan Jacob Clay put the estate up for sale in 1866.
Kentucky University purchased Ashland and used it as part of its campus. University founder and regent John Bryan Bowman occupied the mansion. The Agricultural and Mechanical College (Kentucky A & M) was situated on Clay's former farm. Kentucky University split into what became Transylvania University and the University of Kentucky, and sold Ashland in 1882.
Henry Clay's granddaughter Anne Clay McDowell and her husband Henry Clay McDowell purchased the estate (consisting of approximately 325 acres (1.32 km2) and outbuildings). They moved in with their children in 1883. Their eldest daughter Nannette McDowell Bullock continued to occupy Ashland until her death in 1948. She founded the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation, which purchased and preserved Ashland. The historic house museum opened to the public in 1950.
Henry Clay began building his Federal style house c. 1806 (see Federal architecture). He added two wings between 1811-1814, designed for him by Benjamin Latrobe. Inferior building materials, particularly a porous type of brick, resulted in an unstable structure. The building was likely damaged in the New Madrid earthquake and aftershocks of 1811-12, Clay's many repairs could never completely stabilize the house.
Seeing no viable alternative, Clay's son James B. Clay, opted to rebuild the house with the goals of living there with his family and paying fitting tribute to his father. James had the house razed by the end of 1854, and rebuilding was completed by 1857. Local architect Thomas Lewinski designed the new structure, which utilized features of the original house: the footprint and foundation, floorplan, and massing. But Lewinski aided James in updating the house stylistically. With many Italianate features, the resulting mansion is a mix of Federal architecture and Italianate details. Inside, James employed Greek Revival features and decorated the home lavishly (see:Victorian decorative arts with imported furnishings purchased in New York City.
During the Kentucky University period, Regent John Bowman utilized part of the mansion to house and display the University Natural History Museum.
When granddaughter Anne Clay McDowell came to Ashland in 1883, she and her husband remodeled and modernized the house, updating it with gas lighting (later, electricity), indoor plumbing, and telephone service.
The cash crop grown on the farm was hemp. Merino sheep and six other species of European livestock were imported and bred on the farm. Clay's record book of his breeding operation, including the Herefords which he introduced, is now displayed at Ashland. Mom and I walked around for abour 45 minutes reading the historic boards and just looking at how life was back in pioneer days.

Then it was on back to the RV as it was getting late. We didn't even have time to log our caches as we called our sons and by that time it was time to eat. We had dinner and called it a day as we were beat. Well until next time we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad