Between A Rock And An Odd Place…

 

Last week, we told you about the great rock fight between Ohio and Kentucky—regarding a submerged boulder that’s set off a border war…

 

Today—we’ve got a double update…

 

Not only can you SEE HOW the the fight began—but you can learn WHY the fight over what’s called Indian Head Rock came to a head…

 

First—a little video clip to set it all up… (it’s only garbled for the first few seconds)

 

Now for the rest of the tale.

 

Turns out this story hit close to home—like right next to me.

 

 

Accused rock stealer Steve Shaffer hails from Ironton, Ohio— as does NBC-17 photographer Jeremy Baker who is my partner on many of our adventures in TV news.

 

 

After the post hit cyberspace Friday— Jeremy offered his insight into all this rolling over the rock…

 

Although the rock is stored in Portsmith, Ohio— Steve Shaffer lives and works in Ironton, which is the town adjacent to Portsmith along the riverfront.

…And Ironton is heavily involved in this stone throwing battle with its sister communities across the river because this is where all the plotting over the stone occurred….

And as Jeremy tells it—the only news that ever comes out of Ironton is BAD news….

The reason I dread seeing my hometown in print is, well nothing good ever gets picked up. It’s things like the duct tape bandit (VIDEO HERE) or a guy killing his daughter and stuffing her into a trash can and burying it under his house, that’s the type of news that gets exposure.

As to why Kentucky “owns” the river —Jeremy explains it this way:

Kentucky was a state first so they get rights to more of the river. Locals on both sides have always argued as to where the “line” is and the rock is in that zone. I hate bringing in this parrell but this story has a Hatfield/McCoy corollary too it, a lot of fist shaking and lawsuits thrown down. I would even say this battle goes back to the Civil War, even though Kentucky was part of the north, it is still in the south. The river is the Mason/Dixon line and a lot of that bad blood is still slightly present.

 

As a Native Ohioian, Jeremy can’t figure out what Kentucky’s problem is ’cause you don’t just slip an 8-ton boulder into your back pocket..

The whole rock thing is another saga in this craptaclar feud between the two states. It’s not like Steve Shaffer tippy toed to the river while piccicato violins were playing, he spent days with a large crew dragging that rock out. Kentucky could have stopped him at any point, yet they didn’t. They waited and even sent people over to investigate the thing once it was on land.

 

Since the rock’s been underwater and lost for decades—Jeremy says—why NOT let folks enjoy it…

I agree with Shaffer on this, it needs to preserved as a historic marker. If Kentucky gets it —they want to put the thing BACK into the water as a way to preserve it. If that is true, then Kentucky needs to be smacked. The ideal thing to do is put in a museum somewhere and leave it. It’s not going to draw large crowds to begin with…

 

However—Jeremy’s a little suspicious of all this “historic” stuff to begin with…

For those who think the face is a native American petroglyph… IT’S A FACE! Who knows, my grandparents could have carved that back in the 20s! In fact I’m going to say they did, I have no proof, but neither do you saying it’s a petroglyph—so there!

 

As for why Jeremy’s so hot about this topic— well maybe I can explain it.

 

 

He’s had a few bad experiences with rocks—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

as you can see—

 

 

so maybe you can excuse him if gets a little worked up about the subject…

~~~~

You can read Jeremy’s entire explanation in the comments section of the original post, available here.

~~~~

—Steve

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