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Tourists
dig into the past NICHOLASVILLE When Charlotte Dean DeWees found the long-forgotten grave of a distant relative yesterday, she did more than peel back a thick carpet of creeping myrtle from the stone. ``Now that I've found it, it means they're not really forgotten,'' DeWees said as she sat looking at the 1858 grave of Mary Dean, wife of John W. Dean. ``It opens up a whole new life for me.'' DeWees, 61, of Venice, Fla., is among a group of more than 40 out-of-state visitors who keep in contact over the Internet and who make informal ``heritage fest'' pilgrimages to Jessamine County to see where their ancestors lived and died.
Cultural-heritage tourism is nothing new because people have always wanted to see historical sites. But what's new is that the tourism industry knows more about what people want to see and hopes to tailor trips to those interests. For example, the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau is collaborating with other counties in Central Kentucky to put together tours developed around ``interpretive topics,'' including religion, railroads, African-American history, distilling and tobacco. Tourists who visit the Camp Nelson Civil War park in Jessamine County might also want to visit Perryville Battlefield in Boyle County or the Mary Todd Lincoln House in Lexington, said David Lord, convention bureau president. There is an obvious financial incentive in marketing history. Cultural-heritage tourists tend to stay longer and shop more than the average tourist, and they have more disposable income to spend on attractions, said Christa Bunnell, communications director for the state Tourism Development Cabinet. The Travel Industry Association says that cultural-heritage tourists spend an average of $615 a trip compared with $425 for other U.S. tourists. Two-thirds of the attractions in Kentucky guidebooks have some sort of historical connection, Bunnell said. And a survey conducted a few years ago found that historical sites were listed as the No. 1 reason that tourists came to Kentucky, she said. In addition, Kentucky ranks fourth in the number of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As more communities identify historic sites and recognize their tourism potential, the desire to protect and preserve them is greater. That's been the case in Jessamine County, where state and federal funds helped local officials restore the officers' quarters at Camp Nelson, a Civil War supply depot; and High Bridge Park, a recreation spot that sits atop the Kentucky River palisades. History is why Dick Bishop, 65, of Fayetteville, N.C., keeps coming back to Jessamine County. He is a descendant of George Michael Bruner, one of the many Revolutionary War soldiers who died around Nicholasville. ``I've tromped through the back country and brambles here in Jessamine County to find these cemeteries,'' Bishop said. ``Tracking back to Jessamine County and finding out who these people were, it's a tremendous rush to walk the same terrain.'' While not every community has a speedway, aquarium or theme park to draw tourists, as do Gallatin, Campbell or Jefferson counties, each community has a history to tell that can call attention to its own back yard. ``For small rural communities, it's the first chance they have to say `What we have is important,''' said Carole Summers, cultural-heritage coordinator for the state Travel Department. Jessamine County has not always recognized its heritage. Ben Netherlands, who fought in the last battle of the Revolutionary War, is buried beneath a Nicholasville convenience store built on the site of an old cemetery. Untold other cemeteries were destroyed by bulldozers for development, but a new Jessamine ordinance that took effect last year seeks to protect those cemeteries. The heritage-fest visitors are prompting greater efforts to protect Jessamine's history. Yesterday they helped clear brush from the old Moravian church cemetery west of Nicholasville, where DeWees found her long-lost relative. They have also contributed more than $800 to maintain historic cemeteries in Jessamine County. They also brought bound volumes of their genealogies to the historical society office in Nicholasvlle. Any old photos they bring can be scanned into a computer, said Clyde Bunch, president of the Jessamine County Historical and Genealogical Society. ``What little we give to them comes back to us,'' Bunch said. ``These people point out things to us that we just take for granted.'' |
She
also is among a segment of ``cultural-heritage'' tourists that Jessamine
County and the state are hoping will keep coming back to Kentucky.