Henderson ON the River
Waterfront community charms visitors with history and hospitality

At age 13, I visited my first thoroughbred racetrack, Dade Park in Henderson, Ky. In the eighth race, legendary jockey Earlie Fires rode a horse called Like Mike to victory, turning my first two-dollar bet into eight, and birthing a soft spot in my heart for the beauty of a thousand-pound horse running full out.

A few years later, 1925-vintage Dade Park became Ellis Park, where today live racing still thrills crowds from early July through Labor Day and full card simulcasting is offered every day all year. Just as in my youth, the track’s infield still yields an annual cash crop of soybeans.

This past September, I finally returned to this Western Kentucky community and, not surprisingly, found it to be far more than my eighth-grade perception of “horse racing heaven.”

Just across the Ohio River from Evansville, Ind., Henderson is securely perched on high banks above that mighty channel. So high, in fact, that it was the only river community to escape destruction during the devastating flood of 1937.

“Henderson is so high it doesn’t have flood walls,” said Marcia Eblen, executive director of the Henderson County Tourist Commission, “so since the flood of 1937, our slogan has been ‘Henderson, on the river but never in it!’”

As a result, river access is easy, uninterrupted vistas abound, sometimes with tugboats and lengthy barges, and the waterfront often is alive with activity.

“The river is constantly bringing someone or something that you don’t expect or some sort of event,” Eblen said. The wind symphony that travels up and down the river has stopped here several times.

“When the Peace Bell made its voyage up the river, Henderson was one of the stops because the French town where the bell was forged had been the home of John James Audubon. And in 1999 when Lewis and Clark reenactors were on a practice run (for the 2003 official U.S. celebration of that expedition), they camped here in Audubon Mill Park. The river brings you all kinds of interesting things that when you’re landlocked, you don’t have an opportunity to see.”

John James Audubon State Park in Henderson gives many folks the opportunity to view some of this artist’s famous bird paintings and take a peek into his life. For years, I’d seen pictures of the park’s distinctive brick French chateau that houses its Museum and Nature Center, and was delighted to find that its contents are every bit as intriguing as its architecture.

The museum’s four galleries interpret Audubon’s life through his original works, personal effects and a world event time-line. A self-taught naturalist, good but uninterested businessman and fascinating eccentric, he was a skilled artist, the first to depict life-size birds and animals in their surroundings. His books, including The Birds of America, are classics. At the Museum Store you can buy an original Audubon octavo, a print one-eighth the size of an original print.

Adding to a rich store of personal effects, the museum’s latest purchase arrived during my visit: an original copper plate from which Audubon’s exquisite prints were made. Bought from a descendent of Robert Harwell, the original engraver, the well-preserved plate is one of only 78 still in existence.

The kid-friendly Nature Center offers a binocular-equipped observatory, a hands-on Discovery Center and a Learning Center, with environmental and art programs presented by the art educator and park naturalist. There is also a group Challenge Course, complete with a ropes course for team building.

The 700-acre park has more than five miles of wooded hiking trails, secluded cottages, camping facilities, a recreational lake, golf course, tennis courts and a resident osprey.

Audubon wasn’t the only noted personality to live in Henderson. Legendary blues musician and composer W.C. Handy spent 10 years here around the turn of the century, during which time he said he received a calling to write down the melancholy music he’d heard in the fields, on the docks, and in the barrooms and pool rooms of the Deep South.

Since 1991 Henderson has commemorated the famous music man with the W.C. Handy Blues & Barbecue Festival that begins the second week in June. More than 20,000 fans turn out for the Saturday night opening barbecue and a week of continuous music. Thursday’s Zydeco Night with red beans, rice and andouille sausage is followed by two days of “nothin’ but blues,” and of course, West Kentucky barbecue. W. C. himself would be proud, as would this town’s founding fathers.

Because of its superb river location, a settlement already was established in 1797 when the Transylvania Company founded Henderson. The port soon became a center for dark tobacco, which was shipped from here worldwide, a boom that resulted in the town becoming the richest per capita in the United States during the crop’s heyday. Originally laid out with 100-foot wide streets, the community today boasts a historic downtown district with a surprising number of fine pre-Civil War Italianate and 1870 Victorian houses and buildings, which visitors can easily stroll past on a self-guided walking tour.

Start just west of the Hays Boat Ramp at Atkinson Park, which overlooks the Ohio and sports ball fields, a golf course, swimming pool and the city barbecue pits. Wend your way along the 1.2-mile River Walk, cut over a block and you’ll end up on Main Street. Tour highlights include the stately, pillared 1904 Carnegie-funded library, where 10 original Audubon prints grace a meeting room; the “Governor Powell House,” once home to Lazarus Powell, governor of the Commonwealth from 1851 to 1855; and another house used in filming “A League of Their Own.”

Come in May for the Front Porch Tour, when owners of designated historic homes greet you with lemonade and cookies and show you around their homes and gardens.

“We have all these wonderful Southern porches,” Elben says. “It’s a wonderful way to return to a time I think we’ve come to appreciate. It’s what people used to do on Sunday afternoons.”

Don’t miss a stop at the pride of this community of 27,000 – Central Park – believed to be the oldest park west of the Alleghenies. Originally plotted by the Transylvania Company and now anchored by the Henderson County Court House, the historic green space once hosted Union troops, who camped and drilled on its expanse. Each year on Veterans Day, thousands of crosses are erected here to honor the county’s military who lost their lives in our country’s service.

Customer service abounds in a wide variety of retail establishments downtown, where Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton’s Renaissance program has been put to impressive use. “Henderson is a good example of thriving small-town America,” says Eblen. “Our downtown is still very healthy. Many of the stores have been here for years and have the friendly service you expect.”

For example, Alles Furniture Store, one of whose founders built the first roll-top desk, is 101 years old. And you can munch free popcorn as you stroll the creaky wooden floors of Home Folks Gift and Hardware, where you can find everything from a penny nail to fine bridal china.

At Christmastime, Central Park becomes downtown’s magical place, live with twinkling lights and whimsical reindeer, elves, trains and candy canes, Ol’ Saint Nick himself and gallons of hot chocolate.

“For me, it’s not Christmas until I hear the geese,” Eblen laughs. Fifteen minutes away, the Sauerheber Unit of the near-10,000-acre Sloughs Wildlife Management Area (open mid-March through mid-October) is the home of 25,000 Canada geese and 15,000 ducks each winter, when the top-notch hunting preserve becomes a waterfowl refuge.

Thanks to a $3 million ongoing development to preserve the riverfront, visitors and locals now can get close to the Ohio to fish off a new pier, launch a boat, grab takeout at Rookie’s Sports Bar and Grill and eat on the grass, be entertained or simply reflect on those serene waters that meander south all the way to New Orleans.

Right in sight of the river-spanning railroad bridge that freight-carrying iron horses still traverse, Audubon Mill Park is the original site of John James Audubon’s grist mill, and has been transformed into an well-kept lawn where trees shade myriad park benches, old fashioned street light poles sport American flags and Audubon’s original millstone still stands.

Every August the park comes alive with finger-pickin’ and toe-tappin’ at the Bluegrass and Folklife Festival during a weekend of music and folk traditions, old and new, that run the gamut from broom-making and sheep shearing to wine making and duck call carving. At last year’s event, the owner of a local restaurant demonstrated traditional Mexican cooking. The outdoor event comes complete with a pancake breakfast and more local barbecue.

There’s no way to experience all of Henderson in one day, and you can catch some shuteye between “courses” at L&N Bed and Breakfast. Guests capture the romance of the rails in a two-story red brick hostelry that’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1895 right on Main Street, the inn was once a bunkhouse for railroad workers, who replaced original fancy doorknobs with cheaper “L&N” knobs, many of which are still in use. Model and toy steam engines and train cars are now scattered throughout, and a gorgeous stained glass engine front door panel welcomes guests.

“Trains are our personality,” says owner Mary Elizabeth Priest, who with her husband bought the house in 1995, “because there’s a railroad track right next to it. We actually got the name off a doorknob!” .

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.
editorial@lanereport.com

Back to Tourism Index

Back to December Issue

Copyright 1996-2001, by Kentucky Business Online.  All rights reserved.

Editorial content is copyright 2001, Lane Communications Group
All editorial material is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without prior permission.

The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.