$5 Bought Paducah

A bronze statue in Paducah, Kentucky states that in 1803, Meriwether Lewis paid $20 for his Newfoundland dog, Seaman, who traveled the entire length of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with his master from 1904-06. In 1827, Lewis’s co-leader, William Clark, purchased 37,000 acres of land, including the site on which Paducah now stands, for $5. $5 would buy a lot in 1827.

At the southwestern tip of Kentucky, where the Tennessee meets the Ohio River, Paducah sits halfway between St. Louis to the northwest and Nashville to the southeast. We were never exactly sure of its location until we spent a couple of days there after leaving the Mississippi River and heading up the Ohio.

In 1937, 90% of Paducah flooded in the worst natural disaster in the Ohio River Valley, so the Corps of Engineers built an 11-foot flood wall along the river that protects the city today. The wall is decorated with over 50 murals depicting the city’s history, including its run in the 1940’s as the self-proclaimed “Strawberry Capitol of the World.” Paducah’s native son, Alben W. Barkley, served as a US congressman, senator, and President Truman’s Vice President, and his name looms large throughout the area, including beautiful Barkley Lake and Dam, which we traversed after leaving Paducah.

Today Paducah‘s most popular attraction is its National Quilt Museum, started in 1991. The museum features exquisite quilts from America and around the world as well as numerous traveling exhibits throughout the year. We were expecting antique and heirloom quilts from the past, but the museum features stunning, contemporary quilts, and most are stitched by machine rather than by hand as our grandmothers did. Still, they were incredibly beautiful and we enjoyed our visit.

“On the Trail of Discovery”

(Meriwether Lewis and Seaman on the left,

William Clark with map on the right

Sacajawea carries the US flag)