Preserving History
Published 12:40 pm Thursday, June 28, 2018
Lifetime resident Kenny Watts remembers ‘good old days’ in Jessamine County
Kenneth Watts was born and raised in
Jessamine County after his family came to
live here by way of the Kentucky River in 1805.
Growing up, Watts was one of nine children and
can remember how different the county was in
stories he was told from before his time and in
the memories he has made throughout his
life here.
“I remember that everyone
knew everyone,” Watts said.
“You didn’t lock your doors
at night. I remember once my
aunt sent me a letter and put
a silver dollar and taped it on
a piece of paper which said,
‘happy birthday, Kenny Watts
Nicholasville KY,’ and they
delivered it to me. The mailman
even knew all the kids’
names. How impressive is that
it (the county) was so small
he even knew what house to
bring it to, and no one stole
the money out of it.”
Watts said his family came
to Kentucky from Virginia
by boat which they would
sometimes have to pull along
through the Kentucky River
when the water was too shallow. Happening
upon what is now known as Camp Nelson,
his family was tired of traveling and decided
to stop in what later became known as Jessamine
County.
“They were looking for a place to stay and
said, ‘why don’t we just stay here? We have
been traveling all this time,’ and the rest is
history,” Watts said.
His grandfather opened a general store in
what is now the Democratic headquarters
on Main Street. His father worked for the
old T.C. Willis Grocers, a building which is
currently undergoing renovations.
“We were told that this street (Main
Street) was a buffalo trail,” Watts said. “The
Journal was where the old county jail was
located on Main Street and they had written
it took two weeks for the herd to pass night
and day as they traveled to Great Crossing
and Stamping Ground. That was some buffalo
herd.”
Growing up, Watts was told stories of how
his uncle at 5 years old would wait by where
the current Central Bank sits for tobacco
farmers to come along with their horses
pulling wagon loads of tobacco. Watts said
the farmers’ wagons would become stuck in
the mud of the flowing creek and all the kids
would get behind the wagon and push it up
the muddy hill.
“Sometimes, they would have to unload
the tobacco and then carry it up the hill and
they would pay those boys a nickel,” Watts
said. “They would have the tobacco sticks
and they would carry them back up the hill
to reload. They would take enough off for
the horses to be able to get up there and they
would sit down and wait for the next wagon
to come through so they would get another
nickel.”
Watts worked at the old L & M grocery
store on Saturdays when he was a teenager.
One Saturday in particular, Porter Wagoner
came in, and being a 16-year-old boy behind
the counter, Watts was quick to recognize
him and let him know it.
“I said ‘I know who you are,’ and he said,
‘OK, well who might you be?’” Watts said.
“I told him I get off at four and he said, ‘well
how about I buy you a Coke.’”
Not long after Watts agreed, Dolly Parton
walked in the store. she was 16 years old,
just like himself, and Watts said he quickly
told her he had seen her singing on television.
“We sat outside and talked for two-tothree
hours,” Watts said. “Porter got ready to
leave. They were going to play the Jessamine
County High School. She asked me what I did, and I told her I played
the guitar and drums. She said, ‘we are down a drummer. Our drummer
is sick and can’t make it. Will you come and play drums for us?’ I said,
‘no, I can’t do that. I am going frog hunting.’”
Sometimes, Watts said a group of 10 to 12 boys would hop the trains
up-town to what is now known as Brannon Crossing. Spending the day
hunting and swimming in the ponds, the group would make sure to
catch the 5 p.m. train coming back down to Danville in order to make
it home for dinner.
“We would be gone all day,” Watts said. “If the train was going slow
we would get on top of the boxcars and take off running and jump and
land in the sand cars. They would call detectives on us, but they were
so fat they couldn’t catch us, and we knew where we were going and
they didn’t, so we would jump the creek and they couldn’t get across
the creek.”
Watts said his mother never turned down any hobo riding the trains
either. Sometimes, Watts and his friends were bribed to try and get the
hobos food, and his mother would pack them a sack full of biscuits,
bread and whatever kind of meat she had on hand.
“After we had fed them and talked they would say get away because a
guy would walk down with a big stick and check cars and look in them,”
Watts said. “They would stand in the back and in the dark. Later they
would wave at us when they would leave and take off.”
Sunday afternoons Watts said were spent washing your car and swimming
at a pond past the Black Ridge Corner Restaurant.
“Everyone would go down there and swim and wash their cars on
Sunday,” Watts said. “You’d bring a bucket and detergent and then your
dad would let you swim after work was done. There were all kinds of
cars that would come down and wash their cars on Sunday.”
Three of Watts’ brothers served in World War II, and Watts was told
stories of how the group went down to enlist with their cousins after th
bombing at Pearl Harbor. Wanting to get even with
the Japanese, Watts said their patriotism would be a
sight to see today because in most areas of the nation
patriotism is going out the door.
“The police called and said, ‘you got to get up here,
your son called from San Diego and is shipping out,’”
Watts said about his parents receiving a phone call in
the 1940s. “They put them (my parents) in a police
cruiser and they ran them to Oak Street where the fire
station was.”
Watts later married and had two children, a daughter
who currently lives in Washington D.C., and a son
who lives in Louisville. Besides a brief time attending
Indiana University, Watts has never
lived outside Jessamine County and
started his own real estate company
in town in 1969, which is known today
as Watts Realtors and Auctioneers,
Inc.
“My mother-in-law said, ‘what on earth do you
think you are doing (going into real estate)?’” Watts
said. “‘You with a wife and two kids and needing
to make a living.’ She said, ‘as soon as you sell your
friends you will be out of business.’ A couple of years
later when we were the biggest ones here she came and
apologized and I told her, ‘well I am just glad I didn’t
have any friends.’”
The small town atmosphere is what still attracts
Watts to Jessamine County after all the years he has
spent here. Walking up and down the street, Watts
said people still stop to speak to you and know who
you are and who your family is.
“When you were a kid they would say, ‘well whose
boy are you?’” Watts said. “I remember if you acted up
on Main Street and the merchants had seen you they
would say, ‘boy, I will call your daddy on you,’ and
that would straighten you right up. Where today they
would probably sue the guy for saying something. That
was how things were. The groups would correct the
kids if they had seen them doing something wrong.”
With all the growth in Jessamine County, Watts said
there are now many people that residents do not know.
Farmland is also becoming scarce, and Watts said his
wish is to see everything preserved.
“I would like to preserve the historical sites so that
the other children can enjoy it,” Watts said. “Just preserve
the history of it.”
