41. Down along Benson Creek

This weekend I will be taking up one of my passions: pleasure driving. For the first time this year, I'll have both time and money to go driving around our Commonwealth, possibly dipping into southern Indiana along the way. It is something I have done for years, usually with very little notice, and never with a particular route in mind.

The trips are usually solo, although I have had friends and family now and then. There are, of course, some favorite backroads that I have traversed several times over. One of those trips is from Louisville out Bardstown Road to Highgrove at KY 48, then east over to Fairfield and Bloomfield. Taking that route during the Christmas season, you will pass, on the right, between the two towns a farm which has decorated a each of a number of trees along either side of their lenghty driveway with a single strand of white lights. The effect of this is quite a sight, especially from a distance, when it appears you are approaching an airport landing with a number of landing lights. As you get closer, the effect is less promounced, but I always look for it when I drive through there. KY 48 ends at US 62 near Chaplin.

Another ride will take me along one of the the old roads to Frankfort, once you are past Shelbyville. I often say there are twelve ways to get from Louisville to Frankfort although most people only know one (I-64) or two (I-64 or US 60). One of those involves departing US 60 where it is crossed by KY 55 (from the north) which becomes KY 53 (to the south). There is a McDonald's on the southwest corner of that intersection. It was in the parking lot of that McDonald's where I learned about the shuttle disaster in January, 1986, returning to Louisville from an early morning breakfast in Frankfort. If you are standing in the McDonald's parking lot facing the street (Main Street to the left, Frankfort Road to the right), digonally across to the upper right is the stub of what used to be the end of Benson Road. (You have to access Benson Pike a little north of this point now). That is the original road from Shelbyville to Frankfort. At one time, there was no intersection here at all. KY 55 to the north is only a recent creation. Called Boone Station Road, it filled in the gap between the split of KY 43/55 and US 60/KY 53. Before that gap was filled in, leaving Shelbyville to the northeast (toward Bagdad) required going due north out of town along 7th or 5th (Jail Hill) off of Washintgton, then turning east past Snow Hill. This road is known as Eminence Pike out to Boone Station, where Eminence Pike then follows KY 55 north while Cropper Road continues east along Mulberry Creek. And KY 55 to the south, now called Mount Eden Road, is not the original way out of Shelbyville. That would be along 3rd Street, south of Main, where Saint James Episcopal Church is on the corner. The original entrance to Grove Hill Cemetery is now in the back, along 3rd Street, where it is now called Old Mount Eden Road. Annie Choate, my great-great grandmother who was previously mentioned in a post, has at least one and maybe both of her parents buried there. But, I digress.

The original road from Shelbyville to Frankfort was Benson Pike. It followed east out of Shelbyville along the north side of what is now Guist Creek Lake. At its intersection with KY 395 is one of my favorite farm houses, a simple but large white frame house with black trim. The last time I was through there that property had a For Sale sign in the front yard. Proceeding east from there, the terrain becomes hilly and the road curvy. At its intersection with KY 1472 (Mink Run Road) is the Beech Ridge Cemetery, a few hundred feet east of the Beech Ridge Baptist Church. A number of my Hockensmith/Peters/Perkins kin are buried in Beech Ridge. My great-grandmother Ellis Rebecca Peters Hockensmith along with much of her family lies there. I have mentioned before my niece Aubreana who middle name (at least one of them) is Ellis. Aubrena's Ellis comes from her grandmother Barbara Ellis Hockensmith, my mother. Mother's Ellis is from her grandmother, the Ellis Rebecca mentioned herein. Many of Ellis Rebecca's in-laws are buried here. Curiously though, her father-in-law, Isaac Daniel Hockensmith, Jr. isn't. He is buried in another cemetery about 1/2 mile east then 1/4 mile south of here in a private cemetery on the Stephen Engstler farm. I had heard of this cemetery all my life, but only last year finally discovered it. As a kid, my mother and my grandmother often visited here, especially on what was then called Decoration Day, to clean and decorate the graves, something my family still does fairly passionately. Another day set aside for grave visiting was Roberts Reunion Day, always the Fifth Sunday in either June, July, or August, as every summer one and only one of those months provides a fifth Sunday. The Roberts family play a prominent role in both of my maternal grandparents families, as they were, besides being man and wife, also distant cousins "through the Roberts line," as we would say. Again, I digress.

From Beech Ridge, Benson Road, now called Beech Ridge Road, with a Bagdad zip code on one side and a Frankfort one on the other, proceeds down the hill to the old community of Hatton, located where Beech Ridge Road crosses the Dutch Fork of North Benson Creek, then the L&N Railroad and joins KY 1005 just west of the Shelby / Franklin County line. My grandfather often said he grew up in Hatton although I do not know exactly where. Once in Franklin County, KY 1005 eventually becomes Devil's Hollow Road. As a kid, two of my favorite swimming holes were along Devil's Hollow Road in North Benson Creek. One was behind the very beautiful North Benson Baptist Church and the other was a spot locally known as Iron Bridge or Red Bridge. At that point, the creek spreads out into a broad spanse and there is effected a waterfall. Back at North Benson Church, the creek is broad and maybe waist deep at some points. I once became enamored with a young lady named Shellie Dean while swimming at North Benson. I was 15, she was 12.

Once you get up the hill into Choateville, one passes along the right the Choateville Christian Church, where my grandmother and many of her siblings were once (or still are) members. Devils Hollow Road passes Pea Ridge Road, where the Franklin County Public Schools have recently opened a new school called West Ridge. I have to wonder why they could not have called it Chaoteville or Pea Ridge. Once past the new school, the road proceeds to the new US 127, which to the left leads down into Frankfort and to the rights leads out to I-64 and Frankfort's version of Preston or Dixie Highway, with most any fast food or restaurant chain you might want, along with the suburban requisite Lowes, Kroger, and Walmart.

Passing US 127 and Parkside Drive, Devils Hollow begins the plunge down to Frankfort along Taylor Avenue, very close to where Benson Creek empties into the Kentucky River. In some of the oldest maps of Frankfort, this road, Devils Hollow is indicated as the "Road to Louisville," as it was before US 60 was cut through as the new route in the mid 1800s.

That's one way to get from here to there. There are (at least) eleven more.