Dedication Exercises
10 A. M.
May 30, 1916
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering
University of Kentucky
During the month of July, 1915, there appeared in a local newspaper an account of the finding of "Old Rail Stones" and "Old Strap Iron Rails" which had been used in the construction of the railroad generally known as "the old Lexington and Frankfort Road," though it was incorporated under the name of the "Lexington and Ohio Rail Road." It is believed by many to have been the first railroad west of the Alleghany Mountains. Be that as it may, the quaint and interesting relics had just been dug up that week by the workmen who were reconstructing the freight yards of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The workmen were moving more recently laid tracks back to the old original road bed of the pioneer railroad, and in doing so they unearthed those curious relics of 1831.
Although just starting that very day for a summer vacation, I hurried down town a little before train time, and went to the Main Street offices of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad where the interesting relics were on display.
As I stood gazing at that worn and rusty bar of iron with its single bent and rusty spike, I was whisked back across the years by some strange trick of memory and I saw, instead, a dimly lighted sick room, on a hot summer night—myself a little sufferer, and sitting beside me, fanning my fevered brow, my beloved father, who, notwithstanding the fatigue of a heavy and exacting practice sat thus night after night, soothing me to sleep by telling me entertaining stories of his youth, and as he was born one hundred and one years ago, the strange experiences of his boyhood were thrilling indeed to his youthful adorer.