Coming up on Kentucky Life, we visit Lost River Cave, a unique landmark that's been home to everything from soldiers to a nightclub.

We introduce you to the mayor of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, who happens to be a Bluetick Coonhound named Boone.

We explore the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort, home to some of the most treasured items from the Commonwealth's past.

And we'll look back at the Official Burt the Cat Fanclub Newsletter, which chronicled Louisville's underground music scene.

All that's next on Kentucky Life.

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

I'm your host, Chip Polston.

Our show this week has brought us to the crown jewel of our state's history, the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

You can trace Kentucky's 12,000-year history through more than 3,000 items in this signature exhibition, “A Kentucky Journey.” It's managed by the great folks at the Kentucky Historical Society.

We'll learn more about this remarkable collection here in just a bit.

But first, Lost River Cave boasts a rich and varied history, having served as shelter for Paleo-Indian groups, a gristmill, a Civil War encampment, a lively nightclub, and even a dumping ground.

Back in 1990, the nonprofit organization the Friends of Lost River was formed with the mission to restore and preserve this remarkable site for future generations.

Thanks to their efforts, the cave reopened to the public in 1997.

Come along as we explore Lost River Cave and discover the inspiring conservation efforts that continue to protect this unique landmark.

[music playing] Lost River Cave is a 72-acre park in the heart of Bowling Green.

It's literally right in the middle of the city.

What you'll find is two miles of trails through our closed karst valley.

It's one of the largest karst valleys in the world, and it's home to several different ecosystems.

We have vernal pools, we have mesic meadows, we have blue holes, caves, and, you know, our barrens prairie, as well as a wetland.

So, there's a lot of different fragile ecosystems on our park.

The cave is still fairly young.

It is still forming.

We still have, of course, the river flowing through.

So, during high water events, the water can rise as high as the ceiling, which can knock off some of the stalactite formations that are in there.

So, you don't see a ton of formations, but we do have some beautiful flowstone.

We also have drapery in those types of formations in the cave.

[music playing] Now, we don't want anybody to get so excited that they fall out of the boat, but what you're about to see is the largest stalactite on our tour.

This is known as the praying hands.

It looks like upside-down praying hands.

You go into the cave and you immediately hear the rushing of the water.

The sense of awe just kind of comes over you as you really embrace the history that you're immersed in.

[music playing] A lot of the history here at Lost River Cave, of course, began with those Paleo Native Americans back 9,000 to 10,000 years ago.

So, Paleo Native Americans would have been traveling through the area and this would have been more of a stop for them, an area where they could probably do some bartering and trading, and they would also do a lot of hunting.

Throughout the cliff rock, we've actually found piles of arrowheads and shards of arrowheads where they would continuously go back to these same points to hunt over and over again.

So, it was a great spot as they're traveling to refresh on their water, their food source.

Of course, the shelter in the cave kept them warm or cool, depending on what time of year they were here in the area.

It was also used during the Civil War.

Civil War soldiers in the cave were actually using their candles to leave behind their signatures.

We have names and dates and companies that they were with.

We've been able to actually go back and find military records and pension records that match up with the names that we have in our cave.

[music playing] Early settlers using the cave used it as a milling operation.

There were different types of mills.

One of the original mills was located on the inside of the cave, and of course, the farmers would pull across the top, hoist down their product.

They would send it in for the milling process.

It was brought back out, sent back up to the farmers.

Over time with the water, being that we are that drainage basin, the mill would actually flood, so they would constantly be rebuilding the mill.

They eventually built one on top, drilling through around 50 feet of bedrock to run their shaft and their undershot waterwheel, and that waterwheel would power the mill up on top.

There's a lot of history about it being used for some of the Prohibition era, where there was a little bit of that alcohol smuggling going on in and out of the cave.

At one point, one of the mills here was actually a peach and brandy wine distillery.

They already probably had this set up here for them to do that.

Then, of course, you move into the 1930s, and that is when Prohibition ended and that's when the nightclub opened up.

[music playing] It was a happening spot.

It was featured in Billboard magazine.

It was considered to be one of the only air-conditioned nightclubs in the country because, of course, the cave stays 57 degrees.

It blew out cool gusts of air that would cool off the patrons.

They would trek down around 200 stairs down to the mouth of the cave, where they would enjoy the music.

There were famous bands, Dinah Shore, NBC Orchestra, Francis Craig.

They raced across the country once we were featured in that Billboard, which kind of put us on the map.

[music playing] After our nightclub closed down, the city of Bowling Green, they just kind of started throwing all their trash down here.

It was not a landfill.

It was an illegal dump site.

People would back up to the edge of the mouth of the cave behind me and toss whatever they didn't need over the edge, you know, out of sight, out of mind.

It was a very dark time for Lost River Cave.

As a kid coming down when it was closed, it was kind of disheartening.

You would see all of the trash, and it's just a beautiful cave, and you wonder why your community had forgotten that you had such a wonder in your own backyard.

A lot of the concrete had fallen in.

The walls along, you know, the valley walk here had gone, you know, unrepaired, and so it was kind of dismal at that point.

And so, once the Friends of Lost River came into play, and the university donated it, and this whole program coming about, Lost River Cave has really grown and become such a beautiful place that it should have never been neglected as it was.

[music playing] So, the Friends of Lost River is our non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and it is just members of Bowling Green that wanna see this place flourish, be protected, and conserved over the years.

So, the future of Lost River Cave is bright.

Of course, we're gonna always make sure that we're maintaining and protecting this property.

But we work very hard to restore all the ecosystems and nurture them, and just make sure that Bowling Green always has this property as a source of reconnection with nature.

[music playing] When thinking about the bluegrass, there are a lot of things that make us who we are, but one thing that may not come to mind when you think Kentucky are dog mayors?

Well, maybe not in all of Kentucky, but then there's Rabbit Hash, an unincorporated community in Northern Kentucky with a population of less than 200.

Every four years, they host an election where anybody or anything can run, which means that the last six elections have been won by dogs.

Let's take a look at this small community and learn more about their canine mayorship.

[music playing] [music playing] Since 1998, the unincorporated community of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky has had an unlikely string of dog mayors.

That's right, dog mayors.

Now, since I began hosting this show, Rabbit Hash has been on my list of places to visit.

We visited the community on this show before and have even covered the dog mayors before, but I just had to know, what exactly does a dog mayor do?

So, I loaded up the Kentucky Life van and set off to meet Mayor Boone, Rabbit Hash's most recent election winner.

[music playing] [music playing] Mr.

Mayor, your 10 o'clock is here.

Mr.

Mayor, thanks for being with us today.

Can you give me the top - [barking] Really?

Okay.

Well, I haven't even asked the question yet.

Oh, you're already letting me have it, huh?

Mr.

Mayor, yes, I know you're upset and I know you're a little anxious about everything, but just hear me out, okay?

Mr.

Mayor, are you just gonna roll around during the course of this interview or are you gonna actually answer the question?

Now, Mayor Boone wasn't giving up much, but luckily he was joined by Dave Landwehr, who I got to speak with and learn more about the Bluetick Coonhound.

So, Dave, how did this dog mayor tradition start?

How did all this come about?

Well, it was the bicentennial for Boone County and Boone County reached out to different cities to do something special for the bicentennial.

And Rabbit Hash decided to have an election and nobody really wanted to be a mayor.

So, they decided to run dogs.

So, people didn't step up and the dogs had to step up to take the job.

They did.

And they became a fundraiser for the Rabbit Hash Historical Society.

So, what actually goes into being the dog mayor?

What does Boone have to do as part of his duties?

Part of Boone's duties is he meets people that come down to Rabbit Hash.

He helps raise funds for the four years in term.

He is just a spokesperson for the town and just, you know, kind of brings cheer to all the kids that come down as well.

What are Boone's favorability ratings with the public and Rabbit Hash at this point?

They love him.

They say he's the dog that saved Rabbit Hash.

That he saved Rabbit Hash?

Yes.

How so?

Because he's so popular?

No.

They had an erosion issue and they were losing a river bank, and a tree was getting ready to fall, and they were having big issues and didn't know how to fix it.

So, what we did as part of our campaign was our company, Structures Inc., donated labor and equipment.

Me and my son went down and worked on the river bank and we installed erosion protection measures, and the town gave Boone the value of that erosion protection as votes.

So, Boone's involvement in a lot of different things in the community, for example, water safety.

Tell me what he does there.

Yes.

He joined forces with Boone County Water Rescue, and he's promoting water safety and LifeVest.

So, that was part of his campaign was really water safety because Rabbit Hash is a river town, and Boone just lives right upriver in Constance, Kentucky, which is a river town as well.

At this point, the mayor let us know in no uncertain terms that he had an appointment to get to.

So, we loaded up everything and followed the mayor to meet the folks with Boone County Water Safety and Rescue.

[barking] As soon as I set foot on the dock, Mayor Boone let me know that I had made a crucial mistake in not wearing a life jacket.

So, as a result, I got suited up and went on our way to learn more about what Mayor Boone contributes to this operation.

So, Missie, how did Boone come to your all's group here?

So, Boone has been such a wonderful advocate for water safety, and we are a water safety organization.

So, Boone has been just instrumental in helping us promote the importance of wearing life jackets and safety on the water as well.

I mean, who cannot notice a dog in a bright orange life jacket and sometimes that inspires people to wear one themselves.

And what a great ambassador he is.

Agreed.

Absolutely.

After that, Mayor Boone had a couple more appointments to make, so next, we stopped up river so he could check and monitor the local ferries to make sure they were in tip-top shape.

Finally, we made our way past the Rabbit Hash General Store where Mayor Boone introduced us to the president of the Rabbit Hash Historical Society.

The mayor had other duties to attend to, so I stayed back for a conversation about the small river town.

You all have gotten a lot of attention for this.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, we have, [Laughs] and I think it's because politics is hard and this is at least making light of it and fun, you know.

We're an honest election, the one with the most money wins, bribery is fine and encouraged.

It's our biggest fundraiser.

We do it every four years to coincide with the national election.

And all the money raised is really what keeps the town the way that it is.

We're an old wooden town on the Ohio River - What could possibly go wrong, right?

█ so we've got to worry about flood and termites and fire.

And so, a lot of that is really just to help maintain town.

So, that's our biggest fundraiser, and so that's really the importance of the mayor.

Looking at Boone, what's the take on Boone?

What kind of a job is he doing?

How do you think he's holding up?

I think Boone came out strong from the get-go.

Like, even during the election, he was the candidate that was really really putting his heart into it, you know.

He saw what needed done and he started doing it, so that's a really admirable quality and something that definitely took notice around here.

So, how does it really bring the people of Rabbit Hash together around this dog mayor?

Is it something that people celebrate?

What's it do for the community?

So, the first election, I'll go back in time.

So, with the first election of Goofy, it definitely was about celebrating our bicentennial, our history, our heritage in Boone County and then being able to, you know, focus that in our community.

So, every election has sort of had that spirit where, you know, it's coming in.

It knows why it's here.

There's usually a mission behind each mayor.

It's important to the community, usually things important to the community.

So, whatever a pressing matter usually is with town and what the community wants to rally behind is kind of where we end up voting, we'll say.

[laughs] So, when the store burned down a few years ago, eight-ish years ago, you know, we had another election and that was about rebuilding and raising money to build that.

Right now, the river, as we've talked about, is, you know, a threat to the town, and so now we've, you know, that bank stabilization project was something huge we were working on.

So, of course, everyone is really grateful to that and supportive of Boone and what he's done.

At the end of what was a long day, Mayor Boone and I reconvened.

He took me to one of his favorite lookout spots on the banks of the Ohio River by Rabbit Hash.

Now, I can't say I envy the life of a dog mayor.

It was surprisingly busier than I had anticipated.

But sitting there with Boone and looking out on the river, I understood why he was the right dog for the job.

And hey, along the way, I think I might have made a new buddy as well.

[music playing] [music playing] We're having a great time here today at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.

This is Michael Hudson.

He's the chief curator here.

Michael, thanks so much for being here with us.

I'm glad to be here.

For folks who weren't familiar with Dr.

Clark, who was he?

So, he's a historian who taught for decades, decades and decades at the University of Kentucky.

So, every history major, everybody who took history at UK, for 50 years, studied under Dr.

Clark.

And he was also an amazing writer.

He was the kind of guy who could take fairly complicated historical stories and turn them into something that everybody can understand.

And he was an amazing speaker, too.

He was a great storyteller.

Amazing raconteur is what I would say.

There you go.

So, he was really the brainchild behind this facility.

Tell me about the facility and what folks can see here.

Right.

So, the Kentucky History Center is the state's home for history, right?

So, whether you are interested in storytelling, you're interested in your family's history, you're interested in, you know, delving into the research, all of those things can happen here at the History Center.

So, we have exhibits, we have a library, we have an archives, we have all kinds of preservation facilities.

I'm sure a lot of folks ask you this question and it's kind of like picking your favorite child.

But if you had one thing, if you were bringing somebody in that had never been here and you were gonna take them to see one thing, what would it be?

Well, I'm really big in agriculture.

Kentucky's agricultural history, I think, is at the heart of our story.

So, my favorite thing came from this family that lived in Pewee Valley, Tom and Bea Murphy.

And when Tom was a kid, he had had to help his father repair the masonry on their chimney.

It had fallen over.

And so, he took a tree limb and he forged some brackets and put together this thing called a hod.

That little boy, Tom Murphy, had to lift up mortar to his dad on the roof to repair their chimney.

So, nothing exciting, nothing fancy, very humble, but, you know, a thing that a Kentuckian made to do a specific job.

And there's a great backstory there as well.

Sure.

Well, I mean, we were at Tom and Bea's house and I'm pulling his overalls out of the laundry, and Bea's going, “Why do you want that?” I'm like, “Because those are the kinds of things that don't survive.” Strangely enough, the most common things, say, sky blue trousers from a Union soldier, you come back from the war and you'll wear them until they're rags.

Today, you won't find any in museum collections.

So, they just don't exist?

No.

Overalls, we didn't have a pair of overalls.

Think about it.

Wow.

Quickly, last question, when folks leave here after they've gone through everything, what do you want them to walk away with?

I think that Kentucky has a very long history.

It starts 10,000 years ago when the first Kentuckians come into the state.

It's people from all over, coming from the East Coast, from the West, converging into this magnificent Central American place and making a story that we're still fascinated with today.

And a great story it is.

Michael, thanks for being our person to show us around today.

We can't wait to check out more of the center.

Great.

[music playing] From the late ‘80s until the early 2000s, the Louisville underground music scene was thriving.

Back in those days, flyers adorned telephone poles promoting local shows.

So, how did people back then engage with music?

That's what our next story aims to find out.

The Official Burt the Cat Fanclub Newsletter was started in 1996, dedicated to covering the underground music of the area.

But just what is underground music?

How is it defined?

And most importantly, who the heck is Burt the Cat?

Let's find out.

[music playing] [music playing] Underground music is the music of your neighborhood.

It's your friends playing music in their garages.

I guess it's probably defined as in opposition to what would be mainstream or commercial music.

Underground could refer to a subject matter of lyrics.

It could refer to musical styles.

It's itself and trust that you might just be interested in coming to it.

The Burt the Cat, it's basically a zine, locally published.

It includes reviews of shows that happen, lots of photos, some commentary.

Another thing that I think is really cool is it has a lot of ads.

So, it also documents sort of the business history of Louisville and the venues.

So, one of the things about Louisville, at least back in the day, was just we would have maybe one venue or two venues and then they would go out of business, you know.

And so, it's nice to also have that documentation.

The Official Burt the Cat Fanclub Newsletter started in February of 1996.

We approached the community almost like it was People magazine, where the local community, if you were showing up to shows, you could end up in the paper.

A big part of my shtick as a reporter was to talk about conversations I had with people.

And it was kind of a running joke that because I was trying to hit so many shows, I would show up late, and I'd miss the opener.

And I'd take a quote from somebody that did see the opener and report what they told me.

The basic bones of it was a collection of comics reviews, a collection of record reviews, my journal, my nightlife journal, which was, on occasion, referred to as the Curry Journal in a pun of the local newspaper.

My intention at that point was to promote these bands and this community, this music, because it was important to me.

There was a gonzo approach, but it was a matter of wanting people to be involved, to connect, and like the title of the paper was, it was a fan club.

It wasn't a real club.

But if you were there, you were a member.

As far as choosing Burt as the mascot, he was brought to me by a friend in the neighborhood.

She said she found this kitten and she handed it to me.

The affection for Burt was overwhelming.

And the fellow that ran the Rocket House, the house on Fourth Street, hosted all these underground bands.

He suggested to me that when I started my tabloid, I should give it an obtusely long name.

I came up with the Official Burt the Cat Fanclub Newsletter.

That was the official title of the paper.

But every issue, because of my background in comics and National Lampoon and MAD magazine and fanzines, every issue would have a different title.

And so the branding was the cat.

The branding was Burt.

I cast his personality into the paper.

I am the director of the Oral History Center here at the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections.

I'm also one of the manuscript archivists and one of the founding archivists of the LUMA Project, which stands for Louisville Underground Music Archive.

The LUMA Project is the project to collect materials related to the underground music scene here in Louisville, Kentucky.

Two law school librarians brought a handful of Burt the Cats and donated them.

But we only have a few issues.

So, I called Paul Curry and I said, “Hey, Paul Curry, can we get some, you know, can you send the remaining issues?"

So, that's kind of how it started.

We all just said, “We got to - Let's do this now.

Let's get started.” I don't think we had any documentation on the local sort of punk underground scene before we got those Burts.

If we capture this stuff, who knows who gets inspired by it 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, and it feels good to be able to give away something to someone who values it.

We value it.

We think it's important.

The fact that somebody else values it and thinks it's important, it's easy to make a handshake over that.

I think it's important for it to exist for a number of reasons.

It is part of the cultural history of Louisville, Kentucky.

It's an important part to many people who participated in it.

It shows cooperation, community, the power of art and music to bring people together.

That's why I think it's important.

[music playing] We've had a great time here this week at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.

Now we've just scratched the surface of what is housed at this amazing facility.

So much so, we'll be back next week with another show from here.

Be sure to join us as we check out even more of our state's history housed in this remarkable building.

Now, if you've enjoyed our show, be sure to like the Kentucky Life Facebook page or subscribe to the KET YouTube channel for more of what we like to call Kentucky Life Extras, where you'll have access to lots of other great videos.

Until next time.

I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston cherishing this Kentucky life.

[music playing] [music playing] [music playing]