OWENSBORO, KENTUCKY

Located on the banks of the Ohio River, Owensboro is Kentucky's third-largest city. Owensboro is called a festival city, with over 20 annual community celebrations that attract visitors from around the country and around the world. From barbecue to bluegrass, from fine arts to fine dining, from convention center business to the business of having fun, you will find it here.

Tourist Commision of Owensboro www.visitowensboro.com

Points of interest, Facts and Events

Owensboro's Sassafras Tree
Corner of Frederica Street (Hwy. 431) and Maple Avenue The largest known Sassafras tree in the world and is approximately 300 years old. The tree measures over 100 feet tall and 21 feet in circumference. A few other sassafras trees are 60 feet or taller, but the average sassafras is 30 to 50 feet tall. The sassafras tree is a pioneer species that can usally be found growing along country roads and in old abandoned fields. The bark, twigs, and leaves of the sassafras are aromatic and pleasant to the taste. Each tree produces three differently shaped leaves: ovate, one-lobed, and three-lobed.

The champion sassafras was threatened by the widening of a highway in 1957. But when the bulldozers came, owner Grace Rash was waiting with her shotgun. She held them off at gunpoint until a call to the governor resulted in the building of a retaining wall to protect the tree.

 

International Bar-B-Q Festival

The International Bar-B-Q Festival is an event held in Owensboro, Kentucky, every second weekend in May since 1979. The festival provides an opportunity for sampling many varieties of barbecued meats, including chicken, mutton, and burgoo.Cooking teams compete for the Governor's Cup, awarded to the team judged to have the best barbecued cuisine.Other attractions include square dancing, musical performances, and arts and crafts.

www.bbqfest.com

 

Ben Hawes State Park

Ben Hawes State Park is a park located just outside of Owensboro, Kentucky in Daviess County. The park encompasses 297 acres, and was named for a former mayor of Owensboro

International Bluegrass Music Museum

The International Bluegrass Music Museum or IBMM is the official bluegrass music museum located in RiverPark Center near downtown Owensboro, Kentucky, United States. The museum has interactive exhibits, posters, costumes, live instrument demonstrations, and its own summer festival called ROMP (River of Music Party). The museum hosts a bluegrass jam session the first and third Saturday of each month from 6PM until 10PM. IBMM is also the site for the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor. The museum is located at 117 Daviess Street (mailing address of 207 East Second Street), Owensboro, Kentucky and is open each week from Tuesday through Sunday.

www.bluegrass-museum.org

Owensboro Events of interest
Owensboro considers itself the "BBQ Capital of the world"; it holds its International BBQ festival and competition every second weekend in May.

During the summer downtown offers Friday After 5, a 16-week series of free outdoor concerts on the downtown riverfront. The festival was created and sponsored by Downtown Owensboro, Inc. The festival includes live bands, events for families, and entertainment every friday from 5:00 pm till 10:00 pm.

Owensboro is home to the Annual Owensboro PumpkinFest held each September at the Sportscenter/Moreland Park complex. The festival consists of food vendors, crafts people, carnival rides, children and adult activities and games, and plenty of contests using pumpkins.

www.owensboropumpkinfest.org

Each year, the festival hosts a weekend long concert series featuring some of the areas top bands such as Far From Fallen, Sundown, Bad Kitty, and Mr. Nice Guy to name a few. The event was started by the Glenmary Sisters (also based in Owensboro) as a way to raise awareness and funds for their mission work in the southeastern United States.

Western Kentucky Botanical Garden

The Western Kentucky Botanical Garden 9 acres (3.6 hectares) is a relatively new botanical garden in Owensboro, Kentucky. It is open to the public year round, from sunrise to sunset. The entrance is just west of downtown on 2nd Street at Carter Road.

The garden began in 1993 in a cornfield as the idea of Mike Klahr, horticulturist for Daviess County. Today six gardens have been established: a butterfly garden, rose garden, daylily garden, iris garden, herb garden, and a fruit and berry garden. Plants include apple, apricot, cherry, peach, pear trees, as well as barberry, boxwood, blackberry, hemlocks, germander, lavender, peonies, raspberry, santolina, and yews.

Glover Cary Bridge

The Glover H. Cary Bridge is a continuous truss bridge that spans the Ohio River between Owensboro, Kentucky and Spencer County, Indiana. It was named for the late U.S. Congressman Glover H. Cary (1885-1936), and opened to traffic in September 1940. It was originally a toll bridge, but tolls were discontinued in 1954.

The bridge was funded through a $1.03 million federal grant, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program, and public fundraising efforts. At first, the bridge connected Kentucky Highway 75 to Indiana Highway 75; in 1954, Kentucky 75 was redesignated U.S. Highway 431 and Indiana 75 became U.S. Highway 231.

In the fall of 2002, when the William H. Natcher Bridge was completed, U.S. 231 was rerouted onto that bridge and the former U.S. highway became the southern leg of an extended State Road 161.

William H. Natcher Bridge

The William H. Natcher Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge that carries U.S. Highway 231 over the Ohio River. The bridge connects Owensboro, Kentucky to Rockport, Indiana and opened on October 21, 2002. It is named in honor of William Huston Natcher, a former United States Representative who served Kentucky's 2nd Congressional District from 1954 until his death in 1994. The bridge project was named for Natcher only three months before his death. It is owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and was commissioned by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

Notable natives

Politicians

Wendell H. Ford, former Kentucky Governor and U.S. Senator
John M. Spalding, WWII hero, politician
W. Ralph Basham, former Director of the United States Secret Service
Steve Henry, former Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky

Sports figures

Rex Chapman, former NBA basketball player
Cliff Hagan, former NBA basketball player
Logan Johnson, former Louisville Cardinals baseball player
Brad Wilkerson, MLB baseball player
Darrell Waltrip, NASCAR driver and sports commentator
Michael Waltrip, NASCAR driver,
Jeremy Mayfield, NASCAR driver
Jeff Green, David Green, and Mark Green, NASCAR drivers
Stuart Kirby, NASCAR driver
Justin Miller, NFL football player
Nick Varner, pool champion
Nicky Hayden, Motorcycle Racer
Roger Lee Hayden, Motorcycle Racer
Tommy Hayden, Motorcycle Racer
BJ Whitmer, professional wrestler
Mark Higgs, former NFL football player
Ken Willis, former NFL football player

Entertainers

Johnny Depp, actor, director, musician
Tom Ewell, actor
Brian "beej" Jackson, radio/TV personality
Mark Stuart, vocalist for Audio Adrenaline
William Booth Wecker, showman of the 1930s and 1940s
Byron C. Miller, filmmaker and member of God Module
John Ferguson, member of The Apples in Stereo.

Authors and journalists

Terry Bisson, author
Chuck Clark, journalist
Stephen F. Cohen, Russian studies scholar
Moneta Sleet Jr., Pulitzer prize-winning photographer

On August 14, 1936, downtown Owensboro became the site of the last public hanging in the United States. Rainey Bethea was executed for the rape of 70-year-old Lischa Edwards, who was also murdered. He had confessed to her strangling but the Commonwealth indicted him only on the rape charge since that was the only capital crime for which the penalty was hanging. And many say his is one of the many ghost still haunts the Downtown area to this very day.

Historic sites and museums: Owensboro Area Museum of Science and History, Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, International Bluegrass Music Museum

Colleges and universities: Brescia University, Kentucky Wesleyan College, Owensboro Community & Technical College, Daymar College

Haunts Of Owensboro Ghost Tour

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