Kentucky Colonel Resources

One thing is for sure, Kentucky colonels did not start in Kentucky, the first newspaper articles about a Kentucky Colonel were in 1833. The origin of the Kentucky Colonel is firmly planted in Boonesborough which has had its own colony, then the Commonwealth of Virginia and today is part of Kentucky because the Kentucky Colonel made Kentucky and everything in it! It would be very hard to name something original that came from Kentucky that a colonel was not involved in making.

Resource Listing

There are a great number of resources available to Kentucky colonels who are interested in extending their honorable title through community involvement and benevolent societies around the world that are established by other colonels. There is also a wealth of information that should be understood by Kentucky colonels that are looking to treat the title seriously.

Websites

Facebook Pages

Facebook Groups

Bibliography

There are a great deal of (newly discovered) resources about American and Kentucky Colonelcy if you know where to look! See our Bibliography, News Articles and the official American Colonel's Network website.

Basic Primary Resources

Scholarly and Historical Resources

We have discovered a great number of resources that make reference to Kentucky colonels, so many in fact we are writing a book about Kentucky's history and the instrumental role of the colonel throughout the past 250+/- years since colonels first entered the Kentucky territory. Many of these resources also appear unordered in our Bibliography, the selection below are some of the most significant.

Kentucky Colonels Prior to 1925

References submitted by our members and social media followers.

References are also made about the Kentucky Colonels Drum and Bugle Corps, Post 7 in Frankfort, Kentucky

Unclassified Resources

A Brittle Sword: The Kentucky Militia, 1776-1912 (Military Studies)
Augusta County, Virginia in the History of the United States (History)
Colonels, Hillbillies and Fightin’: Twentieth-century Kentucky in the National Imagination (History Article)
Creation of a Confederate Kentucky (Academic Paper)
Kentucky to Lose its Colonels (Newspaper Article 1920)
HOKC v Bldg Champions (Lawsuit)
Kentucky Acts 36-110 (Law)
Divide and Dissent: Kentucky Politics, 1930-1963 (Politics)
Kentucky Constitutions (Early Years) (Document)
Historical significance of a Kentucky colonel named Harlan (Legal Article)
US Congressional Record 1936 (Congressional Digest)
The Kentucky Spirit or Why the Kentucky Colonel? (Newspaper Article)
HOKC v KCI, Public Domain (Court Exhibit)
Kentucky Colonels Exercise Honor in a Meaningful Way (Humanities Article)
First website dedicated to Kentucky Colonels (WebSIte Archive)

Not so Useful Resources

English Sheepdog Named a Kentucky Colonel (UPI News, 1980)

Erroneous Articles

There are a great many articles that have been generated over the years based on a "generally mistaken history" of the Kentucky Colonel, starting with Wikipedia and according to our research since 1933. Even the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the Kentucky Historical Society has gotten it wrong. Some historians however have seen through the errors and not cited the erroneous accounts.

How and why the manipulation of history began and when it became misunderstood is mostly a mystery. Based on our best understanding the historical account was first presented erroneously in 1941 by the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels at a Derby eve party while they were all drinking bourbon and telling jokes. Perpetuating errors and filling in the blanks with assumptions is wrong, it is not honorable to give credit to those who have manipulated a historical record to purport a false truth or make a historical account fictitious, moreover it cheats the real actors such as Col. Daniel Boone, Col. John Bowman and Col. Richard Henderson that bring great prestige to the idea. See more in our section on History.

Dennis Keene: Honorable Order of the Kentucky Colonel part of Commonwealth’s History and Heritage (Erroneous)

Semantic and Data Sources

Other references can be found to Kentucky Colonels' clubs by deep mining the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress going back to 1888. See our American Newspapers page which provides over 350 individual news articles that reference Kentucky colonels.