UPCOMING EVENTS
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**HOT NEWS**
Saturday, October 24
Tips for Viewing Wildlife in LBL
NATURE STATION 2:15pm
Would you like to find out some "hot spots" for viewing wildlife in LBL? Who better to ask than the staff who work here! Attend this presentation to discover the best places and times to look for your favorite local wildlife. Program free with NS admission.
Sunday, October 25
Presents in Pumpkins for the Animals
NATURE STATION 12:30pm
What to do with leftover Jack-O-Lanterns? We will use them to enrich our Nature Station animals! Carved pumpkins are great natural containers to stuff with scrumptious treats. It might take some work for the animals to obtain their food, just as it would in the wild, but their reward will taste as sweet as pumpkin pie! Program free with NS admission.
Land Between The Lakes (LBL) is a 170,000-acre national recreation area in Western Kentucky and Tennessee located near I-24, about 90 miles north of Nashville, TN, and just south of Paducah, KY.
HISTORY:
Land Between The Lakes is an inland peninsula formed when the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers were impounded, creating Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley -- one of the world's largest man-made bodies of water. In 1959, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River, many recognized the recreational and environmental education benefits of what would soon become a near-island between two man-made lakes.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy created Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area. LBL was formed to demonstrate how an area with limited timber, agricultural, and industrial resources could be converted into a recreation asset that would stimulate economic growth in the region. LBL is the country's only such national demonstration area.
LBL became a reality in 1964 when Rushing Creek Campground, LBL's first public recreation facility, opened. Today, LBL is the focal point of a $600 million tourism industry; it remains one of the most most visited attractions in Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers flow very close to each other in the northwestern corner of Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky, separated by a rather narrow and mostly low ridge. This area where they are only a few miles apart had been known as "Between the Rivers" since at least the 1830s or 1840s. After the Cumberland River was impounded in the 1960s and a canal was constructed between the two lakes, Land Between the Lakes became the largest inland peninsula in the United States.
