Lexington, KY - Water. Bison. American Indians. Were it not for the combination of these three factors, Lexington very well may not exist as it does today, or even where it is today.
More often, we recall the contributions of Daniel Boone, William McConnell, James Patterson and other early settlers in the region as the reason for where and why Lexington was founded.
But when you get down to the basics, the bison found the water and the American Indians followed the bison. The white interlopers from the East had it almost too easy. The traces (trails) had been established for eons. The idea that Daniel Boone and his cohorts "discovered" the Cumberland Gap and "blazed" trails into the interior of what is now Kentucky is a myth.
Were it not for these trails, however, the story of transportation in the Bluegrass would be vastly different.
When the first white settlers arrived in central Kentucky in the late 1700s, they found a network of trails that had been established by the roaming bison and the American Indians who followed them for food and water. The bison knew where to find water and where to graze the lush savannahs that dominated the landscape. Central Kentucky's unique limestone karst ensured this region was replete with streams, springs, sinks and other water-based geologic features.
Trails that roughly define today's Interstate 64 and U.S. Route 60 east and west; Interstate 75 and U.S. Route 25 north and south; and U.S. Routes 27 and 68 north and south were well-worn paths that simply needed improvements as European settlers occupied the region.
We are familiar with the story of the McConnell party camped at the springs that bears that name in June 1775 and learning of the first victory of the Continental Army at Lexington, Mass. Although Lexington was named in that year, it would not be until 1781 that the settlement was established, given a little event now known as the American Revolution. The delay in purposeful settlement of the area (forts had been established at Harrodsburg and Boonesborough) did not last long once the war was "won" by the United Colonies of America.
Few realize that at the end of the war, when Britain gave up the effort to suppress its colonies, the Continental Army was in full mutiny, and our Founding Fathers had one heck of a problem on their hands: there was no money to pay the former soldiers. The solution was to offer "land grants" in payment for service. That relieved the political pressure in the East and pushed hordes of angry men and their families into the interior and onto the lands of the American Indians.
It's important to understand this back story because the nexus of this settlement became Lexington, Ky., simply because here is where all those bison traces crossed. To this day, Lexington is the largest city in the nation not located on a navigable stream. Being at the point where all the important trails crossed, Lexington soon thrived as the largest city in the "West." By 1830, Lexington's population far surpassed those of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis.
Being landlocked, Lexington's transportation system developed based on (no surprise here) the horse. Settlers came to the region with their horse or horses, either in the saddle or with their possessions packed on the animal.
Improvements soon came to the trails. Private enterprise was employed and contracts let for a series of turnpikes, or simply "pikes." That nomenclature exists today in a haphazard manner: Paris Pike and Pisgah Pike - the former assuredly, the latter not so much. The term comes from the pike, or barrier, that was turned to open the road when the toll had been paid.
Private enterprise, being what it is, soon found many roads in poor condition. First the state, then the Federal government, took over responsibility for maintaining the roads in somewhat fair condition. John Loudon McAdam developed a method of "hardtop" in 1820 that became known as "macadam." Although Lexington's Cheapside was the first such surface in the state in 1831, it would be decades before road surfaces approached today's standards.
Rain and freezing would create a "corduroy" effect that bounced travelers. And rain alone created washouts and impassable mud. In short, travel was not to be taken lightly, and that's before highwaymen were taken into account.
Intercity mass transportation consisted first of the omnibus, or stage coach. In Lexington, one of the stops was at today's 310 W. Short St. The structure still stands, under conversion to a restaurant in the growing Cheapside Entertainment District that surrounds the Lexington History Museum.
The first railroad to serve Lexington was founded in 1849, as only the second in the nation and the first west of the Alleghenies. Known as the Lexington & Ohio Railroad, it would not reach its endpoint until 1869 after it was absorbed by what would become the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. By this time, Lexington had long been relegated to secondary status as river commerce grew. (Although, on Aug. 6, 1801, Ned West demonstrated his steamboat invention in Lexington, six years before Robert Fulton introduced his Clermont; Fulton's went to New York, West's went nowhere.)
Still, its presence at the crossroads of highways and rail lines ensured Lexington's survival as an agricultural and education center, as well as the shopping destination for Eastern Kentucky.
Inside the city limits, Lexington developed a wonderful mass transportation system that opened in August 1882 when the first mule-drawn street cars were introduced. The street cars connected Woodland Park to the West End, and the old Kentucky Association Race Track at Fifth and Race Streets with the Red Mile. Double lines ran down Broadway and Main Street. Just eight years later, the first electric streetcars were introduced.
The company that was formed to operate the streetcars and, later, the "interurbans" that connected Lexington with every other city in central Kentucky except Winchester, would become the precursor of LexTran, Southeastern Greyhound (the largest subsidiary of that company and the first Lexington corporation to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange) and Kentucky Utilities.
Sadly, General Motors used a study of the Lexington streetcar operating inefficiencies to convince cities from Lexington to Los Angeles to abandon their rail lines in favor of the internal combustion bus. Today, the only remnants of the trolleys are the original car barn on Loudon Avenue at North Limestone, the islands down South Hanover and four trolley poles that stand on each corner at the intersection of North Broadway and West Short Street.
Air travel was the last transportation link to come to Lexington - relatively early in the development of manned flight. Less than a year after crossing the Atlantic in May 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed at Halley Field on Leestown Pike (today's Meadowthorpe Subdivision). The city's second airport, Cool Meadows Field, opened in 1930 on Newtown Pike where Fasig-Tipton is located. Today's Bluegrass Field (now Blue Grass Airport) opened in July 1942 as a military airfield. The first plane to land there was a B-25 Mitchell bomber. The city assumed control in August 1945. The first jets arrived in 1968. And on Aug. 9, 1989, the Concorde Supersonic Transport landed on a promotional tour.
From bison traces to supersonic flight, Lexington has quite literally seen it all.