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Green River begins as a little spring just two counties to the east Colonel William Casey followed the little spring downstream in 1780 to Columbia. Today Green River Reservoir is enjoyed by skiers, boaters and fishermen, there's even a river steamer on the Green River in Mammoth Cave National Park. By Edith Walker This story transcribed by Cyrus from page one of the Saturday, July 17, 1971, issue of "The Green River Sprite." Mighty Green starts as spring in Lincoln County "Seems mighty strange to think of all that river beginning from this little spring," the man with the scythe commented. He had just cleared away the weeds so I could take a picture of the Lincoln County Spring which is the source of Green River. "Gets to be a great big stream down around Liberty, don't it?" he queried. I mentioned that it becomes a man-made lake, flows through Mammoth Cave Country and finally empties into the Ohio. We shook our heads over the wonder of it all. No marker identifies the place. But people as far away as Hustonville knew the spot and guided me to it. "It's on the Old Road," they all said. "You'll have to ask somewhere around Hall's Gap for the exact spot. " "Is there a post office at Hall's Gap?" I asked. "How will I know when I get to it?" I should have anticipated the answer. "You won't!" But at Stanford's Historical Library I looked at an old picture of the Gap and knew I couldn't miss it. The great break in Muldraugh Hill must have been a welcome sight for westward bound frontiersmen when Kentucky was still a wilderness. "You could see seven counties from the overlook on the old road," the man with the scythe later told me. "It's all growed up now since the new road was built." We could see a great dealmaybe not seven counties, but several surelyfrom a point on the rerouted U.S. 27 about five miles south of Stanford. I had stopped moments before at a garage near the top of the hill to inquire again about the spring. The young mechanic was puzzled. "Why, Green River must be ten miles from here," he said. "But it begins at a spring somewhere around here," I informed him, putting on my best school teacher manner. "There must be people who have lived around here for a long time who would know where it is." Yes, there might be. "Mr. Yentsch at the Texaco place just up that side road," volunteered a teenaged boy watching the mechanic's progress on a motor. "He knows all about this part of the country." Mr. Yentsch knew. Not over 200 feet from his store was the spring. He invited me to check with Mr. John Carter who owned it. "Yes," Mr. Carter said. "It's true. Some men from Frankfort have been down here and made pictures of it. Said that's the beginning of the river." "Used to be a rock wall all the way around it," he added, "but when they built the road they carried them up and used 'em to make the road bed." Two men were resting on the porch of Mr. Carter's rent house near the spring. "You can't get down there through the weeds," one said. "There's copperheads down there, I guess." I had come too far to be turned back by weeds or snakes either I must have seemed pretty determined. That's when the other man got out the scythe. "I'll cut some of the weeds so you can see it," he said. Kept one eye out for copperheads While he cut and I picked my way around the hill keeping one eye out for the copperheads, we talked about the spring and the river. "It's just a little spring," he said. "But it never goes dry." A good thing we agreed, since it feeds so important a stream. A last sweep of the blade and there it was. A sun-dappled pool under a rock wall. Just a little spring. I thought of Colonel William Casey and the Montgomerys following its waters downstream in 1780. Of the skiers on Green River Reservoir. Of the boat rides on the river steamer in Mammoth Cave National Park. Of river commerce farther downstream. I took a picture of the spring and thanks the man with the scythe. We shook our heads again over the wonder of it. Two photos accompanied this article. One, of a young woman facing away from the camera surveying Hall's Gap from the overlook, has the caption "Hall's Gap, five miles south of Stanford on U.S. 27 is the site of a spring which is the source of Green River. The gap in Muldraugh's Hill was important to westward moving pioneers in the 18th century." The other photograph, somewhat indistinct in the microfilmed copy of the newspaper, is of the spring itself. The caption reads: "The river begins at this sun-dappled pool almost hidden beneath the surrounding plant growth. A search for the river's source took on some of the elements of a mystical quest." CYRUS Central Ohio Bureau chief This story was posted on 2005-10-30 16:10:33
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