CAPTION: This 1910 photo by H.C. Ganter shows the stagecoach that traveled among Glasgow, Park City and Mammoth Cave.
By Jennifer Moonsong / Glasgow News 1
In the early days of Barren County, the most popular mode of transportation was by stagecoach. Stagecoaches carrying mail and passengers began traveling along the Louisville and Nashville Road in 1836. Prior to that, there were already operational stagecoaches in the region, but with less specific routes and schedules.
As with any type of business, as the number of stagecoach companies and operators grew, so did competition among the various outfits. By the 1850s, local stagecoaches were brightly painted and adorned, as well as named, to draw the attention of passengers.
By 1837, a second stage line began running between Glasgow and Bell’s Tavern in Park City, and in 1838, the inaugural daily stagecoach from Louisville to Nashville came to be, with a daily stop in Glasgow. The average speed of travel was 8 miles per hour, and leather straps that served as primitive shocks eased the bumpy ride. According to a Glasgow Daily Times article from 1879, Barren County man J.H. Harlow drove the first stage from Mammoth Cave to Park City. The roadway it traveled along was described as “little more than an ox path.” On Sept. 3, 1880, the Mammoth Cave stagecoach went down in history, because it was robbed by one of the most notorious and infamous villains of the times, Jesse James. Sam McCoy was driving the stagecoach full of passengers, including Judge R.H. Roundtree.
As the story goes, two bandits mounted the coach with pistols and made it stop. The passengers were forced to forfeit their valuables, which they dropped in a sack. The bandits made each passenger take a sip of whiskey from a bottle they passed around before tipping their hats and riding away with the money and jewels. All passengers survived the incident.
T.J. Hunt, Kentucky petty criminal, was thought to be one of the bandits; however, Roundtree said he couldn’t identify Hunt. When Jesse James was shot and killed not long thereafter, and the photo circulated across America, Roundtree was certain James was one of the bandits. Roundtree said of the photo, “I do recognize this as one of the men, and as the one Hunt has been mistaken for.”
Jesse James was wearing Roundtree’s watch when he died.
Not all the stories associated with the old stage lines of the Barrens are as intriguing as that of Roundtree’s and James’. Nevertheless, much like passenger trains, stage coach memories were dear to many in the county.
Hiseville resident Cyrus Edwards described his memories of the stagecoach this way:
“The stage was painted in gaudy colors, and the driver sat up high in front, with long whips with which they could easily reach the leading span of four horses, and the artistic handling of those whips was a sight to see, and their music was, to a small boy, entrancing and wonderful to hear …. It was no wonder that most of the boys proudly looked forward to the day when they would be old enough to drive a stage.”
Edwards was not alone in his romanticism of the time and the stagecoaches.
Glasgow native Arthur Krock became a famous New York Times journalist who wrote about his recollection of the Glasgow-Burkesville Stage in his memoirs.
“Although the village of Summer Shade was only sixteen miles from Glasgow, the journey thereto by public transportation consumed the whole forenoon in normal weather conditions. And this public transportation was the fulfillment of a boy’s dream — a bright red stagecoach with yellow wheels, drawn by four chestnut horses! I still recall the thrill which suffused my being when the gleaming coach drew up to load this small passenger ….”
By the turn of the century, the brightly painted coaches were a thing of yesteryear.
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