Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1921-08-05
RIVER TRAFFIC HAS
ALMOST DISAPPEARED
Once Elourishing Little Towsn
Along Its Banks Are Now
Only Memories
(By Associated Press)

Although the Kentucky river has
been converted into canal from
above Beattyville, near its source
to Carrollton. where it runs into
the Ohio river, comparatively lit
tile use is being made of the
stream, according to river men
and others living along its banks.
The cost of the United States
government of the locks and
dams whereby the river was
made navigable throughout the
year, ran into scores of millions
of dollars and fhe annual upleep
amounts to many thousands OF
dollars yearly.
The Kentucky river once hum
med with industry. Scores of
little towns, springing up around
steamboat landings, flourished
along its banks and hundreds of
thousands of tons of freight were
carried on its waters annually.
Before the advent of the gaso-
line engine, thousands of men
gained living rafting logs from
the mountains of eastern Ken
lucky to Frankfort and other
points along the lower river.
Now single gasoline tugboat
will handle twenty to thirty RATS
OF logs with five or six men to
ten them. This same tow, in the
old days, would have required
Jour or five men to the raft to
keep the logs IN the channel and
floating with the stream.
At one time Brooklyn (now
known as Brooklyn Bridge four
|miles below here, was a thriving
little town with 400 to 500 inhab-
itants. 1t had large gristmill,
sawmills, coal yards, storgae
warehouses, a distillery and 9th
er industrial institutions Farm
ers from miles around haul.
their wheat aud other farm pro-
ducts to Brooklyn for shipment
to the outside world, those living
i'll Mercer county, on the oppo-
site side OF the stream from the
main wharves, hauling their pro-
ducts to a bluff on that side, and
there, according to Matt SWEET
ger, for fifty years a resident of
the place, the sacks were loaded
on an overhead tramway and
thus transported across the river
to avoid the heavy bridge tolls.
Today there remains nothing of
Brooklyn except the bridge. built
more than fifty years ago and
still in use, and the old turnpike.
toll house. Three houses and a
grocery store at the place are of
most recent construction. The
bridge light tender .(the man
who hangs out the lights to guide
navigation under the piers) lives
in the old toll house.
When Brooklyn was at its
height as small industrial CEN
ter. the Cincinnati Southern Rail
way Company built it's line thru
Lexington, Nicholasville and Will
more and across the river at what
is now known as High Bridge.
This bridge. at that time, was the
highest in the world, it's span
reaching from bluff to bluff
across the river gorge and stand
ing more than 800 feet above the
water. This bridge opened up
the country to railroad traffic and
the decline of river traffic in this
section started At Brooklyn a
great FIRE destroyed much of the
industrial activity and several
residences at the place. Then in
1885 the Big Tide. the great
est flood in the history of the
Kentucky valley-swept through,
washing away she remaining saw
mills and warehouses. The town
was virtually abandoned and to-
,, day it is notable for it's scenic
wonders, the high cliffs and beau
tiful drives that mark the descent
from the high country on both
sides Of the river to the level OF
the valley.
In the later days also the gas
oline engine has contributed to
llessening what, isolation may
have been suffered by the river
country. Besides hauling great
lows of logs and in rush times
barges of coal on the river, the
gasoline engine hitched to wheels
in the form of automobile trucks
has become a fixture as a land
freight carrier. A number OF
Central Kentucky wholesale
houses dlave trucks which make
regular trips through the coun-
| TRY supplying small stores and
farm houses with groceries, gas
4 L., 4 Il, II