Bluegrass Paradise

"Gary O'Dell's Bluegrass Paradise is more than the history of a Bluegrass community in relation to its water sources. It is a comprehensive portrait of the settling of the Bluegrass. It provides an illuminating outline of the evolution of the entire region—its enabling geography, its trials, its growth in agriculture and industry as well as its formation from the post-Revolutionary era as a mecca of settlement to the convergence of forces and events that give it a distinct character. This book confirms the age-old proposition that civilization occurs with the consent and cooperation of geography."—Richard Taylor, author of Elkhorn

"This exhaustive effort captures the important history and truths of Georgetown's Royal Spring, explaining the many legends and local stories surrounding the water source. Gary O'Dell provides insight into the very beginnings and development of Georgetown and Kentucky history in a delightful way by focusing on a key water resource that is still in use today. This book should be required reading for every future mayor of Georgetown!"—Tom Prather, Mayor of Georgetown

"Kentucky's Royal Spring emerges from the Bluegrass Region's limestone ledges with exceptional volume and enduring flow. The spring was a node for settlement during Kentucky's dynamic frontier period and a pragmatic rationale for the founding of Georgetown, the Scott County seat. Gary O'Dell's treatise on Royal Spring is the product of meticulous archival research and decades of inspired field work. The book blends humanistic and science perspectives and links historic and contemporary cultural practices with environmental surroundings—from the eighteenth century to the present day. It is a 'must read' for those seeking insights into the multigenerational building of a community's heritage; its founding, development, and durability."—Karl Raitz, author of Making Bourbon: A Geographical History of Distilling in Nineteenth-Century Kentucky

"From a readable and personal beginning, through pages of interesting prose, to a solid conclusion, Gary O'Dell has crafted a detailed and excellent study of an important part of the Kentucky landscape. His is a well-researched story that goes from frontier times to the present, and is much broader in scope than the title suggests. It is a fine work."—James C. Klotter, State Historian of Kentucky, Professor Emeritus of History at Georgetown College