Museum Newsletter - 08 Mar 2008

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum E-Newsletter
March 8, 2008 , (Volume 4, Number 2)

Dear Friends,

Announcements...

>> Genealogical Society Meeting Saturday, March 15, 10:00 a.m.

Daniel Buxton will be the guest speaker at the March meeting of the Bullitt County Genealogical Society. Daniel is the chairperson of a group of our volunteers that have been revisiting and redocumenting the many old cemeteries in Bullitt County. To date, they have visited over seventy cemeteries, some of which had not been documented (at least to our knowledge) before. Documentation includes tombstone readings, with photographs, and GPS location readings of the cemetery.

Daniel will be speaking about those efforts and likely will show us a few of the hundreds of photos the group has taken.

Remember that the regular meeting date and time is changed for this year. The Society now meets on the third Saturday of the month, at 10:00 a.m. Meeting place is Ridgway Memorial Library in Shepherdsville, 127 North Walnut Street, located at Second Street near the railroad tracks.

>> April meeting is Second Saturday

The April meeting will be an exemption to our "third Saturday" meeting date. That meeting will be held April 12 and will feature Rod Smothers, who will be speaking about his experiences with a Revolutionary War re-enactment group.

>> Ancestral Trails Book Fair also April 12 and we'll be there too!

It's the same day as our April meeting, but we'll also be at the Ancestral Trails Book Fair in Elizabethtown April 12. It runs 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. so we should be able to catch most of it after our meeting. We will have a booth, and so will Betty Darnell, with her extensive library of books for sale.

>> Welcome to Howard Owen, Ontario Canada

Welcome to special new Friend Howard Owen, who joins us from Ontario, Canada, making us again an international news group. Howard is related to the Owens here in Bullitt County but has been away for many years. We hope to see him visit us some time.

Welcome to him and all our new news-group Friends who have joined us!

>>New Museum E-Mail Address.

As announced in the last newsletter, the museum has a new e-mail address. Please change your address books, web site listings, etc. from the old BullittCountyHistory@Alltel (or Windstream) address to our new Museum@BullittCountyHistory.org. I will now also have a personal museum address of David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org. For now, both new addresses will come directly to me, but the "Museum" address is intended for more for general museum publication as the museum grows, and the "David.Strange" address is intended to always go personally to me for so long as I am with the museum.

My personal home address of David_Lee_St@msn.com remains the same.

Activity

>> Awards, Awards, Awards!

I am very proud to announce that our little county museum has been recognized with several statewide awards.

The Kentucky Historical Society, along with the Kentucky Association of Museums and the Historical Confederation of Kentucky, recently recognized the Bullitt County History Museum in three categories, and our local newspaper, The Pioneer News, and its editor, Tom Barr, in one more.

This newsletter, Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum E-News, won a certificate of commendation. A certificate of commendation is described as a project of high quality worthy to be used as a model for the state.

Our new web site, created by Charles Hartley with some input by me, also won a certificate of commendation.

I am especially proud of our volunteers, who were recognized with an Award of Merit for all their work on so many projects through the year. An award of merit recognizes "outstanding quality that can serve as a statewide or national model".

Bullitt County's local newspaper, The Pioneer News, and its editor, Tom Barr, won the Media Award for its outstanding support and coverage of history and history-related events in Bullitt County.

I'm so proud I can't keep my buttons from bustin'!

The great people at the Kentucky Historical Society, KAM, & HCK have been very helpful to our little organization since our beginning, willingly providing friendly and helpful advice whenever asked. It's especially rewarding to be recognized by such statewide organizations for our work.

You can see a photo on our web site of some of us who went to the awards dinner, which was held in Frankfort.

>>New Web Site stuff

Speaking of our web site, several more items have been added. Be sure to check it out. We also hope to add a "virtual tour" of the museum to the web site in the next month or two. I'll tell you more about that next month.

For Your Information...

>>Train Numbers can tell you something.

Did you know that the number of a train route can tell you which direction the train was going? For example, one of the trains in the 1917 train wreck in Shepherdsville was called "Number 41". The other train was "Number 7". Those numbers alone tell you that they were both heading south. At least on the old L&N line that goes through the center of Bullitt County, all trains heading south used an odd number; trains heading north used even.

So, when researching old trains and train wrecks, the train number alone tells you something about it.

Thanks to one of our museum Friends (and retired railroader) for that information.

>>Speaking of Numbers...Explaining the mysterious house numbering system in Bullitt County.

Several years ago, most of Bullitt County changed its system of house numbers from the traditional method. The traditional system was the simple one most people are used to. An example of that would be: one house is numbered "123", the next house then would be "124", etc. But in a county such as Bullitt that is developing rapidly, that system became a problem in numbering all the new houses and businesses that were added between the old "123" and "124".

So, Bullitt County changed to a system that is more flexible, and actually gives a lot of information, if you understand the system.

Now an address is determined by the distance from the beginning of the road. The very first spot is "100", but then the numbers are divided up by tenths of a mile, and then tenths of that. So, since a mile is 5280 feet, each number change represents 5.28 feet. The first "100" adds a bit of confusion but, keeping that in mind, a house address of, say, "878 Peaceful Way" tells you that the house can be found .778 of a mile from the beginning of Peaceful Way ("878" less 100). Understanding this system allows one to find a house even if no one on the street has a house number showing. It's very helpful for emergency services but also for us, and it can be a steady address reference over time.

But only if you understand the system.

>>New County Clerk Web Site.

Bullitt County Clerk Kevin Mooney has opened a helpful new web site for his office. That site, www.BullittCountyClerk.com, offers access to a world of information that can be quite helpful to the researcher as well as the regular citizen. Explore it sometime to see for yourself what is available.

>> Lincoln Events Schedule.

For the next two years, Kentucky will be celebrating the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. There will be many, many activities across the state. The web site www.KyLincoln.org is one place to find schedules of those activities.

>>Product Safety Recalls.

This is outside the usual area of this newsletter, but the web site is so helpful I wanted to make sure you knew of it. The government Consumer Product Safety Commission provides a web site that offers lots of information that can be helpful to consumers.

Think the nightly news is scary with its occasional recall notices? Check out the hundreds of recall notices on www.cpsc.gov. . Finally... A March Snow.

I am setting here at my desk looking out the window at twelve inches of snow newly fallen throughout the area. With readers of this newsletter living throughout the nation and Canada, twelve inches of snow means different things to different readers. For some of our Friends to the north, I suppose it is little more than a dusting. To those to the south, it might be the reason they live in the south. But for us in Bullitt County, it is a pretty big thing. That much snow happens here only about every ten years or so, the last being in about 1994.

It is, of course, bad news to some and good news to others. Nearly everything shuts down. Schools and churches close. Our county road crews worked valiantly through the night trying to keep the roads clear, but we just don't get this much snow often enough to justify having enough equipment. I remember many years ago now, when a huge snowstorm hit the entire state. It had been so long since the state snow blades for the trucks had been needed that no one could remember were they had been stored. They were not found until Spring, at which time they were discovered in neat rows stored in a field, right where they had been placed after the last big storm.

This snow today is soft and wet, though, and will not last long. March in Bullitt County guarantees that the warmth of Spring is not far off. And our road crews have by now cleared most of the roads, even many of the little back roads around the county.

School is out and so are the sleds. It's a good time to just relax and not worry about things. The calm silence that comes with snow in Kentucky is broken only by the laughter of children playing on the hillsides.

In fact, as I watch the little road outside my house already beginning to melt clear, I kinda wish it all would last a bit longer than it will.

But only a bit.

As I close this newsletter, I think Bonnie and I will run outside and make one last snowman while we can.

Spring is 'round the corner,' and it might be years before we get to enjoy this again!

Thank you for being a Friend of Bullitt County History.

David Strange
Bullitt County History Museum
Executive Director
Museum Phone: 502-921-0161
David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org
BullittCountyHistory.org