Frazier Museum's '120: Cool KY Counties Exhibit' now open

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Frazier Museum's newest exhibit is now open.

The new "120: Cool KY Counties Exhibit" opened at the museum on March 15 with a news conference and open house. It's designed to showcase the unique history of each of Kentucky's 120 counties.

The Cool KY Counties exhibit is located in the Cool Kentucky exhibition on the museum's first floor. It features two touch screen maps of Kentucky that displays interesting content from the county that was chosen -- i.e., a text story, video, or a song by a local artist. The museum will continue to add to the content as it gathers more material, and objects from various counties will be displayed on rotation.

Stories featured in the exhibit cover numerous subjects, including: the birthplace of Dollar General (Allen County), the first iron ore furnace west of the Alleghanies (Bath County), the only US city built inside a meteorite crate (Bell County), the 2023 Softball Pitcher of the Year (Carter County), the world’s largest apple pie (Casey County), a famed NASCAR mechanic (Edmonson County), the Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 (Hardin County), a Hungarian mining co-op (Martin County), a Top Chef contestant (McCracken County), the town of Whoopflarea (Owsley County), the lost town of Creelsboro (Russell County), and Kentucky’s first woman State Bacteriologist (Warren County).

Donations from the James Graham Brown Foundation and Team Kentucky helped make the exhibit possible.

"With generous support from the James Graham Brown Foundation and Team Kentucky, we look forward to celebrating and empowering communities via opportunities for cross-promotion and tourism—especially those who often go overlooked in small, rural counties," president and CEO Andy Treinen said in a written statement. "By sharing these 'hidden stories,' we want to promote exploration, cultivate respect, and bridge urban and rural divides on the basis of Kentucky’s extraordinary history and heritage."

The exhibit also includes cases in which a handful of real objects from different counties will be displayed on rotation. The case currently features a wool coat (Adair County), a Mammoth Cave Hotel image (Barren County), minerals (Crittenden County), a Lincoln image (Fayette County), a WPA model (Henderson County), a miners image (Letcher County), a dress (Marion County), a tobacco artifact (Nicholas County), and woodcarvings (Wolfe County).

During Friday's open house, officials said free annual memberships will be awarded to the top five counties that sign up the most new subscribers to the museum's newsletter.

To learn more about Frazier History Museum, click here.

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