 THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
Lexington, Kentucky March 20, 2000
By Dick Burdette
VERSAILLES, Ky. - Near the east edge of town, along U.S. 60 at Paynes
Mill Road, there's a bronze marker commemorating the important role
hemp once played in Kentucky agriculture. It isn't unique. There
are similar signs in Boyle, Fayette, Franklin, Jessamine, Madison,
Mason, Scott, Shelby and Clark counties.
But downtown, at 149 Lexington Street, there's something you won't
find anywhere else in Kentucky - or America, for that matter. If
the Kentucky Hemp Museum here isn't one of a kind, director Heather
Gifford says she is not aware of it.
Even more unusual perhaps is a silent four-building complex at the
end of a straight narrow street, once a railroad track bed, adjacent
to Woodford Memorial Hospital.
It's an old hemp-processing plant, one of the few, if not the only
one, that has survived. The buildings are deteriorating now, but
not past the point of being resurrected.
On a cold, overcast weekday morning, Margaret McCauley - on whose
family's land the buildings stand - walked past the little building
that once served as a scale house. She talked about the controversial
plant that she hopes will make a comeback.
For more than 200 years, her family has farmed here. Three hundred
acres. Cattle and tobacco mostly. But these days, because of the
uncertain tobacco and cattle markets, it would be helpful, she said,
to have another renewable cash crop.
Which is why McCauley is a staunch advocate of doing what her ancestors
once did: raising hemp.
At the museum, a non-profit organization that receives a $25,000
grant annually from the Turner Foundation, Gifford says a lot of
other Woodford County residents support the idea too.
While civic and school groups and curious individuals frequently
visit the museum, "most of the people who come in here are farmers
wanting information about growing industrial hemp," she said. "I've
had several church groups visit. They have been very interested
and supportive. They got the answers they needed."
Among them: Hemp is not marijuana.
Displayed prominently among relics from hemp's past are numerous
products that could play a significant role in its future. Clothing,
shoes, carpeting, bio-diesel fuel, body-care products, snacks, horse
bedding, concrete blocks, paper products, part of a door panel from
a Chevrolet Lumina - all already are being made from hemp grown
in Canada.
Why, of all places, a hemp museum in Woodford County, widely known
for its luxurious horse farms, old-money affluence and conservative
views? Didn't that look like an ideal combination to trigger strong
status-quo opposition?
"I thought it was the best place for a museum," Gifford said. Because
of its rich soil and mild, ideal climate, "Woodford County was the
hemp seedbed of Kentucky," Gifford said. "Hemp seed from here was
shipped all over the country."
Seeds and rope were Woodford's biggest hemp products, she said.
Some say Woodford County was the nation's leading hemp producer
during World War II.
Widespread support for raising hemp in Woodford County again is
not limited to her own thirty-something generation, Margaret McCauley
said.
Two prominent women long and deeply involved in issues affecting
the county's future support it too.
One is McCauley's mother, Mary Ann, whose husband, Graham, owns
McCauley Brothers Inc., which manufactures horse feed. "I am all
for it," she said. "I think it would be great to have that (hemp)
for a crop - and save a few trees along the way."
Another is Toss Chandler, wife of Woodford Sun publisher Ben Chandler.
"Ben and I are for it," she said. "Everybody I know in my age group
is. I think anyone who's interested in farming is. It's a clean
and versatile crop. It won't take the place of tobacco, but it certainly
will ease the pain." "It's not going to save every little farm,"
Margaret McCauley said. "But it will save some of them."
The museum is open noon to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. A museum
van featuring a portable display visits fairs and festivals throughout
the state.
THE WOODFORD SUN
Versailles, Kentucky
June 10, 1999
Hemp Museum opens doors to history of versatile plant
By Stephen Peterson News Reporter
At one time, Woodford County produced more hemp seed than any other
single location in the United States. In the past, hemp was the
source of a vast array of products from oil to textiles to foodstuffs.
But hemp fell out of favor, partly because of the availability of
alternatives to these products but also because a close relative,
marijuana, was deemed a criminal substance to produce because of
its psychoactive properties.
But a movement has been under way for several years to reintroduce
hemp to Kentucky as an agricultural commodity. To help educate people
about the benefits of this versatile plant, the Kentucky Hemp Growers
Cooperative has opened its museum and library in Versailles at 149
Lexington Street. A ribbon cutting ceremony for the museum was held
on June 4.
The Kentucky Hemp Museum and Library has actually been around as
an entity since 1994, created as a tool to teach people about the
cultural, historic and economic impact of hemp in Kentucky and the
U.S. It sponsored a 1995 poll which showed that 77 percent of respondents
favored the growing of industrial hemp.
A mobile museum exhibit was created in 1996, which toured the state,
other parts of the country, and paid a visit to Vancouver, Canada
with the help of the Deni Montana Foundation, the museum and library
sponsored a 1998 economic impact study of industrial hemp in Kentucky.
The museum is interested in obtaining either oral or written history
from people who remember when hemp was produced in Kentucky as well
as any memorabilia related to hemp production.
Tax deductible donations are encouraged.
Kentucky Hemp Museum
P.O. Box 8551
Lexington, Kentucky 40533
(606) 873-8957
e-mail: KyHempMuse@aol.com
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