Kentucky Dam and electric energy played a key part in economic development.
Editor's Note: The Fall of Kentucky's Rock: Western Kentucky Democratic Politics Since the New Deal was selected for a 2022 Kentucky History Award, presented by the Kentucky Historical Society. Congratulations, George!
George G. Humphreys' new book, The Fall of Kentucky's Rock: Western Kentucky Democratic Politics Since the New Deal, examines the roots of a region once believed an impregnable stronghold for the Democratic Party fell. ..."The development of the public power system in western Kentucky was critical to the development of the region. The availability of cheap, abundant electricity was a key to the federal government's location of the massive uranium enrichment (atomic bomb) facility outside Paducah in the early 1950s. Some suggest the choice to locate in Paducah was influenced by Vice President Alben W. Barkley, the former US senator from Paducah..."
