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My town is a thriving river town. Below that bridge, the Kentucky River snakes through Frankfort and winds on down to the mighty Ohio – and ultimately the Mississippi. To me, this river is all about transportation. I’d load my whiskey onto boats and get it to markets as far south as New Orleans. That’s why these river banks are still dotted with my distilleries and barrel warehouses.
In fact, before this fine limestone Federal Building was built, there was a warehouse here, where, in 1869, I was aging 3,500 barrels of whiskey. But, disaster struck and a fire destroyed the warehouse. Calamitously, the barrels ignited into an inferno, the burning alcohol spilled into the river, lighting the river afire with a bluish flame. The valiant fire brigade fought to save the wooden covered bridge, which, thank goodness, they did. Needless to say, my fisherman friends were not amused because the fire had a devastating effect upon the aquatic equilibrium of our river.
Our company losses exceeded $350,000. But never mind, that didn’t stop me! I was an entrepreneur, made for comebacks.
After the fire, just downstream from here, I went and built the model distillery plant of the world – my Old Fire Copper (O.F.C.) Distillery and right next to it, my Carlisle Distillery. These were the finest distilleries the world had ever known. Indeed, my first-class architecture and my more-than-state-of-the-art fermenters can still be seen when you visit Buffalo Trace Distillery today.
Back In those days, our distilleries and warehouses were under constant threat of fire. And if that wasn’t enough, every few years – and this continues to this very day – the river rises. If you were to be standing right here during one of these floods, you’d do well to find yourself a canoe.
My very own home is Stop #3. To get there, walk along Wapping Street, turn right on Washington, walk a block to Main Street to the beautiful white house right there on the corner.
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