Lying west of the Allegheny Mountains and extending westward for some
three hundred miles, bounded, for the most part, on the north by the Ohio
River and extending to the Mississippi, lies the State of Kentucky. In its
eastern portion, constituting nearly one-third of its area, the surface is
broken, and so high as to be termed mountainous. A large area occupying
the central third, and in the early day mostly a prairie land, is now
known as the famous Blue Grass section. The western third of the State is
practically level, being but a few feet above the sea, and cypress swamps
are not infrequent. This section is commonly termed “The Pennyrile.”
In the middle of the eighteenth century, Kentucky was a portion of that
unexplored western realm belonging by grant to the State of Virginia, and
designated as a part of Fincastle County. The eastern portion in the early
day abounded in wild game common to the Appalachian forests. The
undulating grass lands in the central part of the State provided ample
grazing for the herds of buffalo and deer that were found there at the
time of the coming of man. The skeletons that have been exhumed indicate
that it was the feeding ground of the giant mastodon before the discovery
of America.
About two hundred years after Columbus discovered America, a young man
twenty-two years of age came to Canada from the Old World. On his arrival
he learned from the settlers and Indians the possibility of a passage to
the South Sea, which they then thought the Gulf of Mexico to be. Desirous
of making this journey, and lured by the possibility of reaching the
Pacific by water, he secured the assistance of Indians and some white
hunters as guides and set out upon an expedition of exploration into the
country concerning which he had heard such fascinating stories.
Crossing the St. Lawrence and traveling southward, he came to what is now
called Allegheny River. Securing birchbark canoes, he and his party
descended the Allegheny to its junction with the Monongahela, then turning
southwestward on the beautiful stream formed by these two small rivers and
now known as the Ohio, he explored the country along the banks of the
river to what was called by him the Rapids of the Ohio. Thus, LaSalle was
the first to gaze upon the country from the mouth of the Big Sandy to the
present site of Louisville, and to make a record of such discoveries.