![[Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway] [Daniel Boone Parkway]](../images/shields/tollfree.jpg)
Tolls Removed from Daniel Boone Parkway and Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway; Daniel Boone Parkway Renamed Hal Rogers Parkway
Midnight June 1, 2003 marked the end of tolls on the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway and the Daniel Boone Parkway. Transportation officials and U.S. Congressman Hal Rogers commemorated the occasion on June 9 at the London toll both on the Daniel Boone Parkway. At the ceremony, Congressman Rogers personally manned a bulldozer and knocked over one of the toll booths. It was also revealed at this ceremony that the Daniel Boone Parkway would be renamed the Hal Rogers Parkway.
U.S. Congressman Hal Rogers serves the 5th district of Kentucky; the 5th district stretches from Somerset to Pikeville. Rogers is the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation; in this position, Rogers helped to obtain $13 million in federal funding to help pay off outstanding bonds on these two parkways. The funding also allowed Kentucky to refinance the debt on the remaining toll roads. Renaming the parkway in his honor has sparked controversy. Many Kentuckians are proud of Daniel Boone's history in the state, and are offended by the political nature of this renaming. Though seven of Kentucky's nine parkways have been renamed for politicians, the Daniel Boone is the first of the two which were originally named for people to be renamed and the only to be renamed for politician still in office.
The other parkway named for a person is the Audubon Parkway which is named for 19th century naturalist John James Audubon. The Jackson in Jackson Purchase Parkway (now Julian M. Carroll Parkway) refers to President Andrew Jackson; however, the name Jackson Purchase is used to refer to Kentucky west of the Tennessee River. The area was purchased from natives during Jackson's presidency.
The renaming of the Daniel Boone Parkway sparked protest editorials such as this one from Prestonsburg's The Floyd County Times (reprinted in the Bowling Green Daily News) ![[Outside Link]](../images/kentuckyroads/outside-link2.gif){kind=small}
. The renaming also sparked the first handful of comments on KentuckyRoads.com.
Pictures:
- H.B. Elkins: Toll Roads Become Toll Free - H.B. Elkins took these pictures of the both parkways on June 7, 2003. All of the toll booths were still standing at this point; however toll collection had ended.
- KentuckyRoads.com: Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway Photos - I took these pictures of the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway on July 5, 2003. The locations of all of the former toll booths are examined.
Construction work at the Russell Springs Toll Plaza. View this entire gallery for more pictures. - KentuckyRoads.com: Daniel Boone Parkway/Hal Rogers Parkway Photos - I took these pictures of the Daniel Boone Parkway/Hal Rogers Parkway on July 5, 2003. The locations of all of the former toll booths are examined.
Hal Rogers Parkway sign at the eastern end of the parkway. View this entire gallery for more pictures. - June 2003 Issue of Transportation Konnection (the KYTC Newsletter): - Page 4 of the "Watz Up" section (PDF document) contains pictures from the toll both destruction ceremony. Including a photo of Transportation Cabinet Secretary James C. Codell III and Congressman Rogers operating a bulldozer. Page 9 of the District News section (PDF document) contains a picture of the parkway's namesake former governor Louie B. Nunn paying the last toll at the Russell Springs toll plaza on the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway. Also in the care with him is Junior Johnson who paid the first toll on the parkway when it opened in September of 1973.
- Rush Wickes: London toll plaza - Rush Wickes contributed this photograph of the London toll booth taken in March 2003:
![[Daniel Boone Parkway London Toll Both]](../images/halrogers/londontoll_t.jpg)
![[Daniel Boone Parkway London Toll Both]](../images/halrogers/londontoll.jpg.html)
More information: KYTC Press Release: Daniel Boone Parkway is now the Hal Rogers Parkway (June 10, 2003) , KYTC Press Release: Rogers, Codell Celebrate End of Tolls on Daniel Boone & Louie Nunn Parkways (June 9, 2003) , KYTC Press Release: Tollbooths on Daniel Boone and Nunn Parkways are Coming Down (May 30, 2003) , Bowling Green Daily News: Tolls to be halted on two roads (May 31, 2003) , Courier-Journal: State starts to bring down toll plazas on two parkways (June 10, 2003) , WKYT: Tolls Demolished; Parkway Renamed , Herald-Leader: End for Daniel Boone Toll Route (June 10, 2003)
Comments
Since there is little chance the highway will be renamed, please find another significant venue to remind all of Kentucky's number one pioneer.
With idiotic actions like this, is it surprizing most of us no longer really trust our governments (at all levels) or our 'elected' officials who are supposed to do 'our will' (not THEIRS!!!)???? I wish we still did 'Tar & Feathers' and 'Riding out of town on a rail' like was done in Daniel's days. The 'politicians' responsible for this travesty of justice deserve that kind of treatment!!!!!!
By Anne Shelby
This column appeared in THE MANCHESTER ENTERPRISE July 24, 2003.
Well me and my husband went over to London a-Saturday to visit with my sister that lives over there she. We didn’t go on the old Daniel Boone Parkway we went on the new HAL ROGERS PARKWAY.
Hit seemed like hit was about as bumpy from coal trucks and log trucks and about as dangerous and took about the same amount of time as the old Daniel Boone Parkway. There wasn’t no toll booths on it but I swear I’d ruther pay a toll ever time as to have to call it the HAL ROGERS PARKWAY.
Hit just don’t sound right, sorty like changing the name of the First Church of God to Joe’s Bar and Grill.
Some say Daniel Boone warn’t nothing but a man that left his family to go off and claim the best land for the rich people and leave the rest of it for us. And I reckon if Ol Danl hadn’t of found the Cumberland Gap and pointed the way west, somebody else would have probly figured it out sooner or later. We wouldn’t be all still backed up along the coast, crowded up, no elbow room, wondering which direction to go.
But whatever Ol’ Dan’l’s shortcomings in real life, in our minds he is bigger than life. He is a myth, he is a legend, he was a man, a big man, from the coonskin cap on top of Ol Dan to the heels of his rawhide shoes. Daniel Boone is a symbol of courage, independence, and closeness to nature. Whereas Hal Rogers is, well, a Republican from Somerset.
I hope this is not the start of a trend. I don’t want to live in the HAL ROGERS National Forest nor ride the HAL ROGERS Transit nor view a outdoor drama named THE LEGEND OF HAL ROGERS.
I don’t mean to throw off on Hal Rogers but
if they was bound and determined to name something HAL ROGERS I wish they’d a named something HAL ROGERS that didn’t already have a perfectly good name and something that was maybe a little bit closer to Somerset.
Now that’s just the way I feel about it and you can call it the HAL ROGERS PARKWAY if you want to but I’ve been calling it the Daniel Boone for thirty years and don’t aim to change now they can put up all the signs they want to.
Mr. Hal Rogers may have done a good job in Ky - but he was doing just that; HIS JOB. A job he has been very well compensated for. All monies that he has spent on Ky came from Kentuckians, many of them were even descendants of Daniel Boone. He hasn't spent his own money for Ky. He is VERY well paid - and with VERY big checks and benefits for the rest of his life! We all know that as a politician he reeps countless benefits that most of us will never have, in addition to his big paycheck - so why does he have to replace the name of an historic figure with his own? These are the things that make American people hate politicians.
Daniel Boone had no money so he gave something much more valuable. He gave TWO sons to Kentucky and he grieved mightily for those sons as long as he lived. He gave countless other family members and friends too. He gave a big portion of his own life to Ky. What was his compensation? Nothing. Not one thing.
He left Ky. very hurt and disheartened because Ky. even took his land from him. He left and he said he never wanted to go back. In the end, Ky. even took THAT CHOICE away from him by taking it upon themselves to dig up his body and that of his wife and move them to Ky. to promote tourism in a new Frankfort, Ky. cemetery! Oh we know that he still rests in Missouri soil - no matter what the controversy because you see, when they dug into the grave they thought was Boone's, there was nothing left but a few small remnants and that is what they took to Ky. So no matter what, Daniel's body (whether it was his grave or someone else's) is still in Missouri. BUT Ky. DID take Rebecca. Yes, they even took his beloved wife from him to rest somewhere far away from him.
One would think that now that so much time has passed, Kentucky would be trying to rectify some of those past errors in judgement. Kentucky has done VERY little to honor the true "Father of Kentucky." They put his name on a few signs here and there - Kentucky gained more from that than they were giving - they profit from his name. Now they have insulted him once AGAIN by putting a politician on a bulldozer and having him knock down road signs bearing the name of Daniel Boone. What a stupid, stupid thing to do - a BIG error in judgement - a very bad idea by whomever thought this one up. A very bad idea for Mr. hal Rogers to go along with it and even welcome it! What the rest of the country must be thinking about us now! Yes, it dishonors BOONE once again in the state he loved but EVEN MORE IT DISHONORS KENTUCKY!
M. Miles, Born & Raised in Kentucky
Somerset Ky
Thank You.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/6599326.htm
"Gov. Paul Patton's spokesman, Rusty Cheuvront, acknowledged yesterday that the changing of the Daniel Boone Parkway to the Hal Rogers Parkway came at the governor's recommendation.
And Kentucky's transportation secretary only angered descendants further by saying it was about time the state started honoring some new heroes.
"There are no bears to slay, nor gaps to discover on treks to the West, so the heroes of our time follow new paths to greatness," Transportation Secretary James Codell III wrote in a letter to the Boone Society."
Both the Governor and the Transportation Secretary are Democrats. Rogers is a Republican. Maybe we have to read between the lines. Can you see a liberal Democrat calling a conservative Republican a "new hero" to replace Daniel Boone?
Yes, I love Kentucky frontier history and agree it should remain the Daniel Boone Parkway. But, doesn't something smell fishy here?
Dave
going to be traveling to your state soon. My son is named Daniel, and Daniel Boone has always been a favorite hero of his. We will be going to the Daniel Boone National Forest. The name and the history are what set this area apart from
others. I must admit that I've never heard of Hal Rogers. He may be a good
man. He may be a good politician. But, I'm afraid his name does not inspire a tourist to travel KY roads.
Daniel Boone gave much to this country and Hal Rogers has lined his pockets with a Kentucky congressman's pay which should be enough. CHANGE THE NAME BACK TO THE DANIEL BOONE PARKWAY! Ten years from now nobody will know who Rogers is/was anyway. Why immortalize another politician??? My opinion!
Kentuckian by heritage!
Kentucky Colonel, James A. Pennington
PUT the Boone Name back on the parkway!!!
Come on Hal, you can get a road or street somwhere. Dan was here before you!
When I was a young man of 23 years of age, I was honorably discharged from the U. S. Army. After my tour of duty, I returned to my home town
in California. I bought a car and my Father and I decided to take a road trip across this beautiful country of ours. We drove to Santa Monica, Caifornia
where we picked up U.S. Rt. 66 and headed east on the most enjoyable trip I have ever taken. We went to Portsmouth, N.H. where my father was born
in 1894 in his parent's home. We stayed in this same home that was still owned by his three elderly wonderful sisters for over six weeks before
returning to California via a different route. I can still close my eyes and see us motoring east on the Daniel Boone Highway, oh what a beautiful part of
our wonderful country. After returning home, I met my bride of thirty six plus years. I have told her many many times about that road trip and your
scenic state. We have always wanted to retrace that trip. We have decided to do just that in the next couple of years after retirement. I would just hate
to see someone else's name on the Daniel Boone Parkway when we come through your state, for many reasons. When I was a kid, all of my buddies and
I would play cowboys and indians and all sorts of games. I can remember we would always fight over who was going to be Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett,
or Jim Bowie when we wanted to be frontiersmen. I always wanted to be Daniel Boone, I have read everything I could find about Daniel Boone's life
and accomplishments. What a treasure this man was to our country. I'm sure his memory will live in American history forever, as it should be, as he
belongs to all of America and Americans everywhere. Please do not change the name of the Daniel Boone Parkway, it should be a monument to your
greatest native son. Thank you for listening to my ramblings.
Ronald Mullane
P.S.
I now live in the Pacific N.W. and I Know of no one
that has ever heard of Hal Rogers, but everyone knows
of Daniel Boone. (Father of Kentucky)
( I mean no disrespect to U.S Congressman Hal Rogers)