The Nineteenth‐Century Evolution of Local‐Scale Roads in Kentucky's Bluegrass

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, local‐scale roads in central Kentucky were built subject to local knowledge and cultural tradition but within the context of legal authority and folk‐ or science‐based engineering precepts. This study demonstrates how legal and engineering standards‐though conceived as transcendent and objective‐were in fact contingent on the region's physical attributes as well as its cultural traditions and character. Thus local road alignment and construction have been influenced by and contingent on local knowledge, dialogue, and debate since frontier times.

• Kentucky
• local roads
• road engineering
• road history
• road law

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karl Raitz

Dr. Raitz is a professor of geography at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506

Nancy O'malley

Ms. O'Malley is the assistant director of the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology.