9/24/18 Monday: It was a really rainy and warm morning, so we hung out inside for the morning, staying dry and cool. Finally around 3:00, I thought there might be a break in the rain, so I said that I wanted to go see town. Kenny said he’d tag along. When we came up the walkway from the dock, this is what we saw. Yes, a parking lot. But also a very large wall. This city is fortified against the river! There is this huge flood wall that runs all along the river.
The City of Paducah operates and maintains the concrete and earthen levee system that extends 12.25 miles (9.25 miles of earthen levee and 3.0 miles of concrete). The concrete wall in downtown Paducah is 14 feet in height. The system includes 12 pump stations and several pipe gates, pipes, and 47 vehicular openings. The floodwall was constructed between August 1939 and July 1949. The floodwall provides a level of protection equal to the record 1937 flood plus three feet.
On the inside (city side) of the wall, Western Kentucky’s heritage is displayed on the “Floodwall Murals” painted by Muralist, Robert Dafford. For five painting seasons, Mr. Dafford and the talented artists who worked with him, have portrayed Paducah’s past on panels of the town’s floodwall. These paintings are truly amazing and detailed artistry! Look at this wall! There are large gate sections that slide down into these openings to protect the city from catastrophic flood waters. The 1937 flood was devastating, and they didn’t want that to happen to the city again, so with help from the Army Corp of Engineers, a city wall was built.
There are dozens of painted wall panels, each with a bronze foot stone describing the history depicted in the painting.
This one was cool. The man in the painting is nearly life size. And so is the tow propeller that he is working on! HUGE! No wonder they tear up the river water when they go by!
This is a painting of the City Market building. I would have loved to see it like this, with all the fresh produce and goods for sale.
It was closed today, but here is the for-real building! Just imagine the activity here, back in the day when it was the supermarket of Paducah! And notice how accurate the painting on the wall is, compared to the real life building!
We found a building in town that had a marker on it for the flood of 1937. The mark was just below the lamp, at the top of the door. Yikes! The town is 50’ above normal river level. In January 1937, the water rose above the 50’ flood stage and crested at 60.8 feet. It was above flood stage for over 3 weeks. With 18 inches of rainfall in 16 days, along with sheets of swiftly moving ice coming down the river, the ’37 flood was the worst natural disaster in Paducah’s history.
Out on the river, outside the wall, we saw the American Queen – the same cruise paddlewheeler that we saw in Alton! See how low the river is here? This is normal, but it does rise – that’s why the docks have such tall pilings!
Also along the wall was this steam locomotive. No. 1518 was the last “Iron Horse” owned by the Illinois Central RR.
The railroad was important in Paducah’s history, and the steam engines were built or rebuilt in the Paducah shops for many years.
It was Monday, and as we’ve learned on this trip in many touristy towns, Mondays are when the breweries, restaurants, and little shops are closed. Yep – same for Paducah historic old town. The brewery and one of the distilleries were closed. But the Moonshine Company, purveyors of Paducah Distilled Spirits was open. So of course, we dropped in!
They had a double distillery operation here, with modern equipment, but age old distilling process.
They had a neat old museum area with all kinds of old stills. This one was one of the oldest, and is the actual still shown in the old picture on the wall behind it, with a man in “bracelets” with the lawmen – during prohibition.
Free tastings was an excellent idea! They had several flavors of moonshine, all made with natural ingredients, and with the double distilling, were all quite smooth and tasty. I really liked the peach and apple pie ones. Yep – a little bottle of apple pie came home with us. They also had some jellies, apple butters, pickles and pickled beets made by an Amish company. The pickles were so tasty, that a jar of those came home with us too.
As we walked along, I saw some steeples, so of course I said – let’s go that way. Kenny said “I knew that was coming.” 😁 This is St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church – the oldes church in Paducah located on it’s original site. The first church was built in 1849 and was enclosed by a fence, because livestock roamed freely at the time here. 😳
This is the Broadway Methodist Church, which is the oldest institution in Paducah. The original church was destroyed by fire, so this one was built to replace it in 1930.
We had no idea what this building was, so I looked it up on The Google. It seemed odd to have the Swiss Alpine decor here! It was originally built in 1927 as the “swanky Hotel Irvin Cobb”, and for decades was considered one of the finest hotels in the south. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places, and is senior and low income apartment housing. Irvin Cobb was an author from Paducah, so there several references to his name around town.
Here is one of Cobb’s quotes “Here in Paducah one encounters, I claim, an agreeable blend of Western kindness and Northern enterprises, superimposed upon a Southern background. Here, I claim, more chickens are fried, more hot biscuits are eaten, more corn pone is consumed, and more genuine hospitality is offered than in any town of like size in the commonwealth.” I think I need to learn what ‘corn pone’ is.
Remember that 1937 flood? The Red Cross has always served this community here in McCracken County. Look at all those floods and the comparative amounts of support provided.
As we wandered back to the dock, we went past a big park and parking lot that was full of giant barbecues and tents being set up. Apparently there is going to be some serious BBQ going on soon! Yep – ‘BBQ on the River’ is an annual charitable event and competition, running Thursday-Saturday. We are not planning to stay that long, but I think we may need to come back!
Here’s our dock, with our Island Girl on the right. It is a very nice dock – and look! The sun came out! Check out those pilings! We went for wood fired pizza tonight with Sherry and Alan. Good food and good company.
We’ll be moving on up the Ohio tomorrow, with a welcome turn south to say good-bye to these big fast commercial rivers. We have options on which turn to take…. stay tuned for “which way should we go?”.