When the Civil War between the States of the Union was about to begin, Kentucky refused to take sides in the controversy, and in the strict sense of the term was never out of the Union. When the President of the United States called on Kentucky to furnish men and equipment for the Union army, the Governor replied that the State was neutral and would take no steps toward secession, nor would it espouse coercion by force of arms. The people, however, chose for themselves, and enlisted in the Union or in the Confederate army, as they believed to be in the right of the controversy. The result was that about an equal number enlisted with both armies. Hence the State became a common battleground during the struggle, very much as it was in the days when the Indian tribes from the North and from the South met on our soil as a common battleground. Families were divided as to their espousal of the respective sides of the contest, father and son frequently taking up arms on opposite sides. When the war closed, the people went to work with a will to repair the damages incident to the struggle, and no state has shown greater progress in the development of its natural resources.

Probably no state has greater resources capable of development. The coal beds of Eastern Kentucky comprise an area of more than ten thousand square miles or about [pg 32]one-fourth the area of the whole state, and the western coal fields underlie four thousand square miles, or about one-tenth of the area of the state. Inexhaustible deposits of iron ore are found, and the forests are exceedingly rich in fine lumber.

The state has made wonderful progress in the development of the school system. In fact, no other state has a more practical and efficient school system, nor has any state a more determined set of school workers.

Kentucky has had three permanent Capitol buildings. The last was completed in 1909 at a cost of $1,750,000, and is considered one of the handsomest structures of its kind in the Union.

Great virtues are sometimes accompanied by great faults; but Kentucky’s faults have been those born of isolation and inaccessibility. Now that her railways are penetrating into even the remotest districts, bringing her citizens into closer and quicker communication with the outside world, her people rapidly are becoming united in their efforts to make her future eclipse her glorious past. With the purest Anglo-Saxon blood in the United States forming the greater part of her citizenship, and the riches of her forests and mountains even now just beginning to pour into the laps of the people, a great future is inevitable for Kentucky, “The land of the China Brier.”