My first sentence of this was going to be, "It's weird when the house you grew up in literally no longer exists." But then I rethought the whole thing--it's really not that weird.
I cannot begin to explain to you how much I would've enjoyed growing up across the street from a Rural King.
Comments flow ...
My wife's at a meeting with other ministers at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Paducah. I get to come over to Paducah from Madisonville pretty frequently--probably once every six weeks or so on average for the last couple of years. Maybe not that often. I think I've enjoyed the visit literally every one of those times I've come over, usually with her.
ReplyDeleteWe'll have to see how much actually Kentucky Minuting I do here. I need to be back in the First Christian parking lot in an hour, and it's hot as blazes out in this Rural King parking lot across the street from our old property on Cairo Road.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go ahead and list a bunch of topics I want to talk about some day either at this post or some other:
ReplyDelete-- Beasley's
-- Cedar Hill
-- Clark and Concord
-- Kennedy Road
-- Kites at First Christian
-- SuperX
-- The fair
-- Grieff's
-- Noble Park
-- West Kentucky Vocational College
-- Schmidt Farm
-- Holland's
Also: White Oak missionary Baptist Church… Mahn UL Baptist Church… All of us Baptist Church… Bobby Joe Woods…
ReplyDeleteThat’s Immanuel Baptist and Olivet Baptist.
DeleteAlso: Paducah Shooter supply…baumer… Nessler field… I 24… The potato place in Kentucky Oaks mall… The guy who gave us cigarettes… High Point, Pentecostal Church… Mr. Clark… Mr. Pibb …
ReplyDeleteMetro ferry Landing Road…
ReplyDeleteI decided to continue driving because it was just too hot to Wright from the parking lot. I have arrived in Grahamville
ReplyDeleteWrite.
DeleteI have come upon part of my old bus route. I am passing Harmony Baptist Church, and it could be that I am now on what when I was a kid was called old Cairo Road. For sure, what I lived on was not old Cairo Road to the longer time local. There was another cut off or something, a spur, something that my cairo Road superseded.
ReplyDeletePalestine cemetery… Palestine, United Methodist Church… Mayfield Metro Road…
ReplyDeleteWe live in a glorious time that I can be driving down Kentucky 358, which is the road. I am now on, and which might or might not be old Kara Road, and it’s the same time he posting at the HP by talking into my phone. I think has this capability existed when I was in my 20 I might well have actually read written one or more books. Seriously. Now, to be fair, they wouldn’t have been any more readable than is this block post, but I do think I probably would’ve Completed and published some things.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a glorious time that I can be driving down Kentucky 358, which is the road I am now on, and which might or might not be Old Cairo Road, and at the same time be posting at the HP by talking into my phone. I think, had this capability existed when I was in my 20s, I might well have actually written one or more books. Seriously. Now, to be fair, they wouldn’t have been any more readable than is this blog post, but I do think I probably would’ve completed and published something.
DeleteFern Lake Campground…
ReplyDeleteLead story in the May 15, 1928, Paducah Evening Sun:
ReplyDeleteCOUNTY CALLS FOR
INITIAL WORK ON
NEW CAIRO ROAD
Employment of a highway engineer to supervise reconstruction of the Cairo road from the city limits of Paducah to Maxon’s mill was authorized by the McCracken county fiscal court in regular session today. …
Authority to employ the engineer is the first step of the county in its proposal to rebuild the Cairo road, which decision followed announcement that the state and federal engineers had selected the Hinkleville road out of Paducah as the more logical route for U.S. Highway 60 and would hard-surface the road. It was then announced that the county would surface the Cairo road.
And then here’s part of an Oct. 21, 1929, Sun-Democrat story by Sidney Snook, headlined, “Open Roads, Bright Countryside and Fine Weather Prove Strong Lure to Most Sedate Citizens:"
ReplyDelete(H)e who has been accustomed to croaking, “We have no roads in western Kentucky,” is just dead wrong. We have. There are good surfaces, broad right-of-way, and distinct markers.
Out of Paducah this particular October trail leads from the city via the Cairo road, which McCracken county surfaced to Maxon, and thence to the county line at Kevil on the “new” Cairo road, or that highway recently finished by the state highway department. For part of the route, the road is cut through virgin territory. The stretch is in excellent condition. The road out of Paducah at present is U.S. Highway 60, pending reconstruction of the Hinkleville road out of Paducah, officially designated Route 60, which will connect with the new Cairo road. The Hinkleville road project is scheduled for next year.
The new highway skirts the back door of Kevil, proceeds to La Center, which it touches on the outer edge, and on to Barlow in a direct line, and then to Wickliffe. From Wickliffe the trail chosen for this journey is over U.S. 51. This is a beautiful stretch of road, one of the prettiest in this section.
And then here’s an interesting and telling relic from the last couple of months before the Pearl Harbor bombing. It’s headlined, “Dear Boss, A Letter From A Reporter To The Editor,” and was published Sept. 26, 1941:
ReplyDeleteDEAR BOSS:
You can settle down to your pinochle and clam chowder without fear of an invader blitzkrieging Paducah and changing our leisurely stroll into a goose step—for we have evolved a fool-proof defense plan. …
Should our little city become beleaguered we would not seize the handiest ax handle or shootin’ iron and rush to defend it as did the Minute Men at Lexington. Rather, we would greet the invading men from Mars or germs from Germany with true Southern courtesy.
Our outposts would be filling station attendants on the highways leading into the city. When the invading forces began sending their tanks and scout cars into Paducah naturally they would stop at a filling station like the veriest Sunday driver and inquire as to the best way to proceed. There we would have them! Our frontal filling station operators, without telling a single fib, could so befuddle them with directions they would be sorry they ever head of Paducah. ...
The reporter, identified as “AYM, Jr.,” points out that Paducah has “three Mayfield roads and all three lead to Mayfield. … Then we come to the Lovelaceville road, or rather, the Lovelaceville roads. There at least three of them. ..."
ReplyDeleteAn invader from the west would find good highways leading into Paducah but he might easily stumble upon a detour from which he would never recover. There is the old Cairo road, which eventually leads to Cairo but is seldom used for that purpose. It joins the new Cairo road, which also is the Hinkleville road and the west-bound route of U.S. 60, at the Fisher school site. …
ReplyDeleteSo as you see, boss, the plan is fool proof. Even if the invaders get in, how are they going to get out?
Fisher School Road is out by Barkley Regional.
DeleteSo given these newspaper stories and my recollection of people of various ages referring to "Old Cairo Road," I'm starting to think different routes were being talked about. Sometimes people were talking about the new U.S. 60 overlay of Hinkleville Road, once that gets paved in 1929 or some time after. And I think sometimes people were talking about the Noble Road part of Ky. 358, before you turn north on Metro Ferry Landing Road toward the Ohio River to take the boat across to Metropolis, Illinois. I'll screenshot a picture from Google Maps and insert it in the root post here.
ReplyDeleteDuh. "Metro Ferry" is, of course, short for "Metropolis Ferry." I didn't get that until just now.
DeleteGoogle Maps lists it as "River Road."
Delete