Category: Bob Hill’s Floyds Fork Journal

As important as The Parklands of Floyds Fork will be to Louisville’s future, it’s equally important that we look back to the men and women who first cleared and settled that land, who built homes and raised generations of families on it and, in a sense, first preserved it for all of us. Bob Hill’s Floyds Fork Journal is an ongoing conversation with those people, a visit to those historic places so we can forever know and remember where it all began. All the stories, oral histories and old photographs and memorabilia will be stored at the Filson Historical Society.

The Grosscurth Distillery

All that’s left of the Grosscurth Distillery now are the rusted and decayed pieces of the puzzle; the scattered hunks of iron pipe jutting out into the thinly wooded landscape along Echo Trail; remnants of the distillery dam on Floyds … Continue reading

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The Pope Lick Monster – Bob Hill

Something there is – the poet Robert Frost once almost said – that loves an urban myth, and in the case of the Pope Lick Monster that now faded love has lead to a 16-minute independent movie, a well-received play, … Continue reading

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Remembering William F. Miles- Bob Hill

 By any measure you care to use – family, friends, church or community – Bill Miles made a difference. Even now, twelve years after his death in 1998 at the age of 76, one of his sons, David Miles, … Continue reading

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The Parklands Groundbreaking- Bob Hill

MAY 31, 2011 The occasion – as they always are – was labeled a groundbreaking, but the name didn’t fit. Sure, five stakes decorated with green flags were eventually and ceremoniously pounded into bare ground but nothing got broken. The … Continue reading

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Tree Planting by Bob Hill

On a gray, windy Friday morning in mid-April a small army of Fern Creek High School tree planters trooped its way down the steep hill toward the Miles Park canoe launch and a little bit of Louisville history. Leading the … Continue reading

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Stone Walls by Bob Hill

The unifying park plan was a natural, almost kids play; build 740 feet of new stone walls with 450 million-year-old Kentucky limestone. The clean, perfectly tapered, almost four-foot high dry-stone walls would anchor and guide the Creekside Playground and Sprayground … Continue reading

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The Stout House by Bob Hill

We speak today of Kentucky and Louisville history written in cursive; history dating back more than 200 years; history made lasting and bold with names such as Boone, Seaton, Omer and Stout – the latter a name still attached to … Continue reading

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Munchkinville by Bob Hill

The original name for this cluster of fish-camp cabins built along Broad Run Road and Floyds Fork in the 1930s and 40s was “Gingerbread Village” – and that name made sense, too.

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Hill Syrup by Bob Hill

All Virgil Hawthorne wanted to do was cook up some Floyds Fork maple syrup. He’d never done it before – and as it turned out he would never do it again – but he had as good an explanation as … Continue reading

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Floyds Fork Fall Hike by Bob Hill

Our Floyds Fork moments of truth included a blue plastic milk crate and a box turtle. The plastic crate sat alone on the leafy woodland trail as if wanting to be discovered – but leaving unanswered the questions of how … Continue reading

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