In 1919, Flora Eicher of Bowling Green reportedly became the first woman in Kentucky to earn a riverboat pilot’s license.

On May 23, 1919, a Montana newspaper reported that Flora Eicher was the first woman to earn a riverboat pilot’s license in Kentucky.

Eicher, newly widowed, owned a small farm and a riverside coal mine near Bowling Green.

After her husband’s death from influenza, she struggled to find a way to support her four small children, and transporting her own coal gave her just enough income to do so.

The story was widely reported across the nation.

– “Way Back When in Warren County” is compiled by researchers at the Warren County Public Library and appears twice weekly in the Bowling Green Daily News. For more information about the library, visit warrenpl.org.