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Barbourville, the
county seat of Knox in southeastern Kentucky, is located in the
center of the county on the banks of the Cumberland River and
bordered by Richland Creek. Positioned 33 miles north of
Cumberland Gap and 15 miles southeast of Corbin, Kentucky, the
city is the point where US 25E and KY 11 intersect. Known
by early travelers as the town on the big bend of the Cumberland
River, Barbourville is surrounded by hills on all sides, a
natural fortress protecting the area from most severe storms.
After years of suffering from disastrous floods, the city is now
protected by a massive floodwall, which shields it from annual
tides.
In 1750, Dr. Thomas
Walker selected a site about six miles southeast of the present
location of Barbourville to build the first European settler's
house in Kentucky, a requirement by the state of Virginia for
staking a claim to the territory. Because Dr. Walker's
journal is the first written eye-witness description of the
state, it might be argued that documented Kentucky history
begins in Knox and her neighboring counties.
Barbourville was
created as the county seat of Knox in 1800. The town's
basic street design follows rather closely the initial layout
planned in 1801. Due to an unusual continuity of
generations of families who have lived in the region,
Barbourville has always enjoyed the advantage of having in its
midst elders willing and eager to tell the story of their
frontier history and the area's heroic beginnings. This
wide appreciation of pioneer Kentucky manifests itself annually
in autumn as Barbourville's Daniel Boone Festival.
During the nineteenth
century, Barbourville was the largest and most progressive city
south of Richmond, Kentucky, and it was a major stop for
settlers and travelers who crossed the Cumberland Gap on an
expedition up the Wilderness Road. In the late 1830s and
throughout the 1840s the town exercised considerable influence
on early state government. The Barbourville Debating
Society prepared the political careers of a governor of
Missouri, a Supreme Court justice and a founder of the state of
Texas. One of the nicknames for Barbourville is "Home of
Governors," because of the numerous Knox Countians who served as
other states' commanders in chief, in addition to two governors
of Kentucky, James D. Black and Flem D. Sampson.
In the opening months
of the Civil War, Barbourville was the site of the first armed
skirmish between Rebel and Union forces in the state of Kentucky
and recorded the state's first deaths in battle on either side.
At different points in the war, the town was occupied by both
military forces, becoming temporary headquarters for Confederate
General Kirby Smith in 1862 and hosting Union General U.S. Grant
when he was evaluating the Wilderness Road as an invasion route
in 1864.
Written by Charles
Reed Mitchell
-Knox Historical Museum |
