Ohio County is best known as the home of Bluegrass music legend Bill Monroe. It’s also a former coal community, and its largest city, Beaver Dam, has a population of 3,500. The town anchor is the Baptist church.

“You hear the joke about what came first, the chicken or the egg. Here, we talk about the city or the Beaver Dam Baptist Church. Actually, it was the church,” said Mayor Paul Sandefur. “The church was started in 1798 and the city formed around it.”

Today, Beaver Dam is home to a large timber industry, a chicken processing plant, and a distillery. It will also be the first place Kentuckians can legally buy medical marijuana.

‘Cannabis is the only thing that’s helped me’

When you enter the city limits of Beaver Dam, the welcome sign reads “Life is Good Here.” For chronic pain suf

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