Of all the creative, passionate, and dedicated people I’ve gotten to meet here at the Frazier, none have been as much fun to work with as Gorp — a curious, clever, and funny yellow puppet.

Gorp is the host of Adventures in Summer Reading, a TV show created by our friends at the Louisville Free Public Library that airs on WBKI. Imagine our joy when Gorp and the gang asked my colleague Brian West and I to join them for the first episode of the season!

The show promotes LFPL’s Summer Reading Program, which is something we at the Frazier are passionate about. Our museum is one of many partner locations that offers free passes to students who complete the 10-week program. But beyond that, it’s personal for us all. I spent more hours than I can number as a young kid hanging out at the Bon Air Branch, and I know my colleagues have similar stories.

If you missed the puppet fun at the Frazier, fear not — we’ve got a link to the broadcast below. We introduce Gorp to everything from the 1975 Kentucky Colonels basketball team to buffalo chips and toe biscuits in The Lewis and Clark Experience.

If you’re curious like our puppet pal and would like a tour with Brian, me, or any of our incredible staff members, stop by for a visit. We’re excited about this stuff every day!

Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience
Frazier History Museum

This Week in the Museum

Curator’s Corner: History of George Rogers Clark Park

If you have been following along with Curator’s Corner, you probably know by now that I walk my dogs through George Rogers Clark Park every morning before work. Some days, we walk along Beargrass Creek and visit the oldest tree in Louisville, and others we just pass through the paved trail. But we always stop to say hello to John, Ann, and the other members of the Clark family who are still buried in the park. When walking through the park, I can feel the history in the place: it’s apparent the trees are old and have witnessed a lot. It was not until researching more about George Rogers and William Clark for Cool Kentucky that I realized just how historically important their family home Mulberry Hill was, and that land now makes up George Rogers Clark Park.

On August 29, 1785, John Clark, George Rogers and William’s father, purchased 256 acres; by 1803, the Clark family had increased the size of the property to 343 acres. It is believed George Rogers, his brother Jonathan, and some people enslaved by the Clark family arrived in Kentucky to build the home on the land as early as 1784 in preparation for the rest of the family’s arrival. The property included their home — a two-story log cabin that measured 40 feet by 20 feet (quite large for the time), a detached kitchen, slave dwellings, a spring house, and a grist mill. There was an orchard on the property and fields in which corn, wheat, and possibly tobacco were grown. Mulberry Hill was the center of Clark family life. John and his wife Anna had 10 children and hosted innumerable grandchildren and other guests. They were known for their parties that celebrated birthdays, May Days, and Christmases and often included dancing and barbeques.

When John died in 1799, Mulberry Hill was passed to William, who lived on the property with George Rogers until the former set off with the Corp of Discovery. Mulberry Hill was sold to their brothers, Jonathan and Edmund, who built a sawmill on the plantation in addition to the grist mill. Mulberry Hill was passed down to Jonathan’s eldest son Isaac, who lived there until after the Civil War. The large planation required the system of slavery to keep it running, and once all of those who were enslaved by the Clark family were emancipated, Isaac was 76 and unable to run the plantation on his own. Mulberry Hill was abandoned. The property passed out of the Clark family and the once-busy home collapsed in 1900. In 1917, the city of Louisville purchased the property to use as part of Camp Zachary Taylor during World War I. After the war, several descendants of the Clark family purchased the land and established George Rogers Clark Park.

You can learn more about George Rogers Clark in the Natural Kentucky section of our exhibition Cool Kentucky and William Clark and his expedition with Meriwether Lewis in our exhibition The Lewis and Clark Experience.

Amanda Briede
Curator

Museum Store: Summer Reading Recommendations

Both consistent best sellers, Karolyn Smardz Frost’s I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007) and Tori Murden McClure’s A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean (2009) tell the story of the human spirit and the will to prevail. You can pick up a copy of either book in the Frazier’s museum store.

Beer Fest: Frazier Beer, Ale Trail, and Early Bird Discount

If you want to understand the craft beer craze — and make no mistake, there is more than just run-of-the-mill barley a-brewin’ in Kentucky — you need to appreciate the authenticity of making an original.

This week, in anticipation of our Summer Beer Fest at Frazier on August 7, I’m eager to share some exciting news: the museum is partnering with a NuLu brewery to deliver a special tapping of a Frazier original beer during the festivities!

We have taken a barrel from our recent Wilderness Trail Barrel Selection and filled it with an American-Style Porter from Akasha Brewing Company. This is the same barrel in which the amazing 116 Proof #4 Char Wheated Bourbon to be featured in our July 22 Masters Series event was aged.

Now, I’ve never brewed my own beer, but I get it. To craft something original that no one has ever produced or tasted before is every bit of Kentucky cool. Our friends at Akasha tell me to anticipate a dark ruby red ale that’s malty and rich with hints of espresso and chocolate. The Bourbon barrel aging will add vanilla, caramel, and notes of oak. Now that’s a big ole’ original — yum!

The Summer Beer Fest also added another partner this week in bringing our friends at the Louisville Ale Trail on board. As the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, the Frazier loves what these guys are doing to support the great people who support Louisville beer!

If you’re interested in buying VIP tickets to the festival, you have only five more days to get them at the discounted rate. This early bird special has already accounted for nearly 50 percent of the VIP tickets, so make sure you don’t wait too long!

Andy Treinen
President & CEO

Bourbon Experiences: Ready, Set, Go; Tiny Tours, and Pop-up Tastings

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on many local businesses throughout Louisville these last 15 months with Bourbon tourism being no exception. Local distilleries have been cautious to reopen their facilities to tours and tastings to the general public due to limited space in their buildings in addition to social distancing requirements. This situation presented the Frazier History Museum with a unique opportunity to offer safe Bourbon tasting experiences to folks coming to Louisville as well as local Bourbon enthusiasts.

The first thing we at the Frazier did was make sure patrons and visitors to the city were aware of our Ready, Set, Go! Bourbon Experience. Intended for Kentucky Bourbon Trail® visitors and Bourbon buffs alike, the Ready, Set, Go! Bourbon Experience is a special promotional offer from the Frazier. It gets you first and second day admission to the museum and a spot in one of the guided, multi-brand Bourbon tastings we hold in our beautiful Order of the Writ room. This experience is a one-hour class offered on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The next thing we did was address the group sales market as it pertained to Bourbon tours and tastings. The Frazier did this with the introduction of the Tiny Tours program in late summer 2020. This program allowed the Frazier to lower the minimum age required to constitute a group from 15 to 8 people to get a group pricing rate while remaining in compliance with all COVID-related CDC guidelines. This change was made to accommodate visitors who were driving primarily from contiguous states in smaller numbers. This program offers a guided tour of the Spirit of Kentucky® Bourbon exhibition and a Bourbon tasting in our Speakeasy. Group size ranges from 8 to 15 people, and the experience is very well received by Bourbon enthusiasts.

The last component the Frazier has implemented is offering pop-up Bourbon tastings on Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. This new experience provides visitors a chance to participate in a tasting on a Sunday, when most of the distilleries in downtown Louisville are closed.

All of these new options have been designed to complement the experiences our distillery partners offer as part of a larger and more comprehensive Kentucky Bourbon Trail® experience. We’ve found that while distilleries reopen and return to pre-COVID capacities, the Frazier is able to provide some great Bourbon tastings and experiences.

These three distinct Bourbon experiences demonstrate the Frazier’s role as the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®. Feel free to contact me at syates@fraziermuseum.org or (502) 753-5666 for any additional information regarding Bourbon experiences at the Frazier.

Stephen Yates
Community & Corporate Sales Manager

Megaphone Monday: Shelby Durbin, Education and Engagement Specialist

Want to know more about the folks who make the Frazier tick? Tune in to Megaphone Monday! In each episode, Curator of Guest Experience Mick Sullivan interviews one of the Frazier’s staff members — across the room, through megaphones. It’s a fun and silly way to learn about the good folks who work here at the museum.

Today’s episode features Shelby Durbin, our new Education and Engagement Specialist.

Shelby talks about dream-hanging with Frida Kahlo, people falling through ceilings, and riding the Daytona Slingshot.

Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience

Bridging the Divide

Jenny Smith on Living the Impossible

Don’t tell Jenny Smith anything is impossible — she will prove you wrong!

She’s been proving folks wrong for about 32 years now, ever since she had an accident that resulted in a spinal cord injury, paralyzing her from the chest down.

I moved to Louisville and started working at WHAS-TV in July 1989, the same month as Jenny’s accident. Over the years, I covered stories on her, such as her travels to Afghanistan to deliver wheelchairs to those who didn’t have them.

Again, don’t tell her anything is impossible.

Now, she has written a book, Live the Impossible, a deeply personal account of both the physical and emotional impact of that day in Seneca Park.

Many in Louisville have gotten to know Jenny Smith through her story and her work and have supported her along the way.

The public is invited to her book signing on July 11 at the Louisville Community Boathouse, 1325 River Road, from 5 to 7 p.m.

That is where Jenny learned to row.

If you would like to order a copy of the book, click here. You can also read more about her on her website, jennysmithrollson.com.

I just reconnected with Jenny this week to talk about her decision to write the book, what she’s learned about others and herself, her faith, and saying yes.

Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement

History All Around Us

Corn Island Cobblestones Unearthed on Main Street

In the last week of May, city crews were working on a project near the museum when they unearthed a cluster of cobblestones dating to the early days of Louisville. In an effort to preserve this piece of history, the crew decided to drop the stones off at our front desk.

The following week, some Frazier staff members took a little field trip to Jeffersontown where we visited our friends at Corn Island Archeology (CIA). CIA works on a number of projects, but we were visiting to learn more about the findings from their investigation of the Beecher Terrace Housing Complex in downtown Louisville. After we returned from our trip, I visited CIA’s website to learn more. Ironically, I discovered that the cobblestones on West Main likely came from Corn Island, CIA’s namesake.

Corn Island is located near the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. The site is completely submerged, but its most recent occupants were a little more than a dozen families in the late 1770s. A settlement was built on Corn Island in 1778, when General George Rogers Clark was on a secret mission to Kaskaskia, a French-held fort located in Illinois. However, shortly after Clark’s departures for a mission in Illinois, many of the settlers began to occupy the mainland. Following 1779, Corn Island had no settlements.

Although Corn Island was no longer occupied by Clark and his crew, many industries took advantage of the space. This is where our cobblestones may have come into the picture. Around 1840, the owners of Tarascon’s Mill leased a stone quarry on the island. They intended to mine limestone for cement making. However, there is also speculation that rock may have been mined from the island even earlier than 1840 — perhaps as early as 1806 — to use on Main Street in downtown.

We at the Frazier are thankful for the crew who gifted us this interesting piece of Louisville history. Donations such as these help us preserve the stories of local residents and better inform the community of its history.

If you would like to learn more about Corn Island, visit Corn Island Archaeology's website.

Shelby Durbin
Education and Engagement Specialist

River City Drum Corp Documentary River City Drumbeat

Peace and Blessings: I greet you in the name of the Spirit of the Drum.

I am Albert Shumake, Executive Director and alumni of the River City Drum Corp Cultural Arts Institute. River City Drum Corp began in the summer of 1992 at the Parkland Boys and Girls Club. Under the direction of Ed Nardie White, five young men attended a drum making workshop and began developing the music and curriculum for the Parkland Drum Corp. After leaving the Boys and Girls Club, Ed White and his wife Zambia Nkrumah established the River City Drum Corp Cultural Arts Institute as a service to the community by creating programming to enhance the development of African American families with children through education, arts, and culture.

Our program boasts of many success stories of students becoming change agents in their families, schools, and communities. Many of them have left Louisville and attended universities all over the country, spreading the spirit of the drum. We use the principles of the Nguzo Saba to equip our students and families with the tools to navigate life and create and cultivate the community village needed for survival and advancement. Our story has been documented in the film River City Drumbeat, which is being released nationwide through PBS. In addition to airing on community stations nationwide, River City Drumbeat is also available to stream through Amazon.

We appreciate the opportunity to share this exciting news with the community about River City Drum Corp — a crown jewel of Louisville’s arts and culture organizations.

More information about the River City Drum Corp Cultural Arts Institute can be found at rivercitydrumcorpky.org and rivercitydrumbeatmovie.com.

Albert Shumake
Executive Director, River City Drum Corp
Guest Contributor

Albert Shumake
Executive Director, River City Drum Corp
Guest Contributor

Staff Pick

Seinfeld (Original Television Soundtrack) by Louisville’s Jonathan Wolff

On Friday, WaterTower Music surprise released a 33-track collection of songs by a Louisville-born composer. Although the songs have played through the speakers of TV sets in households around the world every day for the past three decades and counting, most people don’t know the name of the artist: it’s Jonathan Wolff.

Born and raised in Louisville, Wolff (b. 1958) established himself as a prolific composer and musician at an early age. At nine, he did TV commercials for the Baldwin piano company live on WAVE’s Morning Show. As a teenager, he studied jazz music with pianist Don Murray and saxophonist Jamey Aebersold. Upon graduating from Atherton High School in 1976, he decided to pursue a career in music and relocated to California.

In 1989, he landed a job as the composer for Seinfeld (1989 – 1998), the sitcom starring Jerry Seinfeld. In a 1994 article on Wolff for the Courier-Journal, staff writer Jeffrey Lee Puckett shared some of the granular details of the composer’s process for creating music for the now-iconic show:

Wolff’s mouth pops and finger snaps are patterned after the rhythms of Jerry Seinfeld’s speaking voice, and each week the music is tailored to fit the comedian’s opening and closing monologues. If Seinfeld speaks slowly, the pops and snaps also slow… The theme song’s melody, he said, is actually the melody of Seinfeld’s speaking voice. Wolff uses an Alesis Quadraverb to actually match the timbre of his pops and snaps to that of Seinfeld’s voice. “If there’s another melody, it’s the bass line,” Wolff said, “which is in a lower register and doesn’t compete with Jerry’s voice.”

Although the music became famous during the show’s original run from 1989 to 1998, there was never an official soundtrack released — that is, there wasn’t one until July 2, 2021. Now, fans of Seinfeld can enjoy the music that accompanies some of the show’s most memorable scenes, sans laugh track. Song titles include “The Lopper,” “Himalayan Walking Shoes,” “Jerry the Mailman,” “Kramer’s Pimpwalk,” “1937 Wedding Cake Waltz,” “Rochelle, Rochelle the Musical,” and “George’s Answering Machine.”

Seinfeld (Original Television Soundtrack) is now streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

For more information, visit Jonathan Wolff’s website.

Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist

Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park

It’s easy to take for granted what’s in your own backyard. Years ago, my parents gifted my husband, daughters, and I a state parks gift card — and what a wonderful gift it was! Not only did it provide relaxing, quality time together, it opened our eyes to the idea of vacationing nearby and taking advantage of all our state has to offer.

Most recently, in early June, we enjoyed a visit to Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park, located in western Kentucky. Kudos to my mom, Kathie Johnson, who planned the extended family trip and arranged for each family to have their own cottage. This allowed for our larger group to be near each other for outdoor dinners and games, but also have our own space as individual families. A lodge with additional rooms is also available nearby.

I always enjoy reading travel blogs, so I’m taking this opportunity to share my own suggestions for five things to do during a long weekend at Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park.

Walk the Area. Starting at the lodge, my daughter and I spent an hour just walking around near the water and enjoying the animals, boats, and scenery. A great spot for those who like to walk outdoors but aren’t up for a big hike.

Eat at Parcell’s Perk Coffee Shop and Bakery. I love to enjoy local coffee in Louisville and am always searching for a great coffee spot when we vacation. Nearby Benton, Kentucky has a terrific location that did not disappoint with coffee, pastries, smoothies, and the largest cupcakes I’ve ever seen.

Relax by the Water. We had our choice of locations to kick back, swim, and read by the water with a nice pool located adjacent to the lodge and a small public beach nearby.

Visit the Elk and Bison Prairie. Located in the nearby Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, the Elk and Bison Prairie is a 700-acre enclosure that includes elk, bison, birds, prairie mammals, and other animals. My parents, sisters, and extended family enjoyed viewing the wildlife from their vehicles on the 3.5-mile paved loop.

Explore the Woodlands Nature Center and Hematite Lake. We took a short drive to the Woodlands Nature Center to get details on hikes in that area and were pleasantly surprised to find out they were having a free day. We ended up spending over an hour there viewing the different forms of wildlife with the bobcat being a family favorite. Hematite Lake, just down the road, had a fantastic hike around the lake that was easy to navigate and beautiful with the water in view for the entire experience.

Of course, there is so much to do that we couldn’t fit it all in. Also nearby is the Kentucky Dam Village Golf Course, boat rentals, areas to fish, and much more. I hope to return soon to visit the Wickliffe Mounds State Historic Site, which is about 50 miles from the park.

To read about all of Kentucky’s 45 state parks, visit parks.ky.gov. If there is a Kentucky State Park that you highly recommend, please share it with us and explain why by emailing education@fraziermuseum.org.

Did you know the Frazier Museum’s Cool Kentucky exhibition dedicates an entire section to “Natural Kentucky”? The next time you’re visiting with us, spend some time there getting inspired for your next trip!

Megan Schanie
Manager of School and Teacher Programs