For those acquainted with my obsession with waste property, you are likely unsurprised that I paused to investigate a reference in western Kentucky to "barren naked land" in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The description of this area stuck enough that the area became known as the Barrens.
Upon further investigation, this use of the term barren was not similar to waste property. Apparently, the barrens were meadow areas without trees, which European colonists found rather surprising in contrast to the heavily forested Appalachian Mountains.
Elihu Barker's early map of Kentucky shows the Barrens area.
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