Bowling Green, KY Summary

Bowling Green, located 94 miles southwest of Louisville, off US- 68, is a lively city. This may reflect the fact that it is the only place where alcohol can be purchased between Louisville and Nashville.

The principal settlement of southern Kentucky and fifth-largest city in the state, it is home to about 41,000 people.

There are a number of interesting historic attractions in the area but Bowling Green is best known for America’s only homegrown sports car, the Corvette. There are 1-hour tours of the General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant and, nearby, the National Corvette Museum, which takes in the car’s history from the chrome and steel of 1953 to futuristic concept cars. Fifty models are displayed, including the famous Stingray. There are also exhibits on motor racing, automobile culture, and Corvette advertising.

Bowling Green is also home to Western University where the Kentucky Museum examines state history.

Also of interest is Riverview, at Hobson Grove, which is a historic house and museum built between 1860 and 1890.

Eleven miles west of Bowling Green, in South Union, is a restored settlement established in 1807 by the Shakers, an ascetic sect noted for its emphasis on simplicity, hygiene, celibacy (men and women even entered the buildings through different doors), pacifism, communal ownership, and the high quality of their architecture and furniture.

This was the very last of 19 Shaker villages set up in America. The community was disbanded in 1922. Only six out of 200 buildings remain — three are open to the public and one is now a B&B. The Center Family Dwelling House, which was built in 1824, is now a museum with displays of Shaker textiles, tools, crafts, and furnishings.

A Civil War Driving Tour takes in 10 Civil War sites, including forts, a cave, homes, a monument, markers, and a museum. Although Kentucky was officially neutral in the war, Confederate General Simon Bolivar set up headquarters at Bowling Green in 1861.

There is an airport in Bowling Green and buses service the area.