Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1919-11-08
''THE REMEMBERING
OF BOONESBOR0''
Lexington Newspaperman Writes
In Interesting Vein Of Famous
Madison County Resort

M NAooH NOAASy A<SoGS II
James M. Ross, managing editor
of the Lexington Leader, spent his
vacation at Boonesboro Bathing
Beach last summer. In the magazine
section Of Sundays Confessional;
he wrote an interesting story en-
titled: "The Reawakening of Boones-
boro". 1t win be Of much interest
lhere: He wrote as follows:
Boonesborough has again come i'm
TO its own.
1t is no longer frontier point for
civilization, as it was when Daniel
Boone concluded in ITS to build a
fort there. y
1t comes back" after all these
years as summer resort! It is the
most pretentious "bathing beach" in
kentucky!
Where once roamed the widest
kind Of Indian, gamboled the bear,
screamed the panther and gobbled the
wild turkey; where once canebreaks
and an almost impenetrable- forest hid
whatever desired to be hidden from
the whole world, now is deep layer
Of the softest and cleanest sand i'm
aginable, just fit for the sunbaths
of those who are lazy, while a few
feet away purls the great Kentucky
River for the free use of all who de-
sire to wet the their bathing suits.
When Daniel Boone came into Cen
trail Kentucky in IT'S and first saw
the place on the river where Madi-
son and Clark counties smile at each
other across the stretches of water, he
looked at the tall hills which hem in
this then garden spot on every side.
He saw there was plenty Of water;
that a fort could be placed far enough
from the hills to prevent the more or.
less noble red man from venting his.
spleen by firing bullets into the fort,
while the hills themselves would keep
the winter winds from bowling more
dismally than the wandering wolf. !
So was established Boonesborough.
A few years it lasted, and then other
towns grew up in more promising
parts of the great territory which was
to be Kentucky. Gradually Boones-
borough as a settlement decayed, un-
til finally nothing was left but the
buildings which had withstood sol
many attacks of the savage, and
then, few years more, there was
only a memory-with mayhap the
ghost of a restless Indian which was
doomed to fit forever seeking hap
py hunting ground
For many more years Boonesbor-
ough slept. Farmers came along
and settled in the vicinity and raised
corn where the pioneers had produc-
ed similar crops so long before. The
country became more thickly popu
lated and houses sprang up over the
ground where white and red man
had fought. And still Boonesborough
which had been pictured as the cap
ital Of wonderful new republic in
the mind of at least one man, remains
ed in the bosom of its fathers, met
aphorically speaking.
The same old river swept by, its
ipples- having sounded just the same
to the pioneer as it did to the tilIer1
Iof the sol, stba same old hills look
ed down PERHAPS in wonder as the
products of an unaided nature were
swept away by, the practical agi-
culturist.. The SUN and the moon
and the stars shone just the same
as they had for thousands of years,
and ionly Boonesborough of all that
beautiful valley had changed.
Then little steamboats, began to
ply their putting way through the
waters of the Kentucky. A benig-
nant government at Washington was
prevailed upon to establish a sys-
tenn of locks and dams and among
them it was decreed that one should
be placed at Boonesborough. So 1t
was done. ~
And new Boonesborough came
into being.
\ Up to that time and for many
years past, the only remainder that
a once prosperous village had' nes-
tied there was the legend; then the
Daughters of the American Revolt
ton placed monument there, and
for some more years that was An in
teresting place to stop on the road
from Lexington to Richmond.
But when Uncle Sam had the lock
and dam built, even the boot owls
along the cliffs in the neighborhood
turned their hoarse boots into jazz
music. 4
The waters Of the river, sweep
ing over the high dam, churned
around and began to throw a cover
ing of sand over the bank, which
for some time had been the highly
productive cornfeld Of farmer.
After a year. or two, more sand
"grew" there than corn, SO the lat
ter retired even as Boonesborough
itself had vanished from the ken Of
man.