While driving in more rural areas of Kentucky, you may encounter a slow-moving, black, horse-drawn buggy bearing bonneted women and girls and brimmed straw hat-wearing men and boys. Before you make your way around them, you might wonder what their lives are like and how it compares to your own.
It’s like taking a step back in time, as the Amish have no telephones or electricity and use horses and buggies for transportation. They meticulously care for the land and are skilled craftsmen and artisans in baking and other crafts.
The town of Marion in Crittenden County helps promote its Amish neighbors by linking them with visitors eager to encounter members of this highly conservative religious group and buy their handmade quilts, mums, gourds, produce, flowers, and furniture.
With between 400 and 600 Amish living nearby, the mystique of the Amish is alive and well here, says Michele Edwards of the Marion Tourism Commission, who estimates that 75 percent of local tourism is Amish-related.
“I think it’s a different lifestyle and a different culture and it’s something that people can see and experience,” she says. “Here they really contribute to the community.”
The Amish established their first Marion-area settlement in 1977, Edwards says, and have built their livelihoods around plant nurseries and greenhouses, a quilt shop, bakery and country store, a leather shop, cabinet shops (they don’t advertise, yet have a long waiting list), and a variety store.
The commission distributes a map showing a 30-mile Amish loop of these destinations, primarily along Kentucky 654 North and 91 North. It’s best to visit during daylight hours, any day except Sundays, which is their day of worship, and some Thursdays when Amish weddings are typically celebrated, Edwards explains.
The Amish don’t like their faces to be photographed, but are very friendly and welcoming, she says, and don’t scowl in judgment at visitors’ jewelry, makeup, or modern attire as some might fear.
Amish ties are evident in Marion—near the commission’s new, modern welcome center is a hitching rail for Amish horses, and Edwards says some locals make extra money driving Amish to visit their friends and relatives in Ohio, New York, even Canada. The Amish don’t believe in owning or driving vehicles, but don’t mind to pay for rides with individuals, who are known as Amish Haulers, she explains.
One particular kind of summer produce is highly sought by Marion residents and visitors alike, says Edwards: “There’s a perception that the Amish tomatoes are better than anybody else’s.”
Edwards says locals familiar with the Amish can serve as guides for visitors with advance notice.
The Danville-Boyle County Convention and Visitors Bureau also points visitors to Amish and Mennonite communities with a map of destinations in the nearby Phil community. The map features a leather shop, organic produce, blacksmith and buggy shop, bulk food store, greenhouses, feed store, and quilt shop.
In Danville, there are nearly a dozen bed and breakfasts and chain hotels as lodging options, all featured on the tourism map, also available online by clicking Accommodations. For more information, drop by the bureau at 304 South Fourth Street, call (800) 755-0076, or go on the Web to www.danvillekentucky.com.
DESTINATIONS
When in Marion (Central Time), visit the Marion Tourism & Welcome Center at 213 South Main Street for a map of Amish-related destinations.
Heritage Days in Marion is October 21, when visitors flock to town to snap up colorful fall mums and gourds from local Amish families.
Each spring, the Backroads Festival, April 28–29, 2007, offers arts and crafts, and guided tours to Amish destinations.
Any time of year you can experience old country store browsing at Yoder’s Variety, 7-1/2 miles north of Marion on Kentucky 91. Its shelves are stocked with fabrics, dried herbs and spices, candy, Amish-made jelly, glassware and kitchenware, toys, wood furniture, clothing, and more.
For country cooking, visit Marion Café at the corner of Main and Belleville, (270) 965-2211. Open 6 a.m.–2 p.m. Monday; 6 a.m.–8 p.m. Tuesday–Thursday; Friday–Saturday 6 a.m.–9 p.m. Or try The Coffee Shop at 108 Main Street, (270) 965-5185, open 6 a.m.–8 p.m. Monday–Saturday; 6 a.m.–3 p.m. Sunday.
For information about Marion-area Amish, call (270) 965-5015 or go online to www.marionkentucky.us/Marion-Kentucky-amish.htm.
Amish in Hardin County are located primarily in the Sonora and Glendale areas, and can often be found selling their wares in Sonora near the Pilot Travel Center and the Five-Star gas station, both on E. Western Avenue; in Glendale near the Whistle Stop and near the Pilot Travel Center on Glendale-Hodgenville Road; and in Elizabethtown just north of Towne Mall on Dixie Highway.
Amish are relatively new to the Mayfield area, locals say, but they sometimes sell handwoven baskets on Kentucky 45 toward Paducah. The Mennonites, an order from which the Amish descended, operate a bulk food store in Mayfield off Kentucky 121.
Shannon Leonard-Boone is a regular contributor to the Traveling Kentucky column.
Source: http://www.kentuckyliving.com/article.asp?articleid=1794&issueid=278#parttwo
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