Appalachian Community Histories – Roundstone, Rockcastle County: Millstone Quarries, Railroads, and the Boone Trace
Roundstone is a small, unincorporated community in Rockcastle County, Kentucky, whose history extends from the early settlement of the Appalachian frontier to the development of the railroad and the preservation of Daniel Boone’s route through the region. Situated along Roundstone Creek southeast of Mount Vernon, the community occupies a landscape that once supported an important millstone industry, nineteenth-century farms, timber operations, and a railroad station that connected local residents with communities throughout Kentucky.
Although Roundstone never developed into a large town, surviving court records, newspaper advertisements, geological surveys, railroad documents, and local newspapers reveal a surprisingly extensive history. Among the most significant records are advertisements from 1812 and 1813 documenting commercial millstone production, an 1824 contract connecting a Rockcastle County manufacturer with a customer in Bourbon County, and a historical marker originally erected at Roundstone Station in 1915.
The history of Roundstone illustrates how the natural resources and transportation routes of southeastern Kentucky influenced the development of small Appalachian communities, many of which played important roles in regional commerce without becoming major population centers.
Roundstone Creek and the Early Settlement of Rockcastle County
The history of Roundstone begins with the creek from which the community takes its name. Roundstone Creek flows through the Appalachian foothills of Rockcastle County, passing through a landscape of narrow valleys, wooded hillsides, and bottomlands that provided opportunities for early agriculture and settlement. Before the construction of modern highways and railroads, these waterways helped determine where travelers could pass through the mountains and where families could establish their farms.
Historical research by Neal Hammon identifies Roundstone Creek as an important geographical feature in the early records of Kentucky’s settlement. Hammon noted that eighteenth-century documents sometimes referred to the waterway as the north or far fork of the Rockcastle River. The name Roundstone Lick appeared in Madison County records as early as August 1787, while Luke Munsell’s 1818 map identified the creek as Roundstonelick Creek. Hammon associated the name with a historical lick south of Boone Gap, although the precise origin of the name remains a matter for further investigation.
Rockcastle County was established in 1810 from portions of Knox, Lincoln, Madison, and Pulaski counties, with Mount Vernon developing as the county seat. The creation of the county provided a new administrative center for the surrounding settlements, although many families living along its creeks continued to depend primarily on agriculture, livestock, timber, and the resources available on their own property.
Because Roundstone Creek existed as a recognized geographical feature before Rockcastle County was established, its earliest land records are not necessarily found among the surviving records of the county itself. Some early transactions may be preserved in records created under the former county boundaries or among Kentucky’s original land patents and surveys.
The creek’s importance extended beyond agriculture. Its surrounding hills contained deposits of stone that supported one of the earliest documented commercial industries in Rockcastle County.
The Roundstone Millstone Quarry and the Industry of the Early 1800s
By January 1812, commercial millstone production was already taking place along Roundstone Creek. One of the earliest known references to the industry appeared in the January 8, 1812, edition of the Argus of Western America, a newspaper published in Frankfort, Kentucky.
In the advertisement, Samuel Taylor announced that he had rented his quarry on Roundstone to a man identified as Colyear, who had begun manufacturing millstones at the location. Taylor described the quarry as being approximately three miles from the Rockcastle County courthouse and expressed confidence in the quality of its products.
The advertisement also provides an interesting example of early Kentucky commerce. Taylor explained that the millstones would be sold on favorable terms and that the manufacturer would accept a small portion of the payment in whiskey, demonstrating how barter could supplement cash transactions in the early nineteenth-century economy.
Historian Charles D. Hockensmith reproduced the advertisement in his 2009 study, The Millstone Industry, preserving valuable evidence of an enterprise that might otherwise have remained largely unknown outside Rockcastle County.
Millstones were essential to the agricultural economy of early Kentucky. Gristmills depended on large, carefully shaped stones to grind corn and wheat into meal and flour, making a reliable supply of suitable stone important to both local farmers and commercial mill operators.
Manufacturing these stones required considerable labor and specialized knowledge. Quarry workers first had to identify suitable rock, separate it from the surrounding formation, and carefully shape it into the appropriate dimensions. A finished millstone needed to be sufficiently durable to withstand repeated grinding while maintaining a surface capable of processing grain efficiently.
The transportation of finished millstones presented another challenge, particularly in the mountainous countryside of southeastern Kentucky. Before the arrival of the railroad, producers relied heavily on wagons and established roads to move their products to customers.
The Roundstone quarry nevertheless developed into a commercial enterprise that attracted customers beyond the immediate community.
Charles Colyer and the Expansion of the Millstone Trade
On October 9, 1813, Charles Colyer Jr. placed another advertisement in the Argus of Western America, announcing that he had an assortment of millstones available for purchase and intended to maintain a supply in multiple sizes.
Colyer located his quarry approximately three and a half miles from Mount Vernon, a description consistent with the general area identified in Samuel Taylor’s advertisement the previous year. He also guaranteed the quality of his products, promising customers a replacement or a refund if the stones did not perform satisfactorily.
These advertisements suggest that the quarry operated as an established commercial business rather than an occasional source of stone for neighboring farms. Colyer’s willingness to guarantee his products also demonstrates the importance of reputation and customer confidence in a market where purchasing and transporting heavy equipment could require a substantial investment.
Additional evidence of Colyer’s business survives in a handwritten contract dated February 28, 1824, preserved in the Sidney Payne Clay Papers at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville.
Under the agreement, Colyer promised to deliver a pair of millstones to Sidney Payne Clay at his residence in Bourbon County, Kentucky, by April 15, 1824. The stones were to measure three feet and four inches in diameter, with the rotating runner stone measuring eighteen inches thick through its center and the stationary bedstone approximately ten inches thick.
Clay agreed to pay ninety dollars upon delivery, and an accompanying receipt dated April 20, 1824, confirms that payment was made. The surviving document also includes directions to Clay’s residence, providing an unusually detailed record of a commercial transaction between southeastern and central Kentucky.
Although the contract does not independently establish that the stones came from the precise quarry advertised in 1812, it confirms Colyer’s continued participation in the millstone trade more than a decade later.
The Roundstone millstone industry remained sufficiently prominent to attract the attention of later geological surveys and county historians. David Dale Owen’s 1861 geological report described a quarry on Roundstone Creek, approximately six miles above its mouth, that had formerly been extensively worked for millstones.
Lewis and Richard H. Collins repeated this information in their 1874 History of Kentucky, identifying the millstone quarry as one of Rockcastle County’s notable historical industries. Although further research is needed to determine whether all these records refer to the same operation, they demonstrate that the production of millstones formed a recognizable part of the creek’s nineteenth-century history.
Landownership, Timber, and Nineteenth-Century Development
As settlement expanded throughout Rockcastle County, land along Roundstone Creek became increasingly important for farming, timber production, and other commercial activities. Surviving nineteenth-century legal records document the transfer of large properties and the disputes that occasionally developed over their ownership and use.
One particularly detailed example appears in the Kentucky Court of Appeals decision in Hackney v. Dillan, issued on March 14, 1876. The case concerned approximately five hundred acres of land along Roundstone Creek and involved a series of transactions extending back to the middle of the nineteenth century.
According to the court’s opinion, Daniel Roberts sold the property to R. R. Hackney and his associates around 1855. Subsequent disagreements over payment and ownership resulted in litigation and a sheriff’s sale, after which additional questions arose concerning the descriptions and boundaries of the land.
The proceedings referred to several separate tracts, including property originally patented to George Procter on July 2, 1846. Later disputes involved leased land, timber cutting, and the removal of tanbark, an important material used in the leather-tanning industry.
One of the leases described property situated southwest of Roundstone Creek, on the same side of the waterway as an existing state road. The reference illustrates how creeks and transportation routes served as important geographical markers in nineteenth-century property agreements.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals ultimately determined that the descriptions of the disputed properties were inadequate to establish the boundaries necessary to resolve the allegations of trespass. The decision preserves a detailed account of the difficulties that could arise when large rural properties were divided, transferred, and leased without sufficiently accurate surveys.
Although the case concerns land within the Roundstone watershed rather than definitively identifying property inside the present-day community, it offers valuable evidence of the area’s developing economy and the importance of timber and landownership.
Similar information appeared in the Mount Vernon Signal on August 16, 1907, when the newspaper published a court-ordered property sale involving approximately eighty acres along Roundstone Creek, north of Livingston. The notice identified older surveys and local geographical features, preserving additional evidence of the manner in which property boundaries were understood and recorded.
Together, these documents demonstrate that Roundstone Creek supported a network of farms, timberlands, and privately owned properties whose histories extended beyond the boundaries of any single settlement.
The Roundstone Post Office and the Arrival of the Railroad
During the nineteenth century, the establishment of post offices and railroad stations helped transform small Kentucky settlements into identifiable communities. These institutions provided residents with more dependable connections to distant markets, government services, and family members living outside their immediate neighborhoods.
Published accounts commonly identify 1856 as the year Roundstone’s post office was established and 1893 as the year it was discontinued. However, the reported closing date requires further verification because a secondary reference to Rand McNally’s 1895 Business Atlas and Shippers’ Guide indicates that Roundstone was listed with a post office, railroad station, and express office. Robert M. Rennick’s research on Rockcastle County post offices and the original federal postmaster appointment registers offer avenues for resolving the discrepancy.
The arrival of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad provided a major transportation improvement for Rockcastle County. A local historical chronology records that the railroad reached Mount Vernon and Brodhead in 1868, subsequently extending to the area that became Livingston by 1870. The expanding railroad network created new commercial opportunities for communities that had previously depended on wagon roads and difficult journeys through the mountains.
Roundstone eventually became a station along this important corridor. Its location connected the settlement with Mount Vernon, Livingston, Berea, and larger destinations served by the Louisville and Nashville system.
The station’s existence is independently documented in a historical account published in 1915, while a surviving Louisville and Nashville Railroad engineering profile from 1942 identifies Roundstone along the Cincinnati Division between Cincinnati and Corbin.
The railroad provided an important connection for the surrounding agricultural and timber-producing countryside. Residents could travel more easily to neighboring communities, while freight transportation offered access to markets beyond the immediate county. Roundstone became part of a broader system of small railroad settlements whose economic and social lives were influenced by the movement of passengers and goods through the Appalachian foothills.
Daniel Boone, Boone Trace, and Roundstone Station
Long before Roundstone became a railroad community, the surrounding landscape was associated with an important episode in Kentucky’s early settlement history.
In 1775, Daniel Boone led a party of men hired by Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Company to open a trail from the Holston River region through Cumberland Gap and into central Kentucky. The route became known as Boone Trace and helped facilitate the movement of settlers toward Boonesborough and the Kentucky River.
The trail passed through southeastern Kentucky, following natural gaps and valleys that provided access through difficult mountainous terrain. Its route through Rockcastle County has received considerable attention from historians and preservationists attempting to reconstruct the movements of Boone’s party and the travelers who followed them.
Historian Neal Hammon’s research identifies Roundstone Creek as an important geographical feature along the route. Drawing on eighteenth-century land surveys and travelers’ accounts, Hammon argued that the trail followed substantial portions of the creek valley before reaching Boone Gap near the boundary between Rockcastle and Madison counties.
The surviving records nevertheless leave some uncertainty concerning the precise alignment of individual stretches of the original trail, particularly where later roads, railroads, and development altered the surrounding landscape.
During the early twentieth century, the Daughters of the American Revolution undertook an ambitious effort to commemorate Boone’s passage through Kentucky by placing historical markers along the route.
Roundstone Station became one of the locations selected for a monument in 1915.
John Preston Arthur documented the project in his History of Watauga County, North Carolina, published that same year. Arthur identified several Kentucky marker locations, including one near Livingston, another at Boone’s Hollow, and additional monuments at Roundstone Station and Boone Gap. His account provides contemporary evidence that Roundstone was recognized as an important location in the historical commemoration of Boone Trace.
The Roundstone marker was originally placed by the Susannah Hart Shelby Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Its presence connected the railroad settlement with the much earlier history of frontier travel through Rockcastle County.
Although the monument commemorated Boone’s passage through the region, its original placement should not be interpreted as definitive archaeological evidence of the exact location of the 1775 trail.
The Establishment of Roundstone Elementary School
By the middle of the twentieth century, Roundstone’s identity had become increasingly associated with its school and the families living in the surrounding countryside. The construction of a new elementary school represented a substantial investment in local education and established an important community institution.
The December 5, 1957, edition of the Mount Vernon Signal published a notice announcing Rockcastle County’s intention to sell approximately $245,000 in bonds for the construction of an elementary school at Roundstone. The notice scheduled the bond sale for December 7 and directed interested parties to the county clerk or county superintendent for additional information.
A Rockcastle County historical chronology dates the establishment of Roundstone Elementary School to 1959, placing its development within the broader expansion and improvement of public educational facilities during the postwar period.
The new school served an important purpose beyond providing classroom instruction. It also became a center for public activities and community gatherings, offering a place where families from Roundstone and neighboring areas could participate in events associated with local education and civic life.
The school’s broader importance is illustrated by an announcement published in the May 5, 1966, edition of the Mount Vernon Signal, which informed local voters that the polling location for the Roundstone precinct had been changed to the Roundstone Elementary School building.
The notice demonstrates how the school became an established public institution within the community, serving purposes that extended beyond the education of local children.
Everyday Life in Roundstone During the Twentieth Century
While surviving legal documents and railroad records reveal important details about Roundstone’s economic development, local newspapers provide a more personal account of everyday life in the community.
Throughout the twentieth century, the Mount Vernon Signal published reports concerning families, visitors, church activities, illnesses, property transactions, and community gatherings. These accounts preserve the names and experiences of residents who might otherwise appear only briefly in census records or courthouse documents.
The May 5, 1966, edition of the newspaper provides a particularly revealing example of the community’s everyday life. Its Roundstone column reported that Mr. and Mrs. Don Gabbard had moved their house trailer into the community, extending a welcome to the new residents. The same column documented visits among the Croucher, Seals, Abney, and other local families, along with dinners, overnight stays, and gatherings that reflected the importance of family relationships in rural Rockcastle County.
These seemingly ordinary announcements provide an important historical record. While the county’s legal and economic documents reveal the development of property ownership, commercial activity, and transportation, newspaper community columns preserve the personal relationships that sustained places such as Roundstone. They also illustrate the close connections between Rockcastle County residents and relatives living elsewhere, including those who had relocated to Ohio and other states.
The continued importance of local churches, schools, and family gatherings can also be traced through later editions of the newspaper. In June 2017, for example, the Mount Vernon Signal announced a reunion for the Thacker and Brooks families at Roundstone Baptist Church, inviting relatives and friends to attend. Such events demonstrate how family connections and community institutions continued to bring residents together well into the twenty-first century.
The Restoration of Roundstone’s Daniel Boone Monument
More than a century after Roundstone Station became a recognized location along the commemorated Boone Trace, the community’s historic monument became the focus of a local preservation effort.
The original stone marker, erected in 1915 by the Susannah Hart Shelby Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, had been placed at Roundstone Station to commemorate Daniel Boone’s passage through the region. However, the monument was relocated during the 1930s to the Wilderness Road corridor along U.S. Route 25, where it remained for decades.
Although its roadside location allowed travelers to encounter a piece of regional history, the relocation had separated the monument from the community where it had originally been installed. It also created a geographical complication because Boone Trace and the later Wilderness Road were not identical routes.
By 2016, members of the Rockcastle Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution were working to return the marker to the Roundstone area. Their efforts involved cooperation with the Rockcastle County school system and local government officials, who agreed to assist with relocating the monument to Roundstone Elementary School.
The June 23, 2016, edition of the Mount Vernon Signal documented the marker’s return, explaining that it had been placed at the school as a location close to its original setting. The Rockcastle Chapter acknowledged the assistance of school officials David Pensol and Chris Bishop, along with the Rockcastle County Fiscal Court and the personnel responsible for moving the monument.
The restoration effort culminated in a rededication ceremony on October 14, 2016. Members of the Rockcastle and Susannah Hart Shelby chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution gathered with students, teachers, and community residents at Roundstone Elementary School to recognize the historical significance of the marker.
The ceremony connected the monument’s original sponsors with a new generation of Rockcastle County residents. Jean Ellen Hiter Melton, regent of the Susannah Hart Shelby Chapter, attended on behalf of the organization that had originally purchased the marker in 1915, while Dr. John Fox of Friends of Boone Trace discussed Boone’s historical connections to the county.
Roundstone Elementary teacher Jeff Tipton portrayed Daniel Boone, speaking to students about frontier life, hunting, trapping, and the opening of Boone Trace. Betsy Birch of the Boonesborough Chapter portrayed Erma Watson, an early DAR member associated with the original effort to finance and install the historical markers.
The October 20, 2016, edition of the Mount Vernon Signal preserved photographs and an account of the ceremony, documenting the return of a historical landmark to the community with which it had originally been associated.
The event represented more than the restoration of a century-old monument. By returning the marker to Roundstone and involving the elementary school’s students in its rededication, local preservationists helped reconnect the community’s railroad history with the earlier story of Appalachian settlement and transportation.
Roundstone’s Historical Legacy
Roundstone’s surviving history illustrates the development of a small Appalachian community whose importance cannot be measured solely by its population or the number of buildings remaining from its earliest years. Long before the railroad established a station there, the surrounding creek supported a commercial millstone industry that connected Rockcastle County with customers elsewhere in Kentucky.
The advertisements published by Samuel Taylor and Charles Colyer during the early nineteenth century provide evidence of an enterprise that has largely disappeared from the visible landscape. The later legal disputes involving Roundstone Creek preserve the names of landowners and details about timber production, while railroad records and historical maps document the community’s place within the expanding transportation network of southeastern Kentucky.
The establishment of Roundstone Elementary School during the late 1950s provided another important chapter in the settlement’s history. As the community’s older industries and transportation facilities changed, the school became a lasting institution through which successive generations developed their own connections to Roundstone.
The restoration of the Daniel Boone marker in 2016 brought these different periods of history together. A monument originally placed beside a railroad station to commemorate an eighteenth-century trail found a new home at a twentieth-century school, where it could introduce another generation to the region’s earlier history.
For researchers, Roundstone remains an especially interesting subject because its surviving historical evidence extends across more than two centuries. The creek’s early quarry operations, nineteenth-century landownership, railroad development, and twentieth-century community life offer opportunities for further investigation through newspapers, maps, courthouse records, oral histories, and family collections.
Although many of the physical reminders of Roundstone’s earliest history have disappeared or changed, the documentary record preserves the story of a community that participated in the commercial development of Rockcastle County and helped connect the Appalachian foothills with the broader history of Kentucky.
Sources & Further Reading
Argus of Western America. “Mill Stones.” Advertisement by Samuel Taylor, January 8, 1812. Reproduced in Charles D. Hockensmith, The Millstone Industry, 25. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. https://pt.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-millstone-industry-a-summary-of-research-on-quarries-and-producers-in-the-united-states-europe-and-elsewhere-charles-d-hockensmith/280297449
Argus of Western America. “Mill Stones.” Advertisement by Charles Colyer Jr., October 9, 1813. Reproduced in Charles D. Hockensmith, The Millstone Industry, 25. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. https://pt.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-millstone-industry-a-summary-of-research-on-quarries-and-producers-in-the-united-states-europe-and-elsewhere-charles-d-hockensmith/280297449
Arthur, John Preston. A History of Watauga County, North Carolina: With Sketches of Prominent Families. Richmond, VA: Everett Waddey Company, 1915. https://www.loc.gov/item/15024250/
Collins, Lewis, and Richard H. Collins. History of Kentucky. Vol. 2. Covington, KY: Collins & Co., 1874. https://ldsgenealogy.com/KY/books/Collins-historical-sketches-of-Kentucky-History-of-Kentucky-Vol-II-part-112.htm
Colyer, Charles, and Sidney Payne Clay. Agreement for the Delivery of Millstones, February 28, 1824. Sidney Payne Clay Papers, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, KY. Reproduced in Charles D. Hockensmith, The Millstone Industry, 25–26. https://pt.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-millstone-industry-a-summary-of-research-on-quarries-and-producers-in-the-united-states-europe-and-elsewhere-charles-d-hockensmith/280297449
Friends of Boone Trace. Boone Trace Master Plan. 2018. https://www.boonetrace1775.com/BT-Master-Plan-Final100818.pdf
Hockensmith, Charles D. The Millstone Industry: A Summary of Research on Quarries and Producers in the United States, Europe and Elsewhere. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. https://www.overdrive.com/media/706964/the-millstone-industry
Kentucky Court of Appeals. Hackney v. Dillan. 9 Ky. Op. 38, March 14, 1876. https://calculators.law/caselaw/decisions/2XO3K40xyNgz/hackney-v-dillan
Kentucky Historical Society. “Boone Trace.” Kentucky Historical Marker Program. https://history.ky.gov/markers/boone-trace
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky Land Office.” Land Patent and Survey Database. https://web.sos.ky.gov/land/default.aspx
Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Cincinnati Division Track Profile: Cincinnati to Corbin. 1942. Multimodalways Railroad Archives. https://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/L%26N/L%26N%20Track%20Charts/L%26N%201942%20TRACK%20PROFILE%20CINCINNATI%20DIV%20CINCINNATI%20TO%20CORBIN-%20.pdf
Mount Vernon Signal. Court-Ordered Property Sale on Roundstone Creek, August 16, 1907, 2. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86069561/1907-08-16/ed-1/?sp=2
Mount Vernon Signal. “Bond Sale.” December 5, 1957, 8. Rockcastle County Public Library Digital Newspaper Collection. https://www.rockcastlelibrary.org/sites/default/files/content/minutes/MVS19571205.pdf
Mount Vernon Signal. Notice of Voting Location Change for Roundstone Precinct and Roundstone Community News, May 5, 1966. Rockcastle County Public Library Digital Newspaper Collection. https://www.rockcastlelibrary.org/sites/default/files/content/minutes/MVS19660505.pdf
Mount Vernon Signal. Report on the Restoration of the Roundstone Daniel Boone Marker, June 23, 2016, A5. Madison County Public Library Digital Newspaper Collection. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2016.06.June_2016.pdf
Mount Vernon Signal. Report on the Rededication of the Roundstone Daniel Boone Marker, October 20, 2016. Madison County Public Library Digital Newspaper Collection. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2016.10.October_2016.pdf
Owen, David Dale. Fourth Report of the Geological Survey in Kentucky, Made During the Years 1858 and 1859. Frankfort, KY: A. G. Hodges, State Printer, 1861. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kgs_ar/4/
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1s3p
Rennick, Robert M. “Rockcastle County: Post Offices.” 2000. County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University, no. 387. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/387/
Rennick, Robert M. Opp Bussell and Charley Carter Interview, Part 1 (Rockcastle County). Oral history interview, 1978. Robert M. Rennick Oral History Collection, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_oh_collection/18/
United States Geological Survey. London, Kentucky. Historical Topographic Map, 1893. https://store.usgs.gov/product/865017
United States Geological Survey. Wildie, Kentucky. 7.5-Minute Topographic Quadrangle, 1953. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/KY/24000/KY_Wildie_710014_1953_24000_geo.pdf
United States National Archives and Records Administration. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971. Record Group 28, Microfilm Publication M841. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
Works Progress Administration. “Rockcastle County: General History.” 1939. County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University, no. 291. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/291/
Works Progress Administration. “Rockcastle County: Folklore.” 1939. County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/372/
Author Note: Roundstone’s history preserves an often-overlooked chapter of Rockcastle County’s past, from its early millstone industry to its railroad station and historic connection to Boone Trace. If you have family photographs, railroad records, school memories, or additional information about Roundstone and its early quarries, I welcome your contributions toward preserving this community’s history.