Kentucky sues to get ‘Indian Head Rock’


February 4, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s squabble with an Ohio city over a rock that laid for years at the bottom of the Ohio River is rolling into federal court.

Attorney General Jack Conway has filed a federal civil suit in Ashland, Ky., against the city of Portsmouth, Ohio, and three men over the 8-ton boulder known as “Indian Head Rock.” The lawsuit seeks the return of the rock to Kentucky and the cost of damages.

The historic rock bears numerous carvings of initials, names and a crude face and was once an attraction for locals. It had been submerged since about the 1920s until September 2007, when a historian in Ohio led a team to extract it.

The boulder now rests in a city garage in Portsmouth, Ohio, along the Ohio River about 110 miles southeast of Cincinnati.

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