Interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Clay Wallace, WUKY
I’m here today with Blair Thomas Hess and Cameron Ludwick, authors of Kentucky, Y'all: A Celebration of the People and Culture of the Bluegrass State. Reading the author blurb, I see that you're both described as proud Kentuckians. Can you each tell me a little bit about who you are and where you're from?
Blair Thomas Hess, Author of Kentucky, Y’all
I'm Blair. Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky.
I live, now, in Frankfort with my husband and my daughter. I'm a ninth generation Kentuckian, and it's really important to me, with the long history in this state, bringing some of the traditions and culture that I was raised with. My family is from Western Kentucky and I spent many, many summers there growing up. I just inherently was proud of that.
We would travel a lot when I was a kid, around the state parks and to all the state historic monuments, and I just kind of thought that's what families from Kentucky did. So, I grew up with this inherent pride in my home state that I realized as I got a little bit older that maybe not everybody had. But it was a great way to grow up proud of where you're from and learning about your history and culture.
Cameron Ludwick, Author of Kentucky, Y’all
I'm Cameron Ludwick. I'm also born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. My dad's whole side of the family is from Louisville. I'd be remiss if I didn't throw in a little bit of his genealogy knowledge: my fifth great-grandfather, Henry French, was one of the group that came to Kentucky in 1773, along with George Rogers Clark.
Alas, a job took me out to Austin, Texas, where I love to remind all of the Texans that everything that they have named is actually named for people who came from Kentucky first. You have to brag on it. They like to try to claim Sam Bowie, but we got it first.
Clay
Kentucky Y'all is sort of an all-encompassing book about Kentucky culture, Kentucky facts, Kentucky traditions. What piece from the book are you each most excited to share?
Blair
We talk about food and clothes and drinking and celebrating but, at the end of the day, we really are celebrating the Kentuckians. So for me, one of the exciting things to bring to it was all the Kentucky inventions. Did you know that the inventor of the stoplight was born in Kentucky? Did you know that the cheeseburger was invented in Kentucky? It's all these wonderful facts that I just don't think people realize about their home state. Our president, Abraham Lincoln from Kentucky, is the only president with a patent! There's just so many really cool facts.
Cameron
I think for me, it's the same. The longer we work on these projects - and we started as My Old Kentucky Road Trip back in pre-2015, early on - but the more we dig in, the more we learn.
There has been no end to new things we have learned with each passing trip, with each passing book, with each event that we do. One of the things that I had never heard of in 30-some-odd years of being in Kentucky was the salute to Black jockeys, which happened in Louisville for decades alongside the Kentucky Derby Festival.
There are so many other stories you don't know! We've had two Nobel Prize winners, and they were both in genetics. There are so many ways to be proud of your state and to continue to learn and stay curious that really have made this such an important project for me.
Blair
And it never fails! Whether it's a road trip, and we're meeting people and talking about things, or we're at a book talk or an interview like this, someone will say, “Oh, have you ever heard of this?” Or, “Have you ever been here?”
It always amazes me that after five books and many years of doing this together, it's often, “No, I didn't know that!” “I haven't been there!”
There's so many places we still haven't seen and so many things we find out every day. There's just always something else coming.
Clay
I'm going to rewind a little bit. Tell me more about Abraham Lincoln's patent.
Blair
He invented these fabric bladders that you would put on a raft. The premise was if you were traveling along, say, the Ohio River, and you wanted to cross over something in the river - debris, a rock - you can inflate these bladders; then, you could float over whatever is the obstruction in the water, and then you could deflate them again and continue on your journey.
You can go to the Frazier History Museum in Louisville and see the patent. He never actually manufactured it or used it, but he still has the patent and is the only US president to have one.
Cameron
Can I give you one more fun Lincoln fact?
Clay
Please!
Blair
She really likes Lincoln facts!
Cameron
So, we're sitting here at the WUKY studio and we're actually very close to the Blackburn Correctional Facility. The Blackburn Correctional Facility is named for Kentucky Governor Luke Blackburn.
Luke Blackburn was actually a member of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War and became governor after the Civil War. During the war, he was potentially the very first American to ever attempt to commit biological warfare.
He attempted to send a chest of clothes from Malaria victims to Abraham Lincoln. He was our first American biological warfare terrorist who then became governor and was really fascinated by prison reform. He was the major proponent of state-run facilities rather than privatization - and, now, the Blackburn Correctional Facility is named for him.
Clay
Talk a little bit more about previous projects that you’ve done together.
Blair
We started traveling together probably 15, 18 years ago. It started because we had graduated from college and been friends for many, many years, and I moved to Nashville for a job. We were looking for ways to connect on weekends, to meet halfway, so we started meeting in these different locations in Kentucky.
I think Mammoth Cave was among our first. We went to Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville. We would do these road trips together; we didn't really call them that, they were just meeting up and trips.
At the time, we started blogging and we would tell our stories about, ”If you go here, make sure you do this,” “Make sure you stop and eat here,” “Make sure you don't be late to this, because you'll miss this.” We had all these tips and tricks for traveling. In doing so, we kind of accidentally built this travel following.
So we expanded and we had this blog. And the blog led to our first book, which is My Old Kentucky Road Trip, with History Press and Arcadia Publishing. From there, we wrote three more travel guides that were little mini guides about bourbon and Civil War history and food.
Really, each one of them was this guide to not just telling you about state history or state culture, but getting you to get in the car with your friends or your family and to drive to these destinations and experience it yourself. Our idea was: road trip around your home state, learn about your home state, be proud of your home state! And we wrote four travel books encouraging folks to do that.
Cameron
For us, it was also about taking so many vacations as children and going to other places. And you do miss the things that are just down the road because they, for whatever reason, don't feel psychologically special enough or far away enough.
Blair
People want to go to the beach, go across the ocean, go somewhere exciting. And our point was there were so many things exciting to do here, but people just didn't realize how cool they were.
Cameron
Yeah! And we've had the best time reading all the signs. You see the brown signs on the highway, you’ve got to pull over.
Blair
Cameron stops at all of them.
Cameron
I do
Blair
She also stops at all the cemeteries. Girl loves the cemetery, I don’t get it.
Cameron
I will say, near Central City in Western Kentucky. I do particularly love Barclay’s gravesite, for whom one of the Kentucky State Resort lodges is named for, our only vice president of the United States. It’s also very close to the Everly Brothers Monument and Cemetery in Clay City, which we got lost trying to find.
Blair
We did, and it's really funny because they kept talking about the Everly Brothers Museum. And we looked and we couldn't find anything. We finally found the grave, I think, but then we stopped at McDonald's across the street from the cemetery to use the bathroom and get a snack before getting back on the road. And inside the McDonald's is the museum. They have this exhibit in McDonald’s.
Cameron
Huge display. Memorabilia. Posters.
Clay
So you’re writing not just for tourists, and not just for locals, but for local tourists? Who is this book for?
Blair
It’s for everybody! The idea is: we write it for Kentuckians first to say, “Explore your backyard! Get out! Be proud of where you come from.”
I am part of the Speakers Bureau with Kentucky Humanities, and it's a wonderful experience. I go into a lot of schools and, when I'm there, I'll ask these kids, “Raise your hand if you're proud to be from Kentucky.”
And they're just not. They don't raise their hand. They don't know. And my mission while I'm there is to, hopefully by the time I leave, have a few more hands go up. You're from here. Explore here. Be proud of here.
But then, of course, we also want folks to come here and increase tourism and move to our state and help our state. I mean, we're proud to be from here, and we want others to be part of it as well.
It’s for everyone. We say “Kentuckians” or “Kentuckian wannabes,” anyone who wants to come!
Cameron
Absolutely. And I think, for whatever reason, for so many years, Kentucky has been an overlooked state in the canon of great, interesting US states. And I think when we speak to outside audiences or audiences who are not Kentuckians or don't know how cool and amazing Kentucky is, that's really the goal. We may have been overlooked, you might have this stereotype or this image in your head, but that is not at all what it is.
If you come, if you just spend a half a day, a day, drive through on your next trip and take the parkways instead of the interstate, there is so much to see and do and realize that this is actually one of the greatest places in the world.
Clay
Kentucky really is an extremely diverse state. I mean, I can be in Hopkinsville, and I can be in Ashland, and it's like I'm in two completely different places. Both are friendly, both are delightful and full of wonderful people, but if I had to guess what state I was in, I don't know if I'd give the same answer both times.
Blair
It’s bizarre. If you start in the westernmost tippity-tip in Fulton County and you drive all the way east, I mean, it's like you're crossing several different experiences as you go.
People are like, “What's your favorite thing about Kentucky?” And I can't. I mean - Can I have them by region? You know, can I pick one in western and one in central, one in eastern? It's just too hard to say, you know, this is the quintessential Kentucky thing, because it is so diverse.
Clay
What’s something you found out close to your backyard that was exciting?
Blair
Oh, goodness. You know, I moved to Frankfort from Lexington about 10 years ago and the first thing we did was explore everything there was to see in Frankfort.
Daniel Boone's grave is really cool, mainly because of the mystery surrounding whether or not he's actually buried there. I think I'm contractually obligated to tell you he is buried there, just as a Kentuckian, but the mystery around whether or not that's real is fun. It has amazing views of Frankfort.
Rebecca Ruth Candy is like a staple in Frankfort. They have an amazing history of being schoolteachers who started a chocolate candy business together and invented the Bourbon Ball, which we all love so much now.
There's so many cool things. Every year, we discover something a little bit different. I just last year went for the first time to the Kentucky Stonehenge, which is in Munfordville. I was taking my daughter to Kentucky Down Under, which if you have not been, you should go. And I don't even know how to explain it to people who have not been there, other than it's a zoo that you can go into the exhibit. It's just as terrifying as it sounds.
But, we were leaving Kentucky Down Under and we stopped at this Stonehenge, and it's incredible. I mean, it's a couple who, it's in their private yard, but they encourage people to stop. They've built it as a monument to their child. Every day, I stumble upon something I didn't know was there before.
Cameron
I think for myself, one of my favorite trips that we did was one afternoon, summertime, we had met somewhere for lunch in downtown Lexington, visiting our parents, whatever. We decided on a whim to do the Lexington Downtown History Walking Tour, which includes Gratz Park. It includes the Mary Todd Lincoln House, of course, that whole neighborhood.
Blair
Transylvania.
Cameron
Yep. the Bluegrass Trust has this fabulous downloadable pamphlet that you can follow along, maps. You can stop, you can listen to recordings on your phone as you're going through these things. And that, to me, was really fabulous. You grow up going to the Carnegie Center or hearing all about the Morgan House and the stories around that, but to really take a moment, walk around those few, five or six city blocks, enjoy the day, and have a new perspective on it.
Clay
Going into this work, was there a fact that you wanted to include that you then found out was maybe not entirely true, or maybe was a more complicated story than you first realized?
Blair
Oh, gosh. I think a lot of the stories with Kentucky are complicated stories. I think that's something that we've kind of historically glossed over or whitewashed a bit.
We talk a lot about the Derby in this book as a cultural element, as a historical element. We talk a lot about Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark, who founded the Derby. But it wasn't just about inheriting the land and the history of horse racing and kind of making gambling “classier” than it was before.
The winners of the first 10, 20 Derbys were Black jockeys and Black trainers. Why was that the case?
Cameron
And why did they disappear?
Blair
And I think that there were so many experiences like that that you get into. One thing you happen to know because you heard it on a tour one time, and then when you dig a little bit deeper, you realize that this is the root of that, and that's how we got there.
One of my favorite stories is about the cabin at the Abraham Lincoln birthplace. If you ever go there in Hodgenville to the birthplace, the cabin is in the monument. It's beautiful. And they will tell you that it is parts of the original cabin. Maybe. But when they went to find it after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, some reporters went to Hodgenville to try to find this cabin, and they couldn't find it. Eventually, they did sort of recreate it with wood from the same era.
Then it went on a cabin tour around the Northeast, along with Jefferson Davis's cabin, who was, of course, born 70 miles from Abraham Lincoln. And during the cabin tour, parts of the cabin get mixed up. And so you go to see Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, and the cabin is sort of his, sort of not, sort of Jefferson Davis's, sort of just historical. And there's so many things like that that I think, if you go on the field trip and you listen to the first tour, you take it at face value. And then, the more you talk to people, the more great tall tales of Kentucky you find.
Cameron
The other part that I know we would have loved to have included…
It was very important for us to put an indigenous land acknowledgment in this book. There are a few books on, particularly, the Shawnee Nation that was present in Kentucky before white settlers moved in. There are a few older titles. There's also not a lot of historical evidence - and there are plenty of reasons for that, historical reasons for that, and disappointing historical reasons for that. There are still descendants of those nations and those tribes that exist in the modern day, but many of those stories were lost and have been lost. For us, the land acknowledgment, while it's not as full or robust a history or an explanation, exploration, as would be ideal, or that we would love to discover or learn more about, there are limitations there that are really unfortunate. But it was important for us to acknowledge that these people came first, and they are still here. And so we were glad to be able to put at least some part of that into the book.
Clay
How has it been working with the University Press of Kentucky?
Cameron
Wonderful.
Oddly enough, I started my career at the University Press of Kentucky. I was a young college English major and had sky-high dreams of going and working and publishing in a big skyscraper in New York somewhere, but was lucky enough to have my first job doing exactly what I wanted to do in my hometown. And while I work for another publisher now, it's really wonderful getting to work again with so many colleagues that I've known for so long. And it's just great. It always feels funny to be there on the other side of things, but the University Press of Kentucky is fabulous.
I'm such a fan of the mission for not only the University Press of Kentucky, but for university presses as a whole. Without their work and without those fabulous books, all of this would be lost. A lot of these books that we got our research from were published by the University Press of Kentucky. The reason that press exists is because those highfalutin publishers in New York don't want to publish those books, and it's important as part of keeping our history alive and keeping that cultural knowledge.
Clay
Where else can people follow your work
Blair
Well, we're on social media, mostly on Instagram and Facebook. My Old Kentucky Road Trip, it was our first book and that's kind of our brand we've stuck with, so they can always follow along our adventures there. We like to share road trips that we take. We ask for recommendations, we give our recommendations, we share great photographs from our adventures. Where else, Cameron?
Cameron
You can also request Blair to come and speak as part of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau.
Blair
Yes, I will come speak to you! I’m not that boring and I only tell a few lies.
Clay
Do you have a favorite lie to tell?
Blair
The funny thing is, you know, we start when we were doing our bourbon book. We were out on the road and you go to the first distillery and they were the oldest and the first and the best and the original and the longest operating… And then you'd go 10 miles down the road and they were the oldest and the first and the best and the longest operating. And I was like, it takes about two stops to go, “Wait a second.” But that's the greatest thing about these Kentucky stories. We will have an account of it that we're like, “This is the true version,” and then I will go to an event and I will tell a story about an occasion or a trip or a family or a history and someone inevitably will raise their hand in the audience and they will be like, “Actually, there's some other account.”
At first it really rattled me when I'd be out on these talks. And now it's kind of fun. I'm like, “Tell me your version. I wanna hear your version.” And then I will spend some time trying to dig in and figure out which one is right. Oftentimes, they both are, like different versions of the same story. It's very fun.
Clay
It feels to me like part of the essential character of Kentuckians is storytelling.
Blair
Absolutely, absolutely.
Cameron
100%. There is a long, long history there, and I believe there will be a long, long future as well.
Blair
Yeah! so true in this book as well. I mean, "Kentucky Y'all" is our first book that is not a road trip guide. It's really kind of a love letter to Kentucky of sorts where we dive into the history and the culture and the whys of everything. You know: “Why is it that a blanket of roses gets a police escort, you know, every year to Louisville?” There's just so many great kind of oddities that we wanted to explore, but we wanted you to learn about our great history and our great traditions while doing that.
Cameron
And feel proud.
Blair
And feel proud.
Kentucky, Y'all is available in bookstores now. Blair and Cameron will be doing a reading, discussion, and book signing Sunday, September 29 from 2-3 pm at the Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort, Kentucky.