Coming up on Kentucky Life...

Journey into Mammoth Cave to unlock stories left on the walls by Civil War soldiers.

Visit Kentucky Wool Works where a passion for sustainability and sheep farming combined for some amazing works.

Learn more about the Frazier History Museum where the world meets Kentucky, and savor a unique culinary fusion of local and Afghan cuisine at Owensboro's Windy Hollow Biscuit House.

All that's next on Kentucky Life.

[intro music playing] Hey, everybody and welcome to Kentucky Life.

áI'm your host, Chip Polston.

áNow today I'm here with the Kentucky Life crew áat the Frazier History Museum in downtown Louisville.

á It's billed as where the world meets Kentucky, á where you can learn about everything from great state rivalries, think cats and cards on that one, to seeing George Washington's actual long rifle.

We'll learn more about all this in a moment.

áBut first, deep in the heart of Kentucky álies a world-renowned site áthat many of us are familiar with, Mammoth Cave.

And not too long ago, I got to go on a remarkable adventure there.

You see Mammoth Cave holds a treasure trove of human histories dating back literally thousands of years.

But from the Civil War era, graffiti was left behind on cave walls from both Confederate and Union soldiers.

And we got to see how researchers are taking what was scratched on cave walls more than 150 years ago and through some modern day detective work are finding the stories of soldiers who left their names behind.

[music playing] Well, here we are outside of the main historic entrance to Mammoth Cave.

This is Joe Douglas.

He's a professor of History at Volunteer State College.

Joe, thanks for being our guide today.

You're welcome, Chip.

I'm glad to be here.

So, folks are probably used to seeing stalactites and stalagmites when they go down into caves.

We're gonna see graffiti today.

How common is something like that to be able to be seen?

Well, historic graffiti áis actually fairly common in caves, ábut Mammoth Cave has some of the best and a lot of it, and people would write their names in the cave.

Not accepted today, don't do this today.

-Chip: Right.

-But in the past, people did do that.

And if it's more than 50 years old, the Park Service considers it historic and we are interested in who those people were, why they were here, what they did when they were here.

So the cave itself really did gain prominence around the time of the Civil War.

Why were soldiers in the cave?

What was the draw for them to be down there?

The cave was famous.

By that period of time, many people were coming to the cave already.

We estimate probably 4,000 to 5,000 visitors were here in the summers normally.

It had a lot of cultural and personal significance to the people who came here.

So they were here, they just wanted to go check it out because they heard about it.

They heard about it.

They wanted to see it.

They wanted to write home to their parents and others that they had seen the cave.

And they were also a little bit possessive.

It was a site that was so famous.

It would be prestigious if your side, the Union or the Confederate, controlled it, owned it, could show it, and that sort of thing.

Well, I want to go check it out.

-You ready to go?

-I'm ready.

-Let's do it.

-Let's go.

[instrumental music playing] Chip: So, Joe, Civil War soldiers who had lived in the regimented life of camp, then they came upon a place like this, what was that like for them to go from that camp life to actually being in a cave like this?

It was really great for them because it was a break, a diversion away from the, as you said, regimented life of camp.

And it was different from the landscapes that they were going through.

It was just an unusual space.

They really enjoyed it.

It had interesting curiosities to look at.

[instrumental music playing] Chip: Why is this, as a result, historically important?

And how different is it from a paper document or something that you might come across?

What they write tends to be a little bit different than in a paper document.

It tends to be spontaneous.

It also tells us sort of what the soldiers were thinking at a particular time.

It must be remarkable for local Kentuckians who can come in here and see their great, great grandfathers or grandmothers, because women came in the cave too, see their names written on the wall.

Chip: So, Joe, what was the real motivation for soldiers to want to leave their mark in the cave?

Did they just want to say hello and that they'd done it or was there a bigger motivation there?

Joe: Yes, they're trying to simply show, I am here.

It's also a mark of achievement -like, I made it back this far.

-Right.

Joe: But then there's more than that, instead of identifying with the hometown, they're identifying with the regiment like the Indiana or Illinois or Kentucky regiment that they're serving in.

The Confederate names are more concentrated because they generally did not have guides.

- They came in unaccompanied.

-Chip: Okay.

Joe: So they tended to go to the easy-to-get-to large areas.

-Chip: Right.

-Joe: Later, the Union soldiers did employ guides.

And so they're in some of the more remote and distant areas.

[dramatic music playing] So this is Thomas Quirk, says, Lexington, then it says, Morgan's Squadron 1862.

Later, he becomes a scout, a trusted scout, reported directly to General Morgan and they called it Quirk's Scouts.

And we found these two Confederate soldiers who are clearly identifiable and they put their unit.

And this other one even wrote, Rebel Soldier.

This is prepared, so this is planned or pre-planned, he definitely darkened the surface with the oil lamp.

So you have the Confederates and then now the Union soldier in the same spot contesting it.

Chip: Separated by feet, - basically.

Wow.

-Joe: Mere feet.

Joe, how personally fulfilling is it when you have that eureka moment back here when you find a name and you're able to actually put that together with the historical record and learn who that person is?

It's very exciting.

It is like a detective story.

We find the name, then we try to locate who they are.

Then we try to build a biography of them.

The Union soldiers are frankly easier to identify than the Confederate soldiers.

We have the hotel register from the later stages of the war and they would write their hometown or where they were going, and so we have additional information.

And you said they would take basically an oil lamp and use the flame from the oil lamp and guide that along to kind of delineate what the thing was they were trying to draw.

Joe: That's right.

So they had oil lamps with chimneys on them and you could use that to leave the mark where you wanted it.

You could use candles.

Some of them would actually use torches.

And of course, pencils were easy to carry, widely available by the time of the Civil War, and so you see a lot of pencil marks as well.

Joe, how is it that we can still see pencil marks that are close to 200 years old?

And some of these other markings that are here in the cave, they look like they were done yesterday, but they're several 100 years old.

Why can we still see those?

Joe: We're far enough in the cave now that this is a very stable environment, the temperature doesn't fluctuate, the humidity doesn't fluctuate.

There's no exposure to sunlight or UV.

There's no rain, there's no erosion.

And so it will remain down here, I mean, almost indefinitely.

They are a record, a historical, and frankly genealogical record, -which has often been ignored.

-Wow.

Of the thousands of names written on the walls in Mammoth Cave, researchers have identified more than 40 Civil War soldiers with many more waiting to be discovered.

Shon Wylie and Kathy Meyer became friends over a shared love of sheep as sheep farmers are want to do.

What came next though was an idea for a company, Kentucky Wool Works, that illustrates their passion for sustainability and the reclaiming of discarded things.

Now, Sean and Cathy believe in responsible farming.

They believe in reusing materials destined for a landfill.

And of course, they believe in sheep.

Shon: To me, natural fiber only gets better with age.

áWhy throw it away?

áLet's just repurpose it.

Let's create something new out of something old, the fabric is so beautiful.

Kathy: The way to be profitable for a farmer is to be sustainable.

And there's really no other livestock in the world that is anymore sustainable than the sheep.

Shon: I'm come checking on Heather.

Actually, it's good.

This is the first rinse here.

Where are these two in the process?

They have already gone through the rinse and then gone through, so I drained them.

[dog barking] [birds chirping] Shon: So my background was as a journalism major and then I worked for several years in the racing industry.

When my husband and I decided to add sheep into the mix on our farm, we went to the UK's UProfit program and we were immediately hooked up with Kathy, who we were told was our very local expert.

I like mentoring new sheep people.

I have about 43 years of sheep production, dos and don'ts filed away in my head.

áAnd after we talked about it á and talked about the possibilities, we decided that we needed to, to take this leap and do this business and educate people.

And by golly, we have done that.

Shon: This is what it looks like coming directly off of the sheep.

Kathy: What we do here is we repurpose natural fibers that would otherwise end up in landfills.

Old blankets that people send to Goodwill, that's a treasure to us.

We can take a wool blanket with some moth holes and turn it into a dog coat or a... What we decide to call this, Angela?

A Japanese shawl?

Yeah, it's a Japanese shawl.

It's a circle shawl.

-A Japanese circle shawl.

-Mm-hm.

We can combine that natural fiber and that fabric that was headed for the landfill and make a product that is very wanted by people who are conscious about the environment.

Shon: So we're here in the basement of McIntyre Hall, which is one of the very historic buildings on the campus of what used to be the Millersburg Military Institute and is now known as Mustard Seed Hill.

Mustard Seed Hill is part of Community Ventures' revitalization effort of Millersburg, the whole town.

When they renovated the building, they specifically created the space for us with floors that can get wet, a commercial sink where we can process our fleece.

And yeah, the fact that that we're in the business of sustainable natural fiber and reclaiming fabrics does go hand in hand with a town that is being reclaimed.

[birds chirping] [sheep bleating] Away.

Actual sustainability to me is a product that is naturally occurring and there's not much more naturally occurring than the wool on the back of my sheep.

Stay!

They're the most efficient converters of grass, water to meat, milk and fiber that there is on the planet.

And that is my job.

I manage all these little factories that turn periodic rain and soil and then grass into meat, milk and fiber.

Shon: I would say in this day and age, it's even more important to teach the next generation about sustainability.

And so we do have special days, one of which is what we call Shepherd's Day where we invite people in, especially people who are new to the business or thinking about being in the business [indistinct chatter] [sheep bleating] Shon: We very much want to see other producers and farmers succeed.

This is carded, all the fibers are aligned.

You can spin it right from this, you can pull off a strip, draft it.

We do tend to have like a greater good in mind for the sheep themselves, the survival of the wool breeds and the survival of farmers in this day and age.

Everything's made out of wool from our sheep.

Shon: It's sort of a labor of love to start out with a sheep that then has a lamb that then grows up to be shorn.

And then we take its fleece, we wash it, we card it, we spin it, we felt it, and we combine it with other reclaimed fabrics and we make something useful from that.

I really think there's a lot of beauty in that.

Kathy: It's just a nice way to make a living with nature.

And I consider myself very lucky to be able to do that.

And it's just my passion.

[bleating] Why do we do all this work, Shon?

Well, you gotta do something.

You gotta be here, might as well do sheep.

[chuckles] So this is the Bourbon Bottle Hall here at the Frazier History Museum.

320 produced in Kentucky Bourbons on display here.

It really is something to see, but there's a little bit of a secret at play in this room that not many people know about.

But we're gonna let you in on it right now, check this out.

So we've made it through the secret passageway and now we're in the speakeasy here at the Frazier, joined by Al Capone, as you see over here, as well as Casey Harden.

She's Senior Director of Engagement.

Casey, thanks so much for being here with us today.

It's my pleasure.

Thank you.

So, why is Al Capone in this speakeasy?

áWell, most people don't realize áhe actually has a tie to Louisville.

áHe used to come down from Chicago and stay in the Seelbach.

And if you go over to Seelbach now, you can see the booth he stayed in, the room he stayed in.

And if you come into our speakeasy here at the Frazier, there's a video that tells the whole story about his connection.

áThat's really cool.

And now, you all started áas a very specific type of museum áhere at the Frazier when you launched and that role though has evolved over the years.

Tell me where you started and where you are now.

When the Frazier Museum started, it actually was an arms museum, which means that our museum was made up of, you know, guns and armories and knights, because that was Mr. Frazier's passion.

He loved the history of it.

He loved the decorative nature of the guns.

And so we were telling history through that technology.

We're a young museum, you know, in the sense of it and we really listen to the people of our city and the people of our state to really understand what they wanted.

And the evolution led us to telling Kentucky history.

And you still have some of the armaments here, including one piece that's really cool.

You've got George Washington's original long rifle.

What's the story behind that, Casey?

It is a crazy story.

So, Mr. Frazier acquired the rifle in 2003, but obviously, the history goes way back.

The gun was created for President Washington in 1791.

And we don't really know what happened to the gun, as he had it, you know, did he use it?

Was it decorative?

But it was found in the 1920s in a small town in Pennsylvania.

So side note, check yard sales, check your attic, check all the places for that lost history, right?

You might have a George Washington gun.

You might have something of precious value.

So it transitioned hands in the 1920s and ended up being on display at Independence Hall in Philadelphia until the 1970s.

It was taken off display, changed hands again until 2003 -when Mr. Frazier purchased it -Right.

because of that American history and had it on display here at the Frazier.

It really is a neat piece.

And besides you all being a museum, you're the start of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail as well.

Tell me how that ties up.

So if you're here visiting Kentucky, wanting to go on the Bourbon trail, you would come to the Frazier.

We have a beautiful Welcome Center that has videos and contents to guide you.

You could come into the museum and visit our Spirit of Kentucky exhibit, which we're in right now, and try and find the speakeasy.

But our staff is so educated on the Bourbon trail, they'll be able to help you plan which distilleries you want to go to, is there Kentucky history you want to look at as well?

So we're here for it all.

Chip: It's a great launch point.

So why is it so important for the Frazier to be a repository of history here in Kentucky?

Kentucky history is so diverse.

It's such a long, rich history and we want it to be a place that people can go, where the world meets Kentucky, where we can be a place from, people from the United States or all over the world can come and learn about Kentucky history.

Great.

Casey Harden, Senior Director of Engagement here at the Frazier.

Thanks so much for letting us be a part of all this today.

Well, it was our pleasure.

Thank you.

And it's fun to hang out with Al, too, right?

It is, it is.

He's a fun guy.

Here's a puzzle for you.

Where in Kentucky can you check out a collection of old school western movie memorabilia?

Order a hot serving of my two favorite food groups, biscuits and gravy, and be served some of the most authentic Afghan food around all in the same place?

Well, the answer might surprise you.

It's inside the Windy Hollow Biscuit House in Owensboro.

There, a partnership between Windy Hollow and three Afghan refugees is introducing locals to the taste of Afghan cuisine and creating some lifelong friendships in the process.

[music playing] Evelyn: Windy Hollow Biscuit House came about after thinking a long time about the restaurant we have.

So we have Windy Hollow Restaurant that's now been open 59 years.

áThat's what I grew up doing.

áI grew up in the restaurant business.

áI've had other businesses out at Windy Hollow.

áHallie grew up in the restaurant.

Hallie: We kind of took it over from my grandparents, Hal and Deanna Miller.

A lot of people, this reminds them of way back when -- it just reminds them of their childhood and their family.

So we wanted to carry on that legacy.

Evelyn: For the last 27 years, we've been Sundays only and I wanted to do something else as I was getting ready to retire from my job.

So after two or three years, we opened as Windy Hollow Biscuit House to serve breakfast, brunch and lunch.

Years ago when I was working for a nonprofit, the first Burmese refugees were coming into town and Bowling Green had a significant number áand then they started coming here as well.

áAnd that was the first time áthat we had gotten refugees like that.

And then in 2021 when the Afghan refugees came through, I didn't know anything about it.

The only thing I knew about Afghanistan was what we read in the headlines and I'll just be honest, none of it was good, right?

I mean, you just felt, you felt bad for everybody that was trapped in a situation that they couldn't get out of.

I just honestly did not know much about Afghans or Afghanistan, their culture or anything until I met Khaibar.

áWe are the first Afghan arrivals here in Owensboro.

There was no preparation for me.

I landed in Kabul like a day before the collapse.

I took my family to Turkey and I left them there because the situation was getting bad.

So I had to go back and I was working at that time with Mercy Corps International.

áI was not expecting that I'm going áto the United States or anywhere.

But when I landed in Kabul, everything was changed.

The US Embassy agreed for us to come to the International Airport of Kabul.

We had to go there, one in the morning, three in the morning, specific location.

But the crowd was so big and we were not allowed.

We were beating and the shootings and all those things.

And luckily, it was the last attempt that we did and we entered into the airport and then all the way to Germany and then from Germany to Washington DC, and then from Washington DC, Virginia, and then Owensboro.

I started working for the Catholic Charities, of those were diocese.

The colleagues were taking me around for the restaurants just to show me the town.

My colleague Alex took me to the Windy Hollow Biscuit House and I had breakfast and I met Evelyn.

I know Tariq since 10 years because we grew up in the same city.

So one day we were talking in the office and chatting and I said, "Yes, Tariq.

He had a restaurant and you wanna open another restaurant here in Owensboro, can we have him there?"

That's when we met Tariq.

He started working for us and he wanted to work the front of the house.

It was probably a couple of weeks before I said, "Oh, what did you do in Afghanistan?"

And he said, "I owned a restaurant."

So I was like, "Oh, well, you should cook for us."

And they did cook for us one night and we set up like three tables and they had food all across all the tables.

And so we had talked about since we're not using the building at night, wouldn't it be great to have them come in and do something at night?

And it was, it really happened kind of that casually.

[music playing] Khaibar: The authentic Afghan food I would say, it is between like the Iranian and Indian food.

We take some masalas, garam masala from India and we take some coriander and mint from Iran.

I can describe it like a Middle Eastern comfort food.

Yeah.

So, not spicy.

-Yeah.

-Not spicy, that's the Asian type.

It's Mediterranean.

Yeah, Mediterranean.

Khaibar: Africans eat a lot of rice.

We have lamb, beef, potatoes, the vegetables, okra, eggplant, cauliflower.

Evelyn: It's almost like an Americanized version of something that you didn't know that you might like.

And by that, I mean, it's not over spice.

I mean, Americans like a steak to taste like a steak, not like the seasoning they put on it.

Well, their lamb tastes like lamb and it tastes like onions.

I've had people say, well, I just like roasted potatoes.

We have that.

Well, they have rosh, which is roast beef - and potato and a tomato.

- Yep.

So it doesn't have a lot of brown gravy on it.

It doesn't have any brown gravy on it, but it is roast and it is a potato -and it is delicious.

-Very good.

Evelyn: There was an instant connection with Khaibar and Tariq, and of course, Edris.

They're kind of like my little brothers that I really just wanna hug all the time and I want to pinch their cheeks every once in a while.

And I just want them to do good -- and they are, they don't need my help to do well and to cook well and to run a restaurant, but they've made our lives richer from knowing their cultures and learning and understanding.

I wanna be part of their success in America.

Somebody was a part of our success and my family's success over the years and I wanna be a part of their success.

Owensboro, the Owensboro community, the first impression from the United States that we have, it has been great.

All the communities, the nonprofits, the resettlement agencies, the Islamic Center and the churches, all of them has been very much supportive and welcoming.

No other places when I go outside this place give me that peace that Owensboro is giving me.

They appreciate our presence.

That is what is very much important for us.

[music playing] Well, we've had a great day exploring the treasures of the Frazier History Museum.

And if you're wondering where it is, it's right across the street from the big giant Louisville Slugger baseball bat.

You've been on main street in Louisville, you know what I'm talking about?

Many thanks to everyone here for letting us share this remarkable treasure with you today.

But for now, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky life.

[instrumental music playing]