Tag Archive: louisville

Louisville Nashville Railroad Car – La Grange, Kentucky

Louisville Nashville Railroad Car - La Grange,  Kentucky

A historic Louisville and Nashville Railroad passenger car located in La Grange, Kentucky.

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services from 1850 until 1982, after which it was absorbed by Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, which would eventually through more consolidation in the rail industry, become the CSX Transportation that most people know today.

Kitchen – Locust Grove Estate – Louisville – Kentucky

Kitchen - Locust Grove Estate - Louisville - Kentucky

The kitchen outbuilding at the historic Locust Grove estate in Louisville, Kentucky.

Locust Grove was an 18th century farm founded by William Croghan and his wife Lucy Clark Croghan in 1790. Lucy Clark was the sister of George Rogers Clark a military officer and explorer who played an important part in the early history of Kentucky and Louisville. She is also the sister of William Clark, the famous explorer from the Lewis and Clark Expedition to America’s Pacific Northwest. The farm is notable as the place George Rogers Clark spent his final years, and for being adjacent to the property where Zachery Taylor, America’s 12th president grew up.

Kentucky State Seal – Second Street Bridge – Louisville – Kentucky

Kentucky State Seal - Second Street Bridge - Louisville - Kentucky

A view of an early version of the Kentucky State Seal, as seen at the entry to the Second Street Bridge (built in 1928) on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. The official seal of the state of Kentucky has a frontiersman and statesman shaking hands. However this version matches what someone might have seen in the Kentucky state historical coat of arms in the 1870’s, where two men in swallowtail coats embrace. As it turns out, the early law creating the seal was not very specific about the “two friends” at the center of the seal, or what those friends should be doing. This led to a number of different versions being created, a problem that was put to rest in 1967.

The current state seal represents the coming together of the frontiersman, the every day Kentuckian, with the statesman who serves the state of Kentucky and helps guide it into the future. The state’s motto is one that is very familiar to many in the United States “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” It was derived at the time however from a popular 1768 tune entitled the “Liberty Song,” by John Dickinson.