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Introduction Warren County has long been a place for recreational pursuits. Steamboat excursions, health resorts, boating, hunting, and fishing were all popular. Community groups and educational institutions offered organized recreational sports. Fairs and exhibitions celebrated Warren County's agricultural heritage. Chautauquas were once the rage, and theater, musical entertainment and parades remain popular. Moving pictures or nickelodeons were first shown in small temporary theatres. In the spring of 1911 the Columbia Theatre on Bowling Green's town square opened showing daily matinees and evening shows of one-reel films. |
Rivers served as highways for many nineteenth-century Kentuckians. Steamboats brought manufactured goods from big cities and carried farm produce to distant markets. Travelers welcomed the relative comforts and rapid pace of the paddlewheelers. Warren Countians often boated to Louisville for business, shopping, and family visits. A popular excursion, and one frequently booked by school groups, was a river trip to Mammoth Cave. |
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Guests reached Massey Springs Resort by steamboat and on roads the hotel touted as being "splendid for automobiles from Bowling Green." One of several popular resorts in Warren County, Massey Springs was famous for excellent fishing, good beach facilities and ice-cold spring waters that claimed to aid the healing of kidney disorders, stomach troubles and rheumatism. |
Beech Bend, a 400-acre amusement park located a few miles downriver from Bowling Green, was a favorite picnic area for mid-nineteenth-century residents. In the late nineteenth century its popularity soared following the addition of a dance pavilion. Charles Garvin made Beech Bend a nationally recognized tourist attraction after purchasing the property in 1942. He gradually added a roller rink, swimming pool, zoo, pony rides, Ferris wheel, roller coaster and other carnival rides to the park. The first overnight campers stayed at Beech Bend in 1960. |
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Bowling Green's Odeon Hall opened in 1866 as an auditorium for local productions. In 1887 banker and entrepreneur Pleasant J. Potter bought the building and operated it as Potter Opera House. He booked local and traveling theatrical productions and concert artists en route between Louisville and Nashville. A fire destroyed the opera house on July 3, 1899; rebuilt, the facility continued to provide area residents with entertainment. The Potter family sold the building in 1906. The renamed Bowling Green Opera House closed in 1925. |
The first fairgrounds, created after the Civil War, included a half-mile track, a grandstand that seated 3500 and an amphitheater that held 7500. According to J. M. "Mun" Robertson, a former fair official, on the closing day of the fair 15,000 area citizens typically crowded into the grounds to attend horse races and bicycle races, cattle shows, exhibits of baked, pickled and canned goods, needlework and other offerings. During World War II the grounds were abandoned. In 1952 the fair was revived. Today the Southern Kentucky Fair is held in Lampkin Park. |
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In 1924 a two-story restaurant was built on the site of the former Skaggs Mill that had stood above Lost River Cave. Following a 1926 fire, a supper club opened on the site. An in-cave nightclub, opened in 1934, boasted a beer garden, cafe, bandstand, private rooms and a roof over the dance floor to prevent condensation from dripping on the dancers. The club closed in 1949, in part because big bands and ballroom dancing had begun to wane in favor of more family-oriented activities. |
As they sang their way to the top of the music charts, "Hilltoppers" Billy Vaughn, Jimmy Sacca, Seymour Spiegelman and Don McGuire made Western Kentucky State College famous. For their appearance on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" in 1952, they sang "Trying" and wore college sweaters embellished with a big "W." |
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Revised December 8, 2000 Created by Donna Parker with contribution from Sandy Staebell, Laura Harper Lee, Lynne Ferguson and Jon Kay. Send comments to KyMus@wku.edu URL: http://www.wku.edu/Library/onlinexh/rrr1/Pages/Mainpages/recreation.html |
