Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series - The Kentucky River

Name: Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series - The Kentucky River
Start: 2026-01-10T13:00:00-05:00
Location: 319 Wapping St, Frankfort, KY, United States, Kentucky 40601

Schedule

Sat, 10 Jan, 2026 at 01:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

319 Wapping St, Frankfort, KY, United States, Kentucky 40601 | Frankfort, KY

This joint presentation will first look at the Kentucky River and its fauna in its “natural state”. Then, as development progressed, the role the river played as the highway into and out of the interior of the Commonwealth. The importance of the river in transportation led to the development of a series of locks and dams which changed the very character of the river from a free flowing water body into basically a series of dammed reservoirs. This changed the ecology of the river and the fisheries assemblages that live there. We will then talk about how the biology of the river has, in more recent years, also been affected by distillery fires and bourbon spills. And then we will look more to the future to discuss the role the river plays not only as water supply for the surrounding region, but also in carrying our wastewater away.
Dr. Jim Tidwell is Professor Emeritus in Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences from Kentucky State University, having retired in 2023 after 37 years. He was named a Distinguished Professor at KSU in 2014 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 from the United State Aquaculture Society. He has published over 150 refereed journal publications and is author/editor of five books. He developed an interest in the interactions of history and biology in the Kentucky River when he was responsible for the design of a Kentucky River Interpretive Center being planned by KSU. That project included the construction of the Kentucky River Thorobred Science boat, which now serves Frankfort as the Bourbon Belle tour boat.
Doug Henley has a Master’s degree in Fisheries Management from South Dakota State University. He is a retired fisheries river research biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. Doug has 27 years of studying fish population dynamics mainly in the Ohio and Kentucky rivers. Fish species studied included paddlefish, striped bass, largemouth bass and three species of catfish.