Eastern Kentucky and Northwestern Virginia, 1861–1862

From May 1861 through 1862, Appalachian eastern Kentucky and northwestern Virginia stood at the forefront of many decisions by the governments of the United States and the Confederate States. These regions, with their topographical challenges, provided the perfect cover for guerrilla activity. Poor roads and isolated communities holding populaces with divided loyalties encouraged small-unit tactics. The contest for northwestern Virginia grew out of the want of control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Quick and sharp, the war in northwestern Virginia ultimately resulted in the formation of a new Union state. It provided the fields for many important figures who would grow to prominence in the coming war, including Gen. Robert E. Lee and Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. In eastern Kentucky, the armies competed for the important road connecting the Cumberland Gap to the Bluegrass region. The Battle of Mill Springs settled the question of who would control the region.

Recent Shrinkage and Fragmentation of Bluegrass Landscape in Kentucky

The Bluegrass Region is an area in north-central Kentucky with unique natural and cultural significance, which possesses some of the most fertile soils in the world. Over recent decades, land use and land cover changes have threatened the protection of the unique natural, scenic, and historic resources in this region. In this study, we applied a fragmentation model and a set of landscape metrics together with the satellite-derived USDA Cropland Data Layer to examine the shrinkage and fragmentation of grassland in the Bluegrass Region, Kentucky during 2008–2018. Our results showed that recent land use change across the Bluegrass Region is characterized by grassland decline, cropland expansion, forest spread, and suburban sprawl. The grassland area decreased by 14.4%, with an interior (or intact) grassland shrinkage of 5%, during the study period. Land conversion from grassland to other land cover types has been widespread, with major grassland shrinkage occurring in the west and northeast of the Outer Bluegrass Region and relatively minor grassland conversion in the Inner Bluegrass Region. The number of patches increased from 108,338 to 126,874. The effective mesh size, which represents the degree of landscape fragmentation in a system, decreased from 6629.84 to 1816.58 for the entire Bluegrass Region. This study is the first attempt to quantify recent grassland shrinkage and fragmentation in the Bluegrass Region. Therefore, we call for more intensive monitoring and further conservation efforts to preserve the ecosystem services provided by the Bluegrass Region, which has both local and regional implications for climate mitigation, carbon sequestration, diversity conservation, and culture protection.

Distilling Grain, Feeding Livestock

Kentucky’s nineteenth-century distillers used Indian corn as their primary grain, but they also distilled wheat, rye, and barley. Thus, they needed reliable sources of quality grain. Corn became a staple grain, consumed in quantity by farm families and town residents alike. Corn was widely grown in the nineteenth century, but before 1860, only farmers in the Bluegrass region were producing sufficient grain to feed their own livestock, sell to millers for human consumption, and meet distillers’ demands. After the Civil War, corn production increased, and the grain became more widely available for industrial-scale distilling. Wheat and rye were not extensively grown in Kentucky; they were more valuable than corn for foodstuffs and were not favored by distillers. Although Kentucky farmers produced barley, supplies were often deficient in quantity and quality for malting and use by distillers, necessitating its importation by rail from producers on the Great Plains and in the Canadian Prairie Provinces. Distillers fed hogs and cattle on spent grains, or slop, throughout the distilling season, and by season’s end in late spring, the animals had achieved market weight. This was a form of agriculture-distilling complementarity.

Kentucky Distilling

In 1810 more than 2,000 distilleries operated in Kentucky. Though widely distributed throughout the state, the largest number of distilleries operated in the Bluegrass region, where some counties had more than 150 works. Frontier distillers used whiskey to barter and as currency in the cash economy. The highest-capacity distilleries operated along the Ohio River between Louisville and Cincinnati. By the 1830s, some distillers were adopting new industrial techniques as they became available, including new construction materials, machinery, and steam, electrical, and internal combustion power sources. From the 1840s through the 1890s, distillers focused their works in the limestone lands of the Bluegrass and Pennyroyal regions. By the eve of Prohibition in 1919, only 182 distilleries remained in operation. The landscape created by distillers was the product of a complex, multidimensional historical ecology. Distillers engaged in locational decision making; they adopted applicable technologies, inventions, and patents and established business links with associated industries while being subjected to increasing state and federal regulation and more stringent revenue policies.