Preserve America Community:
Glasgow, Kentucky
Glasgow, Kentucky (population 13,019), is the home of Fort Williams, built by the Union army in 1863 to protect the surrounding area from Confederate infantry raiders. The fort has been preserved and is one of the State's few remaining clay Civil War forts.
Glasgow is home to the South Central Kentucky Cultural Center, also known as the Museum of the Barrens, which is packed with area history. Housed in the old Kentucky Pants factory in downtown Glasgow, the center allows visitors to travel all the way back to 12,000 B.C. More contemporary features include a log cabin, a gristmill from the mid-1800s, an extensive military exhibit, a one-room schoolhouse, and the town square as it looked in the late 1800s.
The adaptive reuse of this factory as a cultural center is an excellent example of using an abandoned historic resource to tell the stories of the community's past as well as revitalizing activity in a downtown commercial district.
Each year about 20,000 people from throughout the United States, Canada, and Great Britain attend the Glasgow Highland Games, preserving the area's cultural heritage. Now in their 18th year, the games feature Scottish dance and music performances, as well as athletic competitions.
For more information
Various Glasgow preservation projects: www.glasgowmag.com/almanac.html#almanac1
Glasgow Renaissance Main Street: www.cityofglasgow.org/renaissance.htm
Historic Fort Williams: www.cityofglasgow.org/fortwilliams.htm
Updated November 23, 2004