Downstream
Kentucky Lake/Marshall County KY - A Big Dam Adventure
Episode 16 | 25m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Located in the western corner of the state, Kentucky Lake is one of the largest lakes.
Located in the western corner of the state, Kentucky Lake is one of the largest manufactured lakes in the world. In this episode we learn about the dam that made the lake and the ghost towns that lie beneath it. We'll visit the Dam Brew Haus and try local beers, learn how to wake surf, play some mini-golf with some unique animals, try local cuisine at Belew's Dairy Bar and more.
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Downstream is a local public television program presented by KET
Downstream
Kentucky Lake/Marshall County KY - A Big Dam Adventure
Episode 16 | 25m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Located in the western corner of the state, Kentucky Lake is one of the largest manufactured lakes in the world. In this episode we learn about the dam that made the lake and the ghost towns that lie beneath it. We'll visit the Dam Brew Haus and try local beers, learn how to wake surf, play some mini-golf with some unique animals, try local cuisine at Belew's Dairy Bar and more.
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Mercer County Tourist Commission.
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Did you know Kentucky has more navigable miles of water than any other state in the U.S. except Alaska?
Is Alaska still a state?
There's 9000 miles of streams and dozens of rivers.
It's also quite famous for some other liquids, those which flow from a barrel.
That being beers, bourbons and wine.
Many of the world's best known distilleries can be found right here in the Bluegrass State.
And interestingly enough, pretty darn close to many of our lakes, rivers and streams.
We're here to take you on an expedition of the secrets and histories of our intricate waterways.
While visiting Kentucky's distilleries, breweries and wineries.
I'm Carrie, and I'm pale.
And we are two Kentuckians who are pretty proud of our state.
Share a sip of what the Commonwealth has to offer.
Carrie, this is the 18th hole and I think I'm pretty sure you're in the lead.
You you have the most points at this stage.
I do, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.
Well, okay, that's good for me, then.
You know, this is a pretty cool place, though, right?
Maggie's.
I mean, this.
Is super neat.
The whole animals.
I mean, it was a jungle.
We're going to adopt a pet.
Yes.
All.
I want to see if there's a way for me to adopt all over the ostrich.
I think there is a connection between the two of us.
So if I hit this, I can play golf for the rest of my life here, I think in the first shot or something like that.
Or maybe just a free game.
Maybe just a free I.
Don't know.
We're supposed to do from here.
Let's see what happens right here.
You ready?
I'm ready for the rematch, Kyle.
Okay, here we go.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Oh, yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
See that?
Hey, it looks like there's something in his hand.
What is that?
You want to open it?
I'm afraid to open things that we find on this show.
Just like Van Halen, Pointer Sisters, House of Payne and Criss Cross said.
Jump.
Jump, jump.
In order to continue your adventure.
Jump.
Jump.
Jump.
Well, good luck with your shot.
According to the locals around here, when you are told to jump, they only mean one place.
So Carrie and I head to the infamous rock quarry, also known as Party Cove.
Aweful!
Aweful.
Hey, Kyle, what's this?
It looks litter.
People are littering.
You're not supposed to litter in the lake.
Yeah, but it looks like there's a message in it.
A message?
And we were told to jump for another clue.
Do you think that's going to be a riddle?
I do.
Let's go find out.
Get on the boat.
Probably snakes in here.
Okay.
So.
All right.
What you got there?
All right, so it says we dare you find the birthplace of this jumping Hall of Fame warrior while you adventure on Kentucky Lake.
Jumping Hall.
Of Fame?
Well, obviously, it's a hospital somewhere.
It's a birthplace.
So we found out what the whole jump thing meant, right?
That was a lot of fun, Kyle.
I hope you enjoyed it as much.
As I did as you.
I did not enjoy it, but I did it, and it's done.
And that is all I have to say about that.
What a great spot we're here.
Yes.
Kentucky lake, the rock quarry.
We got the sands.
We got everything going on.
How fun is this?
I mean, it is a beautiful day.
It is a beautiful day out on the lake.
This is going to be a great day.
And I intend to spend my entire day on this lake.
I'm going to do a little tubing.
Someone's going to teach me how to wake surf.
I'm going to meet up with a local writer and she's going to tell me all about what this area was like before Kentucky flooded.
It.
Well, while you're doing that, I'm going to swim to shore and I'm going to be thirsty.
And I'm going to the Kentucky Dam Brewhouse, which is a house with Brew, and I'm going to the craft beer festival on the beach.
That sounds like the dam with 30 different brews from all over the place.
Well, how about since I'm going to be thirsty, too, that I'll meet you at that beer beach party?
All right.
All right.
Get to swimming.
I understand that you know more about the history of Kentucky Lake and this dam than probably anyone else in the area.
I'm not sure about that, but I know quite a bit.
I have been around for a few years, so I grew up watching this dam be built.
I was four years old when it was started in 1938, and I was 11 years old when it was dedicated on October the 10th, 1945.
And I was here and I was 11 years old.
So Kentucky Utilities is not who ended up building this down around the.
Tennessee Valley Authority built Kentucky Dam.
The Tennessee Valley Authority didn't exist until I believe it was May 1933, when the TVA Act was passed by Congress.
The building of Kentucky Dam had three reasons tourism had nothing to do with it.
Tourism is a wonderful byproduct.
The reasons were flood control, navigation and the production of electric hydroelectric power was number three and so on.
On July the first, 1938, construction began on Kentucky D Now, I understand there's some special rocks in this damn well.
If you're looking at the rock here at Kentucky Dam, you're looking at rock that came from Star Quarry.
And a Star quarry is what is now known as as the party cove.
In the late 19th century, Belgian immigrant Lewis Vogle who was from Brussels, Belgium, came to Lyon County, Kentucky, which is right across the Tennessee River.
I got to take a plunge off that cliff earlier.
It is no joke.
Well, well, no, I'm sure it is.
You remember the dam being built and you remember when it was done.
Tell me what it looked like before all of this water flooded this area.
Well, I can remember I was a little girl when the dam was begun, but I can remember what the river looked like.
They flooded all that farmland.
Did they did they leave houses and cemeteries or where did all of those people in those buildings go?
Out of the cemeteries, most of the cemeteries that were going to be under the water, that all of those cemeteries were relocated.
Now, the homes, some of the people moved their homes.
I can remember homes in old Gilbertsville being on wooden blocks, being ready to roll down.
The road.
And.
And when I say down the road, if I say highway, it really wasn't a highway.
It was usually a dirt gravel road.
There are several towns under water.
Well, there are several towns, but there there is just one.
That was in Marshall County.
Most of its land was taken to be flooded for Kentucky Lake.
Well, thank you so much for sharing all this wonderful information with me.
And I'm really excited to go for a swim now in the lake.
Well, you have fun.
Thank you so much.
You are most welcome.
After taking a swim in the big drink.
I think it's time for me to go get, you know, a big drink at that dam house, which is a house near the dam.
It's the dam brewhouse.
We're right here by the lake.
At a house, Marshall County with beers.
Wonderful beers.
How did this place come to be?
This is so fantastic.
I love it.
Yeah, it used to be just a house, so.
Yeah, right.
It was just a tap room at first.
Okay.
And they really struck.
Jeff and Sherry, the owners, they struck while the iron was hot.
in the wet county, newly wet county.
And this place slid in immediately.
As quick as I can get it going, people like beer, and that's just a fact of life.
And the people of this beautiful county like beer, they didn't have a place to get it locally for a long time.
And part of when we opened up, a lot of people didn't drink craft beer.
So we've converted a lot of domestic drinkers.
You know, actually, I grew up in this neck of the woods and it's so fun to be here because this wasn't here now.
And it's it's just so refreshing in so many ways.
Tell me a little bit about what you guys are brewing here.
I see we've see the menu up there and you've got several different styles that you're making.
But tell me about what's in front of us.
Our first two staples, we brewed them back to back, first go round.
And of course, we had hiccups on both of them.
They had to learn.
We got our damn dirty blond ale and over here we got our house hazy northeast style IPA.
In the middle.
We got our Between the Lakes lager.
It's a Dortmunder style lager.
And these are three of the first four beers we did.
Okay.
And one of the big things around here was, like I said, the domestic drinkers, we had to come out swinging with a blond ale.
That's not the closest thing we can get.
Right?
Right.
Lagers.
Typically in a craft scene, you have a little bit more of a taste and someone who drinks and drinking lagers out of a bottle, they don't expect that.
Right?
Right.
I find that, unfortunately, there's some people who drink that out of the bottle that don't even know that it's called a lager.
Right.
And then I've got.
You've got the F. Three, F three.
Is the regular good old fashioned IPA, about 7%.
You got it named it that way.
So that if we ever vary the stoutness of it, we can downgrade that tornado or upgrade it.
Oh, it's a tornado thing.
Yeah.
Which is a bit of a sensitive subject parts.
Yeah.
But a real part of life unfortunately in this neck of the woods because they do happen and you guys do some dark beers.
Obviously.
Summertime, we're out on the water.
It's hot.
Yeah, the lighter beer is a little more popular.
Yeah, because people do think that it hydrates you.
Doesn't drink water for folks.
Seriously, that's a PSA from the show.
But in the summer it is nice to have these as well as some sours and things like that.
But you guys do some sours as well and or anything.
A little bit sours.
We we've got Irish red.
It's it's probably the most constant darker beer.
And we've usually got a stout coffee stout.
We've done barrel aged stout.
What about the season?
So obviously this is a summer place, right?
Because you guys are open year round.
Yeah.
People can come in here in the winter.
Yeah.
How, how's it been as far as I mean you're back there working hard making the beer, but yeah.
Say that louder.
Are you getting working hard?
Making beer.
Real hard!
The folks that come in, are you meeting anybody?
It's people coming from all over the place.
Oh, yeah.
We meet people here all the time.
It's.
It's unreal, the kind of people we've met here.
Tell me about some collaboration.
I had a collaboration and she was telling me that it actually was with you all and the community.
College.
Yeah.
Madisonville in over in Kentucky here has a brewing program now.
Fermentation science program.
Fermentation science.
That's what beer making is called now.
Interesting.
It's very scientific.
OK. And a lot of the breweries in the area contribute a lot as much as they can to this program.
And so it was a the school and the breweries collaboration, Ok. Yeah, we've also collaborated with Dry Ground Brewing a handful of times, all right.
There in Paducah, right, Dry Ground.
And we currently have one brewing at the moment with Country Boy brewing.
This is so fun.
I mean, it really is.
You come up right off the road here.
Hot day.
This is the place to go.
Daytime, nighttime, whatever.
And sounds like beer fest time.
So.
Yeah, Cole, Cheers.
Cheers, man.
It's been fun.
Glad to have you.
Appreciate it.
Matt.
Thank you for letting me come out on your boat today.
This is a really neat looking boat and I understand it is designed for a specific purpose.
It is, yes.
This is mostly for wakeboarding and wake surfing.
This is a G23, 2017.
It's we mostly do wake surfing on it, but it's creates a great wake on that side.
And like I said, we have a we have a blast with it.
Oh, neat.
Well, how does it create the wake?
So really, it has to do with pumping water into the boat, which is kind of scary, right.
But we pump almost 3,000lbs of the water into the boat, so we turn on some motors up there on the screen.
And when I do that, you'll hear some pumps come on and all of a sudden just water is rushing in the boat.
And so which makes you nervous.
And I'll have a story about that when we tell you about that.
But we you do that.
And then at the back, there's a plates that come out the sides.
So if I'm surfing on that side of the boat, there's a plate.
They'll stick out the side of the boat and it creates a drag.
Right.
So you're you're going about 11 miles an hour.
And that drag plus being so deep in the water, it makes a big wave when I guess it was two boats ago, it was the first day of the season and we had a couple with us who'd never been on the boat before.
And I started filling up like I always do.
You turn the pumps on, water's coming in, and the boat started getting deeper and deeper into the water.
And I'm like something sometimes.
Same, right?
Right.
So I opened this compartment back here and all of the water was outside of the bags and just in in the boat.
Right.
You'll see it because it's inside all this fiberglass.
Right?
We we came literally this close to having a boat sunk in Kentucky Lake so.
Well, please don't sink today.
When we went out and tested it for you got here so.
Yeah so you you surf on that wave and it keeps you going forward with the boat.
You know, it's just like an ocean wave.
So you get up with the rope, but then you start surfing that wave just like you're on the ocean.
So first, how.
Did you learn how to do that?
I had a friend that was into it and we tried it and loved it and bought a boat within the next year.
So yeah, and we've been doing it ever since I was probably nine years ago.
So I'm in the hands of experts today.
I wouldn't say that, but we love it.
So have you taught anyone to, we█ve Taught people many, many times, including this one.
Do you think you could teach me?
I█d love to try.
I█d love to teach you.
No problem at all.
Great.
All right, so here's the deal.
When we get out there, you'll have this rope, and the ticket is always have it in between your legs like this.
Okay?
And as you turn, make sure you're always squared up with the boat, okay?
So, like, otherwise you'll get crooked and then you won't be.
able to take off.
Okay.
So when you're out there and you have a have like this, I kind of have one foot here on the edge.
Okay.
And the other foot right here.
So when you start getting tension on the rope, it's super tight.
Okay.
We'll say stand up and what you have to do soon as you start getting pulled against that tension.
This board needs to be like this before you can stand up.
Okay, so you got to flip it up, okay?
Either do it with your hand or you do it with your feet by pushing down against it.
Okay?
So when you're like this and you've got to like this, basically the trick is have your knees kind of be loose, let your knees come to your chest.
You roll forward and stand up immediately.
Okay?
Okay.
So then you just want to get out of the way, you know, so you start pulling the board that way, trying to push your way out of the wake.
Okay.
And when you're out there and this is the next phase, this is probably next day You know, you start pulling yourself in and so you're actually on the wave.
Oh, and then you start learning to get the balance and then you surf, That's it.
So what do you think the hardest part of it is the trick.
The hardest part.
Is this right here, getting it from here to here.
Okay.
So people struggle with actually flip it up the flipping off the board because you can't get up without that board being flipped.
So that's how I do it.
All right.
Right there.
Okay.
So you're taking try that.
Swimming and drinking makes a body hungry.
That's why I'm taking a quick detour to a local tradition.
Belew█s, dairy bar.
Here it is, the old beach beer barn, a craft beer festival where you will find great Kentucky brews under the setting sun over Kentucky Lake.
I'd say we successfully laked it, till we made it.
And now that.
I'm here.
You work with some other groups.
You are in Louisville doing theirs.
Well, I mean, how much fun is it to set these kind of things up?
I mean, as far as full time jobs, this is a pretty good one.
A lot of different places here.
We've got bourbon, we got wine.
But obviously there's a lot of craft beer, mostly craft beers.
Everybody from Kentucky or we bring it in places.
A lot of the breweries here.
Are from western Kentucky.
You've got about 18 breweries that are west of Elizabethtown.
Most of them are here.
You've got some breweries from Lexington, Cincinnati and Georgetown, obviously, Paducah, Henderson, Richmond, Kentucky, right there.
So they come from all over the state.
A pretty good hike.
I mean, we came in from over there.
So it's a nice drive and it's great to see them all support.
I think I think they see a lot.
Of opportunity in Western Kentucky.
And Western Kentucky is not the kind of the craft beer hotbed that say some of the other parts of the state are so- right.
This is a new opportunity for these guys.
Hey Elena!
Hi!
You have put together something that is one of my favorite things in the state of Kentucky.
Well, a craft beer festival.
I know.
And this is the first one, right?
Yes.
Our very first festival.
Where did this crazy idea come from?
Well, we have a local brewery here in Marshall, kind of I think you actually.
We may have.
You may visit in there and I'm friends with the owner.
And we got to talking about a potential festival that maybe we can start bringing in people to the area.
And here we are about six months ago.
So, well, it looks like a great turnout now.
You've got a beautiful setting here.
We're at Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park and actually Marshall County.
We're lucky we have two state parks within our county.
That's true.
So, you know, we're right near the northern end and it's just such a beautiful setting.
Oh, you look out, you've got the water, the marina right here.
I mean, it is absolutely beautiful.
Yes.
The humidity is a bit high.
Well, the time of year.
It is Kentucky on the lake.
In August.
Oh, yes.
So, I mean, growing up here, I always came to the lake, you know, knowing you and me know, it is something that you just kind of cherish.
And it's lots of memories come back and it's just it's just a fun place.
I know.
It's a great place.
Very friendly, family friendly.
But we've got, you know, all kinds of activities.
So come on down.
Hey.
Well, hello there.
I got you a brew.
Oh, you read my mind.
That's fantastic.
What a place we are.
This is.
You know, we've met it up at some great things.
This has been one.
Of the tops.
Of a fantastic Day.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
You had fun?
I had a great time after I left you and the lake to swim ashore.
Oh, yes, that's right.
Yeah.
You got to motor.
Out on a boat.
I did.
I did.
And you know what I did today?
I stood up on a wake surfboard.
Wake surfboard.
A wake surfboard.
And yes, surfed.
I did.
It took three tries.
On a.
Lake, but I did.
It.
Yes, sir.
It was amazing.
And I learned all the history about Kentucky Lake, about the dam being built.
I was hard at work at the Dam Brew House, drinking dam beer.
And also, I will have to tell you, I tried some food at this local drive in Belew█s and it was actually I'll be honest, I may have tried a little bit too much food, but it was excellent.
And I solved the riddle.
Kyle Yeah.
I don't think so.
I did.
All right.
Are you a basketball fan?
You know, I do occasionally watch some basketball.
I have you.
We are in Kentucky.
We are?
Yeah.
Have you ever heard of Jumpin Joe Fulks?
Jumpin Joe Fulks?
As a matter of fact, no.
He invented the jump shot.
He invented the jump shot?
Yes.
How old was this cat?
He's a little older than us.
But more importantly, he was born in Birmingham.
Alabama.
Okay, now, right here, England, right here.
And the town is now underneath the water.
So you can get there if you dare, by scuba diving to see it.
That water.
That water out there.
He was born out there?
Yep.
The town of Birmingham.
Before this was here.
Yes.
Okay.
So I was still right.
He was born in a hospital in Birmingham that's now under water.
This was fun, Kyle.
This was a lot of fun.
Marshall County, Kentucky lake course, Kentucky Lake is all over.
It goes all the way into Tennessee.
There's so much to see.
And I mean, but you can spend a week right here.
Or a lifetime.
Yeah, you actually could spend a lifetime here.
Yeah.
How much fun?
Good time.
Fun.
We can drink to that.
We can definitely drink to that.
Until next time we'll see you Downstream.
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Downstream is a local public television program presented by KET