Walmart Parking Lot
Paris, Kentucky
October 9, 2022
I made this drive yesterday (Saturday).
Started off at the Walmart in Belle, West Virginia, just outside of Charleston.
My happiness does NOT come from a Hershey's bar.
That's the state capitol of West Virginia.
The power plant is the 2,933 MW John Amos Plant owned by Appalachian Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power. It is the largest plant in the AEP system. The coal yard can hold 1.75 million tons of coal while the plant consumes 26,000 tons of coal per day at full capacity. Coal comes in by rail and barge as you can see from the photos. I still marvel at the engineering of power plants, especially one this large (it is actual three units).
Funny location for a chair!
Nitro, West Virginia is a city in Kanawha and Putnam countiesnamed after a World War I era nitrocellulose plant built by the government. The population was 6,518 according to the 2021 Population estimates.
Nitro was incorporated in 1932 by Circuit Court. The name Nitro derives from nitrocellulose, the main ingredient in smokeless gunpowder.[4] The Nitro area was to be the American ammunition production facility during World War I. Daniel C. Jackling "supervised the construction and operation" of the plant, which by the time of the armistice "was producing one hundred thousand pounds of high explosives per day."
Its name was selected by the United States government because of the establishment there, during World War I, of a large federal plant for the manufacture of explosives. The city is known as "a Living Memorial to World War I."
After Nitro, I visited the bustling town of Hurricane, West Virginia. The population was 6,977 at the 2020 census.
Hurricane was named after Hurricane Creek, which was, in turn, named after a group of trees at the arm of the river bent in one direction. A party of surveyors commissioned by George Washington noted the site appeared to have been struck by a hurricane, giving rise to the name. Locals pronounce the town (HURR-i-KINN) not (HURR-i-CANE). Less than 17 miles southeast of Hurricane is a post office named Tornado. (Darn, I missed that!)
A town named Hurricane Bridge was located where West Virginia Route 34 now crosses the creek, near current-day Hurricane. The town can be traced back to an 1811 Virginia map. The town primarily consisted of a large Inn. On March 28, 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought a Civil War battle at Hurricane Bridge, now known as the Battle of Hurricane Bridge.
Hurricane itself can be traced back to 1873, when a railroad track was laid through the town and a small depot was constructed. It was during this period that Main Street developed, along with other businesses in the area. Hurricane was a trading and residential town for tobacco growers and other farmers in the early 1900s. The fire department was established March 2, 1936. It was incorporated as a town in 1889, and as a city in the 1970s.
The Statue of Liberty is in Salt Lick, West Virginia.
Frenchburg is a home rule-class city in Menifee County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 486 at the 2010 census. It is the seat and only incorporated city in its rural county. It is located at the junction of U.S. Route 460 and Kentucky Route 36. Logging is the primary industry.
Frenchburg was laid out in 1869 to be the county seat of newly formed Menifee County and was named for Robert French, a local lawyer and judge It was formally incorporated by the state assembly in 1871. The town was nearly destroyed on June 27, 1882, when Beaver Creek flooded, sweeping away all but three buildings and killing six people. In 1910 the United Presbyterian Center was established in Frenchburg as the only secondary education for Menifee County by Dr. Edward Owings Guerrant, a physician and preacher. A hospital was built in 1915 and served as the only one between Lexington and Ashland for many years. In 1978 the campus was admitted to the National Register for Historic Places as Frenchburg School Campus for its educational, social, and religious significance.
There is not much to Jeffersonville, Kentucky.
I believe the post office is in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky.
Paris is located in Bourbon County. Folks actually have to be elected coroner (as well as jailer). The tall, thin building is reportedly the world's tallest three-story building. The other photos are from downtown Paris. It is a pretty town -- combination of horsey and rural.
Here's a video of downtown Paris I took while driving eastward on Main Street.
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