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Since the early nineteenth-century, entrepreneurs have looked to Eastern Kentucky’s natural resources as a means to enrich themselves and their business partners. In their wake, they have often left an impoverished region that suffers from chronic unemployment, economic underdevelopment, and severe environmental damage. The story of the three forks of the Kentucky River demonstrates that the economic prosperity of the Commonwealth has historically been tied to its waterways. For Eastern Kentucky, this connection has not resulted in long-term prosperity, but rather brief moments of development tied to the water harvest bounty. For example, on the Kentucky River’s South Fork, Central Kentucky elites shipped salt for national pork preservation. The salt pork industry led to a brief prosperity in Clay County that ended with the rise of the Kanawha salt industry elsewhere in the country. In Lee County at the Kentucky River’s main course, lock and dam construction for transporting lumber and coal boosted the local economy significantly, but by the time the dams were finished, the Louisville and Atlantic Railroad had gained shipments previously reserved for waterways and modern barges had grown too large for the river.

After his success at Niagara, John tried to secure further railroad suspension bridge contracts, yet his only success proved to be an absolute albatross. In 1853, he received a contract to build a railroad suspension bridge over the Kentucky River, but he got no further than building the bridge’s towers. The project lingered on for many years, with hope but no money. A similar situation prevailed in Cincinnati. The necessary funding and legislation were secured by 1856, and John was summoned. The project was shut down two years later after the panic of 1857 left the bridge company’s coffers empty. John finally abandoned his two unfinished towers in 1861, there to stand as lonely witnesses to the presence of a coming war. Better news and better financing came to John out of Pittsburgh, where the St. Clair Street Bridge needed replacing. John was offered the contract, and he completed the bridge on time and under budget in 1860.

This chapter illustrates what it means to live on and with a river, in this case, working, playing, and experiencing the joys and occasional hardships of life on the Kentucky River. The author describes the pace of life as leisurely and peaceful, a place of transcendence. The river provides a place to play and socialize with friends and family, and a place to experience a unity with nature.