A new Civil War museum, the Battery Hooper Site Museum, has opened in northern Kentucky, to mark the site's role as part of a Union defensive line built from Ludlow to Fort Thomas. Union forces built fortifications in the hills in Fort Wright, Ky., from 1862 to 1863 to defend Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky from a potential Confederate attack. Cincinnati was the sixth-largest U.S. city at the time of the war. The museum is housed in a two-story home that was built in the 1940s where the fortifications once existed. Exhibits include artifacts from the war, archaeological finds from the Battery Hooper site and presentations about Northern Kentucky's role in the war. The museum is located at 1402 Highland Ave.; Fort Wright, and is open weekends, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Fridays and Mondays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For details, call 859-344-1145.
Historic sites in Nevada
Twenty-first century Nevada is booming, but if you're interested in the boom that started it all, step back in time to 1849. That's when the legendary Comstock Lode's $400 million cache of gold and silver was discovered, drawing tens of thousands of miners, ranchers, immigrants and other workers to the area. Historic attractions tied to the era abound. In Virginia City, you can still walk along wooden-plank sidewalks to the Bucket of Blood Saloon, the Chollar Mine or the Fourth Ward School. Pay your respects to the town's long-ago residents at the Silver Terrace Cemeteries. At the Wild West Museum, you'll see antique guns, saddles, cavalry and Indian artifacts. Or learn about the history of a subject that remains big business in Nevada at the Nevada Gambling Museum. Other sites connected to the area's 19th-century history include Genoa, where you'll find the oldest saloon in Nevada, the Genoa Bar, which is still pouring whiskey today; the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, where you can take a ride on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad; and the Kit Carson Trail Ghost Walk, held each October in Carson City. Special vacation packages incorporating Western heritage attractions and Reno-Tahoe area accommodations are available.
Details: 800-367-7366 or www.VisitRenoTahoe.com .
Armchair traveler
The life of hell-raising mountaineer Don Whillans seems tailor-made for a movie starring Russell Crowe. As chronicled by James Perrin in "The Villain: A Portrait of Don Whillans," the 5-foot-4-inch Englishman, who died in 1985, was both a celebrated climber and a rough-hewn, ornery blue-collar cuss who took to outdoor sports as a way of escaping unemployment in England's industrial midlands after World War II. In an age when mountaineers and explorers were mostly upper-crust, Whillans stood out. He was denied knighthood because of a brawl with several police officers. But he was heroic as well. He was the first to ascend the south face of Annapurna in the Himalayas, and he accomplished many other important climbs in Europe, South America and Yosemite. He got his nickname "The Villain" from his mates in the Manchester Rock & Ice Club. Perrin's book details the life of this complicated individual. ( The Mountaineers Books; $16.95; 360 pages; softcover)
