From Red Hot to Monkey's Eyebrow: Unusual Kentucky Place Names

by Robert M. Rennick and Robert M. Renick

Book Overview

" Of course you'll find Paradise in Kentucky, but it's only one of the many unusual place names in the Commonwealth. Meeting these names for the first time, visitors and residents alike assume that some clever or funny stories lie behind them. So they ask, how did Elkhorn Creek get its name? Were the roads to Red River really Hell each way? Did bugs really tussle in Monroe County? Why was everyone whooping for Larry? To be hospitable and helpful,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813109310
• ISBN13: 9780813109312
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Kentucky place names light

Robert Rennick is the dean of Kentucky place names, and this short (< 75p) has vignettes of the history and naming of the more interesting place names In case you are interested in the title, Monkey's Eyebrow is a small city in Ballard County perhaps named sometime before 1900, for, what else, Monkey's Eyebrows. Some of my favorite pieces include nearby Elkhorn Creek, Mousie (named for a daughter of a large landowner, whose other daughter is named Kitty) and Nobob and Nolynn. The source of the names is varied, but I like Peewee Valley, being named for a singing bird, when the city officials couldn't decide on a name. Readers of this, as well as genealogists, and postmark collectors should find Rennicks "Kentucky Place Names" a useful reference. Readers may also want to query the online "Geographic Names Information System" for such interesting names as Big Bone Lick .. or ....