A Few Weird Things About Louisville, Kentucky

The Original Big Stick

President Theodore Roosevelt famously quoted an African proverb, "speak softly and carry a big stick," as an articulation of American foreign policy. Some years later Edward North Buxton and a group of British zoologists gave Roosevelt a Holland & Holland, English made, double-barreled .450 elephant gun in anticipation of Roosevelt's planned safari to Africa. This was the most powerful rifle Teddy ever owned, and he affectionately referred to it as his "big stick."

This rifle is part of the permanent collection at The Frasier International History Museum in Louisville.

The story of Roosevelt's later disaster plagued South American Amazon jungle expedition is excellently told in the recently published The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.

The Homegrown Stick is Bigger

The Hillerich & Bradsby Co. of Louisville makes the official bat for Major League Baseball. J. Frederick Hillerich, a German immigrant, and his sons made their first baseball bat here in 1884. The company's most famous brand name is Louisville Slugger.

This is a photo of the Louisville Slugger Museum in downtown Louisville. That big stick speaks for itself.

If you can't visit the Slugger Museum in person, you can read about the history of the Louisville Slugger in Bob Hill's Crack of the Bat: The Louisville Slugger Story.

A Big Wet Shot

Local media magnate and big shot Barry Bingham, Sr., owner of two Louisville daily newspapers along with local radio and television stations, was the moving force behind the Louisville Ohio River Falls fountain. The fountain was dedicated and went into service five days after Mr. Bingham's death in August 1988.

Squirting 15,800 gallons of water per minute 420 feet into the air, the fountain operated for ten years until unanticipated maintenance expenses exhausted available funding. The fountain was sold for scrap.

The Biggest Shot of All Time

Although it took a long time for Muhammad Ali's home town to give him the recognition and appreciation he earned, the non-profit Muhammad Ali Center was opened to the public in November, 2005. Along with the expected boxing memorabilia, the Ali Center focuses on Ali's post-boxing work as a global humanitarian, and the core values of peace, social responsibility, respect, and personal growth. Muhammad Ali, along with Peter Arnell, recently introduced a line of healthy snack foods, called G.O.A.T. Food (Greatest Of All Time). It remains to be seen how well the signature shapes of G.O.A.T. Food will fly.

The image above is a composite of the Muhammad Ali Center logo, a photo of the east side of the Center's building on the riverfront in Louisville, and a detail from one of Leroy Neiman's paintings of an Ali fight. I just found The LeRoy Neiman Sketchbook: 1964 Liston vs. Clay - 1965 Ali vs. Liston, and it is the most expensive new book I have ever seen, on Amazon.com or anywhere else. It is 220 pages and costs $3,750 for a new copy. That's, uh, $17.05 per page. Wow.

Nutty Names

Everyone knows about about the Kentucky Derby run at Churchill Downs in Louisville each year, but you may not have heard of the brew a local entrepreneur named Gerard Russell cooked up for the tourists. Horse Piss Beer is not the first, or even the best, example of adolescent humor trumping good marketing sense. If Gerard wants to sell a novelty tourist souvenir, he should just sell the bottles and forget about the beer, which isn't even brewed in Kentucky. It is brewed in Wisconsin.


Gonzo Nutz and Back Again


Louisville, Kentucky was the foaling spot and psychological training ground for Mr. Gonzo himself, Hunter S. "Big Nutz" Thompson.

The Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA) has a campaign to support locally owned businesses. The LIBA promotes this campaign with the slogan, "Keep Louisville Weird."

"The mission of LIBA is to preserve the unique community character of the Metro Louisville area by promoting locally-owned businesses and to educate citizens on the value of shopping locally."