Rockcastle County Highpoint Trip Report
one spot on Cruse Ridge (1,640+ ft)
Date: August 10, 2004
Author: Estus Hibbard
From the junction of U.S. 421 and KY 1912 in the Big Hill community, take KY 1912 south approximately
1.6 miles south to a gravel road on the right (it's got a red brick house there at the gravel road's junction).
Take this road 1/4 mile and drive right to the three radio towers and you are right at the spot. I just bought
another Garmin E-Trex GPS unit, and it was varying between 1,640 and 1,641 feet above sea level at the
highest point, located at the northern side of the little white building beside the tower on the small mound.
I visited this one about a month earlier, right before I bought my current GPS, and I wasn't exactly sure that
I was at the right location (along KY 1912 going south you'll see two different 3-tower clusters,
the HP is at the southern cluster).
At the white house located where you turn off the gravel road to the small spur (about 200 feet in length) to
the towers, be sure to talk to a gentleman named Mike Van Winkle. As of right now, he is currently redoing
the main floor of his house and is living momentarily in the basement section, just walk around to the back of
the house if it's not finished by the time you visit. On this trip, I confirmed that he indeed did have the
highest point in Rockcastle County, and he was right pleased. He is an extremely friendly fellow and he says
it's no problem for anyone to visit this HP. On my first trip here, he even offered to let me climb the radio
towers, which I declined. In fact, he wanted me to come back again and invite friends to the spot, which is
no problem for me since I live in Clay County, not all that far away.
As far as views are concerned, you are gonna be supremely disappointed with this one. Even though driving
along KY 1912 to the towers you will get some wonderful views to the north, at the towers themselves
there is absolutely no view whatsoever. If about 15-20 feet in thickness worth of trees and brush were to be
cleared away, you'd have a view to the north and west from this HP. Since you can drive your car all the
way to this one, this is no doubt the easiest county HP in Eastern Kentucky to complete.
Historical footnote to this HP: KY 1912 and the portion of KY 1955 that forms the Rockcastle-Jackson
county line (further down the road going down 1912) is the actual route of the original Boone Trace,
hacked out by Daniel Boone and his cohorts while enroute to starting Fort Boonesborough back in 1775,
so he was about 1/4 mile from the HP spot -- maybe he bagged this one.
Another historical footnote to this HP: At about the junction of US 421 and KY 1912, the opening shots of
the Battle of Richmond (1862) were fired during the Civil War, so both the Rockcastle and Jackson HP's
(straight to the east of the towers at a spot 1,633 feet above sea level) would have been within easy earshot
of the gunfire.
While you are in that neighborhood, be sure to stop at the ruins of the Jones Tavern, located at the base of
the Big Hill going north on US 421 (a state historical marker marks the turnoff for it).
General Ulysses S. Grant stopped overnight there, which burned down a couple of years back and is
one of the stops on the Battle of Richmond tour should you decide to try it.
He was traveling the Wilderness Road from
Tennessee to Lexington in 1864 to determine what military use it had (apparently not much, judging from
the reports of the time).
highpoint coordinates (37.50450° N, 84.21601° W) - datum not provided.