Anyone, who has driven over Kentucky Street in downtown Corbin, can tell you that it is a little rough in places to put it mildly. Let’s face it, the drive down Main Street could be a bit smoother too.
While these two roadways go through the center of downtown Corbin, I don’t think that many people realize the roads aren’t technically city streets, but rather are federal roads maintained by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
Based upon numerous conversations that I have had with Corbin officials over the years, I can assure you that they would like to see these two roadways repaved just as much as anybody else in town and have worked for several years to make that happen.
Their hard work has paid off.
As you can read in more detail in a story in this week’s edition of the News Journal, much to the delight of many people, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet now plans to pave these two streets sometime in 2026. Corbin City Manager Scott Williamson made the announcement Thursday morning.
I am sure that no one is happier to hear this news than retired News Journal Publisher Don Estep, who has written about the state of the two roadways on many occasions and the need for them to be repaved.
Let me say a big thank you on behalf of a grateful community to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for agreeing to do this repaving work next year and for recent repaving work on Fourth Street, Fifth Street, Barton Mill Road and Gordon Street, also known as KY-312.
All of this has been pretty badly needed for a while, and it was good to see it done before winter.
Now to touch on a few other things from my e-mail box before I conclude this column.
• 7 Brew, which is a drive-thru beverage brand offering over 20,000 unique drink combinations, opened a future stand in Corbin Friday at its location at 1859 Cumberland Falls Highway. The stand will add 50 jobs to the Corbin area, the company noted in an e-mail.
The thing that I really find interesting is that 7 Brew has opened across the road from Starbucks off Exit 25.
The coffee war has begun…LOL.
No offense to the consumers of coffee drinks and energy drinks, but, personally, I will stick to my Zero Sugar Dr. Pepper to get my caffeine pick me up in the morning. I tried drinking coffee for a few years in my early 20s, but never really could develop a taste for it, unless it accompanies a piece of Frisch’s peanut butter pie that is.
• I think a lot of people might be surprised by just how much agriculture plays a role in the economy here in Whitley County. I got an e-mail recently about a new study on behalf of Trace One that talked about highest agricultural loses due to natural disasters among other things.
The email noted in a summary of the data from Whitley County that there are 476 farms in Whitley County, which have an impressive total agriculture value of $7,850,942. By comparison, there are 1,880,000 farms in the United States with a total agriculture value of $503,268,663,042. The worst natural hazard for agriculture both in Whitley County and nationally is drought, the study found.
