Rabbit Hash, Kentucky

[tjmurphy]

Thought I'd share with you a little tid-bit of the area in which I live. Rabbit Hash, Ky. is a small community in Boone County, not unlike the thousands of other little communities you find on any backroad in the U.S., but Rabbit Hash is just a little dearer to my heart. It sits on the banks of the Ohio River with it's nearest neighbor being Rising Sun, Indiana, another historic little river town. Never incorporated and is now listed as one of the Kentucky historic districs. The mayor of Rabbit Hash, as you will see, is an Australian Shepherd, I think, that was duley eleceted by popular vote (one dollar-one vote, two dollars-two votes, etc.) The Rabbit Hash General Store is the oldest continuously operating general store in Kentucky, having begun operation in 1831. The store is still nearly original as when built, and yes, the old floor-boards creek when you walk across them. I've spent many a Sunday afternoons there picking a little music and telling a lot of lies. Here is a video of a typical Sunday afternoon at the General Store. These are all good friends of mine except for the banjo player, but I think we could change all that. Hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1koeIWVX ... ture=share

http://books.google.com/books?id=IXXGy0 ... &q&f=false

[timgreene48]

TJ, that was awsome! I too, come from a small town along the ohio river, Hartford,w.v. The population here is less than 300 and I have fond memmories of the old general store that used to stand on the other side of town. When I was a boy, my grandpa would send my brother and I down to the storeto get a "hunk" of bologna and longhorn cheese. O'le Hut Smith, the proprietor, would reach in to a wooden barrel setting out in the middle of the floor and grab a handful of crackers to take back to grandpa. As reward for running the errand, he gave us a quarter to buy a bagfull of penny candy(usually more than a quarters worth) found its way into the bag. The old men sat outside the store reminiscing about the days when the cincinnatti "redstockings" would come down on the train and play the hartford tigers in the ballfield just down from the store. Those men are all gone now, but I still love hearing about daily life in the past. Thanks for the memmories, Tim

[jerryd6818]

Close to the river. Was the general store completely under water during the '37 flood? I know that was a day or two before your time.

Edit: If I'd watched the entire video before posting, I would have known the answer to that question.

[orvet]

Cool video and cool place!

[Quick Steel]

TJ: Charles Kuralt would have loved Rabbit Hash. Don't know if you saw any of his work for CBS. His job was to drive cross country doing programs on parts of Americaa off the beaten track.Haven't thought of him in years but your video reminded me of him.

[tjmurphy]

Yes Jerry, it was under water during the '37 Flood. The store is less than fifty-yards from the river. There is still mud from that flood in the attic. An interesting tid-bit about the building. The local blacksmith, long, long ago, forged steel anchors that were sunk into the ground to keep the old general store from floating away.

QS, I may be mistaken, but I do believe that Kuralt did do a show segment on Rabbit Hash. I'll have to look that up.

Tim, it seems that you have some fond memories of the old general store. Those little wide spots in the road are really what makes America great. Different kind of life, different life-style back then.

Dale, I thought that you might like that, glad ya did.

In the Spring, Summer and Fall, and sometimes on nice warm sunny days in the Winter, there are Harleys of every size, shape and description clustered at the store. They roll in there by the dozens, along with the bicyclist's who ride the back-roads of Boone County. A really neat place to stop for a cold drink, both hard and soft and a bag of chips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUrECjsNd1s

[jerryd6818]

T.J. Charles Kuralt wasn't the only one to wander through Rabbit Hash. Check out this publication.

http://books.google.com/books?id=IXXGy0 ... &q&f=false

Keep reading. After the Preface there are more pages relating to Rabbit Hash in the introduction.

[tjmurphy]

I just finished reading that Jerry, up to when they started talking about Rising Sun, IN. I used to take my youngest daughter to Rising Sun and we would walk the corn fields serching for arrow heads. There were large Indian encampments along the river bottom flats in Rising Sun. They would camp there and cross the river into Kentucky to hunt, but never spent the night, bad JuJu. We found a lot of really nice points there.

The area they spoke of called Big Bone Lick was an area rich in salt deposits and the wooly Mammoth frequented that area. In an early expedtion into Kentucky authorized by Thomas Jefferson, the explorers came into Big Bone and discovered the fossilized remains of the mammoth. It is said that they actually used the vertibrae as stools to sit on. The Mammoth bones found here can be found all over the world. Jefferson had a huge collection at his home in Virginia. This is also the spot in which Mary Ingles was brought by the Indians to make salt. She was captured by the Indians in Virginia during a raid. Her treck back to Virginia, after escaping, followed the Ohio River up-stream and the route is called the Mary Ingles Highway and is designated as Kentucky Route 8. There is a lot of American History in Boone County, Ky.

[jerryd6818]

I love practical history. Names, dates and places put me to sleep.

[singin46]

Hey Murph, I gotta get myself over there! That General store has my number, I wanna live in it. Cool stuff from another era and this era, all at the same time. LOVE IT! YEEEEHAW Thanks for showin us buddy!

[tjmurphy]

Make it on a Sunday and we can pick a tune or two

[singin46]

Sweet, I'm about to start Vegas rehearsals on Tuesday but I will contact a man when I'm on my way.

[TAB2you]

Amazing story, thanks for sharing!

Tab