The lower Red to Boonesborough, part 2

By Northrupp Center

Illustration by Christopher Epling

Editor’s Note: Future river rat scholars take note. The online edition is (thankfully) revised from the story’s appearance in print.

…

“Gortimer.” It is dark. I am perched high upon a brick shelf on the steep banks of the lower Red River, Estill County, watching my fire-blown shadow-selves dance over a cascading series of nineteenth century iron furnaces in decay, their heavy brick hulls now off-level stages for my flickered shadows to strut upon in their fall to the river lying black one hundred feet below. “I feel ghosts.”

My day has not gone according to plan. The plan was to have NoC editor Danny Mayer and staff river writer Wes Houp pick me up at Bluegrass Airport and depart for a relaxing two-nights on the Red and Kentucky Rivers. The plan was to justify all expenses incurred on my summer trip by writing an NoC article on the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth-led effort to stop a coal-fired power plant from being built at the community of Ford, located on the Clark County banks of the Kentucky River and nearly within skipping distance of the peopled public beach just below Lock 9, Fort Boonesborough State Park. Continue reading »