The Pennyroyal Area Museum in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is in the middle of the great rugged plain that slopes from the Appalachian Mountains in the East to the Mississippi River in the West. This is a landscape of sinkholes, caves, hollows, and disappearing streams that occur in numbers unlike any other place on Earth. The soil here is rich, providing for forests, prairies, crops, and a wide variety of plants and animals.
This place has witnessed many migrations of people — of various languages and cultures — over the millennia. Many have found the land’s resources suitable for sustaining a good living and for raising families — and many have called this place “home.”
Today, this region is called the Pennyroyal Plateau — locals call it “the Pennyrile” — named after a native mint plant that grows abundantly in the wild.