BOWLING GREEN, a city of Kentucky, U.S.A., 118m. S.W. of Louisville, at the head of navigation on the picturesque Barren river; the county seat of Warren county. It is served by the Louisville and Nashville railroad, by motor coaches to all points in the State and as far south as Nashville, and by river steamers. The population in 192o was 9,638, of whom 2,099 were negroes; and it was in 193o, 12,348 by the Federal cen sus of that year. It is the shipping-point for Kentucky rock asphalt, with which its own 25m. of streets are paved, and for a famous white oolitic limestone, which bleaches with age. It is the centre of an oilfield that is still producing about 500,000 barrels a year. The manufactures include cut stone, evaporated milk, tobacco products, and hickory handles. It is the seat of Ogden college, opened in 1877; of the Bowling Green Business university; and of the Western Kentucky State Teachers' college, established in 1906 and incorporating the privately owned South ern Normal school, which had been in existence since 1875. Mammoth cave is 3om. N.E. of Bowling Green; there are chalyb eate springs 15m. to the north-west, while three m. south Lost river disappears into a cave immediately under the Dixie highway and pursues a hidden course for several miles.
When the county court house was built in 1798, a town was established on the initiative of Robert Moore, around the public square. Trustees were appointed, and the name Bowling Green was adopted, probably because of Moore's bowling alley on the open green. It was incorporated as a city in 181o. During the Civil War it was on the right flank of the first line of Confeder ate defence in the West, and for some time was the headquarters of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston.