The ad in the paper said:
COME VISIT PADUCAH, ONLY 3 HOURS AWAY.
COME VISIT PADUCAH, ONLY 3 HOURS AWAY.
Ever since I first saw Paducah on a map as a kid, I wanted to visit a
place with such an intriguing name. So,
I took a day off from work. I left our
house at 7:04 AM, and I crossed the Kentucky state line at 11:04. The ad in the paper was correct.
What I found is that Paducah is a city of architecture, a city
of history, and, most of all, a city of art.
Paducah is lucky to have a large number of 19th
Century buildings still gracing its downtown.
The American-German National Bank:
The grand downtown commercial hotel:
Shop Historic Paducah:
Paducah is where I found out about America’s first sojourn
into government health care. President
John Adams knew that America’s prosperity depended on merchant ships, and in
1798, health care was provided to merchant seamen. It was then extended to the men who worked on
the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
Paducah was the site of a Confederate raid in the Civil War. The town displays its history in public, on its flood wall. Over 50 flood wall murals describe the history of Paducah, including its industrial history.
Paducah was the home of Vice President Alben Barkley. Barkley captured my imagination because of his moment of death. He was giving a speech and quoted
Psalm 84:10, saying "I would rather be a servant in the
House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty." He died on stage just minutes after saying that
quotation.
Art abounds in Paducah. The biggest tourist attraction in town is a
museum of quilts and fiber arts. But the
city has deliberately sought artists to boost its economy. They have an artist relocation plan, and pay
artists to move to Paducah.
The artists get low-cost houses in Lower
Town. The house serves as a studio, a gallery, and a residence. I talked to
artists who had moved from Michigan, Vermont, California, and the State of
Washington. They were all ecstatic to be
in Paducah.
Before heading back to St. Louis, I had to visit
the town's piece de résistance for a fan of architecture: the Paducah Post
Office. It is a midcentury modern
building designed by Edward Durrell Stone.
It is a small-scale version of the US Embassy that Stone designed for
New Delhi, India.
Paducah, Kentucky,which I had wanted to see only because
it had an intriguing name, proved to be a city with intriguing architecture,
intriguing history, and intriguing art.
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