Appalachian Community Histories – Ashland, Boyd County: From Poage’s Landing to Kentucky’s Iron and Steel City
Along the southern bank of the Ohio River, where northeastern Kentucky meets the industrial communities of southern Ohio and western West Virginia, Ashland developed from a small family settlement into one of the region’s principal manufacturing centers. Its history is closely connected to the river that carried its earliest commerce, the iron furnaces that transformed the surrounding hills, and the railroads that brought coal, timber, and workers into a growing city. What began as Poage’s Landing became a carefully planned industrial community in 1854, eventually attracting steel manufacturers, petroleum companies, merchants, and families whose lives were shaped by the economic changes of the Ohio Valley.
The city’s development was not simply the result of its favorable location. Investors from Ohio and Kentucky deliberately established Ashland as an industrial center, creating a street plan, purchasing land, encouraging railroad construction, and promoting manufacturing enterprises. By the early twentieth century, the American Rolling Mill Company and Ashland Oil had helped transform the community into a city whose influence extended well beyond Boyd County. Yet Ashland’s history also includes the Indigenous communities that occupied the Ohio Valley long before European settlement, the experiences of its African American residents during segregation, the destructive floods of the 1930s, and the eventual decline of the steelmaking operations that had supported generations of local families.
Before Poage’s Landing: The Indigenous History of the Ohio Valley
Long before the Poage family arrived in northeastern Kentucky, Indigenous communities had established settlements along the Ohio River and its surrounding valleys. The river provided transportation, fishing grounds, and access to fertile bottomlands, while the nearby hills and tributaries supplied additional resources. Evidence of these earlier inhabitants remains within Ashland itself, particularly in Central Park, where a group of ancient earthworks survived the development of the modern city.
A 1974 National Register of Historic Places nomination identified six surviving mounds in Central Park, associating them broadly with Indigenous cultures of the Ohio Valley between approximately 800 BC and AD 800. The nomination drew upon earlier archaeological research by William S. Webb and William D. Funkhouser, whose 1932 survey documented archaeological sites throughout Kentucky. It also recorded two ancient village sites within approximately a mile of the surviving mounds. The proposed dating reflects the archaeological interpretation available when the nomination was prepared and should not be treated as a definitive modern chronology.
Many of the earthworks that once occupied the area disappeared as Ashland expanded. Others were disturbed, and the Central Park mounds were reconstructed to approximately their earlier dimensions during the twentieth century. Their preservation nevertheless provides an important reminder that the history of the Ohio Valley did not begin with European settlement. Beneath the streets and industrial landscape of Ashland lies evidence of communities that had occupied the region for many centuries before the arrival of the settlers whose names appear in the city’s written records.
The Poage Family and the Settlement on the Ohio River
The European settlement that eventually became Ashland is traditionally traced to the arrival of the Poage family from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The family traveled westward through the Cumberland Gap and established a community along the Ohio River, where their homesteads became known as Poage’s Settlement or Poage’s Landing. The 1954 Ashland centennial history and the National Register’s historic resources survey place the family’s arrival around 1786, although a Kentucky Historical Society marker uses the more cautious date of settlement by 1799. Both traditions associate the early community with the Poages, but the difference illustrates the difficulty of establishing an exact founding date from retrospective accounts.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Poage’s Landing remained a relatively small community whose economy depended upon agriculture, family enterprises, and its access to the river. Boats traveling the Ohio connected the settlement with other communities and commercial centers, while the surrounding countryside supplied timber, agricultural products, and the natural resources that would eventually attract industrial investors. Although additional settlers arrived, the community retained strong ties to the Poage family, whose landholdings would later become central to Ashland’s development.
Religion was among the earliest institutions to emerge from the settlement. On June 11, 1819, the Reverend Robert Wilson organized Bethesda Presbyterian Church at the home of Major James Poage with twenty members. The congregation initially worshiped near Pollard Road before moving to Beech Grove in 1828. In 1858, four years after the establishment of the planned town, it relocated to the corner of Winchester Avenue and 16th Street, becoming First Presbyterian Church. The congregation’s history offers a connection between the original family settlement and the city that grew around it.
The Poages were also involved in the development of regional ironmaking, an industry that had been expanding through northeastern Kentucky and southern Ohio. Members of the family helped establish furnaces outside the settlement, including the original Amanda Furnace in neighboring Greenup County in 1829. The growing iron trade offered the economic foundation upon which later investors would build Ashland, transforming what had been largely a farming and river community into a manufacturing center.
The Founding of Ashland in 1854
The decisive transformation of Poage’s Landing occurred in 1854, when investors organized the Kentucky Iron, Coal and Manufacturing Company with the intention of establishing a new industrial city. The enterprise brought together Ohio iron manufacturers, Carter County attorney Daniel Weis, and members of the Poage family, whose property provided much of the land needed for the undertaking. Rather than waiting for a town to develop gradually around existing businesses, the company planned its streets, commercial district, public spaces, and industrial areas from the beginning.
The company employed Martin Hilton, an engineer associated with the Lexington and Big Sandy Railroad, to prepare the town plan. His design established a grid approximately twenty-three blocks long and seven blocks deep, extending across the relatively level ground between the Ohio River and the hills to the south. The plan included a substantial public park, reserved the riverfront for industry and commerce, and provided space for the businesses and residences expected to accompany industrial development. This original arrangement continued to influence Ashland’s physical growth long after the original development company had ceased to direct the city’s future.
The name Ashland was reportedly suggested by company stockholder Levi Hampton in honor of Henry Clay’s estate in Lexington, Kentucky. Clay had died only two years earlier, and his name remained prominent in the state. With the new name adopted, the company began selling town lots at auction on June 14, 1854, with recorded prices ranging from $150 to $500. The sale marked an important moment in the transition from Poage’s Landing to the planned city of Ashland.
Kentucky’s legislature formally incorporated Ashland in February 1856, although published historical references disagree over the precise day. The Kentucky Historical Society’s current online marker text gives February 13, while other transcriptions of the historical marker record February 23. The original legislative act would be needed to resolve that discrepancy conclusively. By that time, however, the new town had already begun taking shape, with streets laid out, lots sold, and an industrial development program underway.
The Iron Furnaces and the Industrial Growth of Ashland
Ashland’s industrial origins belonged to a much larger regional development. Northeastern Kentucky and southern Ohio formed part of the Hanging Rock Iron Region, where deposits of iron ore, limestone, and extensive forests encouraged the establishment of charcoal-fired furnaces during the early nineteenth century. Iron manufacturers shipped their products along the Ohio River to Cincinnati and other markets, gradually developing a network of furnaces, transportation routes, and industrial enterprises that crossed state boundaries.
By the time Ashland was established, the regional iron industry had already attracted investors with both the experience and capital necessary to undertake larger manufacturing projects. The Kentucky Iron, Coal and Manufacturing Company intended to take advantage of those opportunities, while the expanding railroad network promised a more reliable means of transporting raw materials and finished products. Following the Civil War, the Ashland Coal and Iron Company became an important successor in the development of the town’s industrial enterprises, acquiring interests in the railroad and using its tracks to transport coal, iron ore, and timber.
One of the most significant industrial developments was the construction of Ashland Furnace in 1869 by the Ashland Coal and Iron Railway Company. Originally measuring approximately sixty feet in height and fifteen feet in internal diameter, the furnace was designed to produce forty tons of iron per day. Subsequent rebuilding increased its capacity substantially, and it eventually became known as the Sixth Street Furnace under the American Rolling Mill Company. According to the Kentucky Historical Society, the furnace was believed to be the oldest operating blast furnace in the world when it was dismantled in 1962.
The arrival of additional manufacturers strengthened Ashland’s industrial economy. In 1872, iron manufacturers from Wheeling, West Virginia, established Norton Iron Works near Front Street between 21st and 23rd Streets. During the 1880s, other enterprises followed, including the Ashland Firebrick Works, the Ashland Hub and Spoke Factory, and the Ashland Foundry and Machine Shops. These businesses employed workers, created demand for housing and commercial services, and helped transform Ashland into a manufacturing community whose economy was increasingly connected to the surrounding Ohio Valley.
The city’s physical expansion can be traced through contemporary maps. Eli L. Hayes’s 1877 map of Ashland, East Ashland, and Howland recorded streets, building locations, property boundaries, and substantial landowners only two decades after incorporation. Later Sanborn fire insurance maps documented the increasingly developed city, expanding from ten sheets in 1890 to thirty-three sheets by 1920. Together, these original documents provide a record of Ashland’s transformation during the period when its nineteenth-century industries were laying the groundwork for a much larger steelmaking economy.
From the Riverfront to Winchester Avenue
The construction of Ashland’s original commercial district reflected the importance of the Ohio River to the town’s early economy. Front Street was intended to serve as the principal commercial thoroughfare, with businesses positioned to accommodate river traffic and the movement of goods. In 1854 and 1855, the Kentucky Iron, Coal and Manufacturing Company constructed the four-story Aldine Hotel near Front and present-day 15th Streets, providing accommodations for travelers, businessmen, and visitors to the developing town.
As Ashland expanded, however, commercial activity gradually shifted inland toward Greenup and Winchester Avenues. The movement reflected the growing importance of rail transportation, the construction of new commercial buildings, and the increasing separation of the city’s industrial riverfront from its principal shopping districts. The Aldine Hotel was demolished around 1906, and by the early twentieth century, Winchester Avenue had become the center of much of Ashland’s downtown commercial activity.
The architectural record reveals how the growing wealth generated by industry influenced the city’s residential development. Bath Avenue became associated with industrial owners, financiers, and prominent business families almost immediately after the new town was established. Hugh and John Means, Ohio iron manufacturers involved in Ashland’s early development, constructed substantial residences there in 1855 and 1856. Other prominent residents followed, and the neighborhood gradually acquired a mixture of Italianate, Gothic Revival, Georgian Revival, and other architectural styles.
Yet Ashland’s residential history extended well beyond the homes of its industrial investors. Workers occupied neighborhoods near the factories, railroads, and commercial districts, particularly toward the eastern and western ends of Greenup Avenue. As the city expanded during the early twentieth century, streetcar service and new residential construction opened additional neighborhoods farther south. A line constructed along 29th Street in 1910 helped encourage development beyond the original town plan, contributing to the growth of South Ashland.
ARMCO and the Transformation of Ashland into a Steel City
Although ironmaking had shaped Ashland since the nineteenth century, the arrival of the American Rolling Mill Company, commonly known as ARMCO, marked another major turning point. The company began constructing a steel rolling mill in Ashland in 1920 and subsequently acquired additional local industrial operations, including the old Ashland Steel Company and Norton Iron Works. Its investments consolidated much of the city’s steelmaking activity while introducing the larger-scale production methods that characterized the industry during the twentieth century.
The economic consequences were substantial. By the late 1920s, ARMCO employed approximately 3,600 people in Ashland, according to the National Register’s historic resources survey. During the same decade, the city’s population grew from fewer than 15,000 residents to approximately 29,000. The expansion generated demand for additional housing, schools, transportation, commercial buildings, and public services, fundamentally changing both the size and the character of the community.
The prosperity of the 1920s was visible in Ashland’s increasingly substantial downtown architecture. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Station, the Henry Clay Hotel, the Ashland National Bank building, and the City Building reflected the ambitions of a growing industrial city. New businesses served the expanding population, while the streetcar system helped connect established neighborhoods with residential areas farther from the industrial riverfront.
The steel industry continued to change in the decades that followed, and Ashland remained closely associated with ARMCO and its successors. In 1963, the company constructed the new Amanda Furnace near the Boyd and Greenup county line, a much larger blast furnace designed to produce thousands of tons of iron daily. Its capacity demonstrated the technological difference between the charcoal-furnace operations of the nineteenth century and the modern steel industry that had emerged along the Ohio River.
Ashland Oil and the Growth of a Regional Corporation
While steelmaking became Ashland’s most recognizable industry, the petroleum business provided another important source of employment and commercial growth. In 1924, the Ashland Refining Company was established under Paul G. Blazer, following the acquisition of a refinery near Catlettsburg. Although its original refinery was located south of Ashland rather than within the city itself, Ashland became the headquarters of the expanding enterprise and the community with which the company’s name would remain closely associated.
The company developed during a period when improvements in transportation and the growing use of automobiles created substantial demand for petroleum products. Under Blazer’s leadership, it expanded its refining and distribution operations before combining with Swiss Oil in 1936 to form Ashland Oil and Refining Company. The company’s growth contributed to the employment and commercial importance of the surrounding region, while its Ashland headquarters brought an additional corporate presence to the city.
The industrial diversification represented by Ashland Oil was especially important because it broadened the economic activities associated with the city beyond iron and steel production. Petroleum refining, distribution, manufacturing, and the many businesses serving those industries helped establish Ashland as a center for regional commerce. Its development was closely tied to the same transportation advantages that had attracted the original town developers: access to the Ohio River, connections to the railroad network, and a location within the broader industrial economy of the Ohio Valley.
Education, Segregation, and Community Life
Ashland’s industrial growth brought increasing educational and civic needs, but the opportunities available to residents were shaped by the racial segregation that characterized Kentucky’s public institutions during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the city’s most significant educational institutions was Booker T. Washington School, which served Ashland’s African American community during the era of segregated public education.
The school’s history illustrates the efforts of Black educators and families to establish educational opportunities despite the restrictions imposed by segregation. J. J. Rogers served as principal from 1903 until 1922, when Charles B. Nuckolls succeeded him. The school graduated its first two-year high school class in 1925 and its first four-year high school class in 1932, providing opportunities for secondary education at a time when Black students did not have equal access to the city’s white public schools.
Nuckolls remained principal until 1962, when Booker T. Washington School closed as a result of desegregation. The closure ended an institution that had served generations of African American residents, although the educational history of the school remained an important part of the city’s community memory. A Kentucky historical marker dedicated in 2005 commemorates the school and its contributions to Ashland’s history.
The experiences of Ashland’s Black residents form an essential part of understanding the city beyond its industrial achievements. The development of schools, churches, neighborhoods, and community organizations took place within a segregated society, and the surviving institutional records offer opportunities to recover the stories of residents who received comparatively little attention in traditional accounts of the city’s industrial founders and business leaders.
The Paramount Theatre, Central Park, and the City’s Public Life
Ashland’s development during the twentieth century was also visible in the cultural and recreational institutions that accompanied its industrial expansion. The city’s growing population supported theaters, sports facilities, public parks, and organizations that offered residents opportunities for entertainment and community involvement. Among the most prominent of these developments was the Paramount Theatre, which opened on Winchester Avenue in September 1931.
Constructed in the Art Deco style, the theater reflected the architectural and technological changes taking place in American entertainment during the early years of sound motion pictures. Contemporary coverage in the Ashland Daily Independent documented the excitement surrounding its opening, while the theater’s elaborate design demonstrated the ambitions of the city’s growing commercial district. Its later nomination to the National Register of Historic Places recognized both its architecture and its importance to Ashland’s entertainment history.
Public recreation developed alongside these commercial institutions. In 1937, Putnam Stadium was constructed as a Works Progress Administration project for the Ashland public schools. Completed at a reported cost of $6,500, the stadium was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day and became an important center for local athletics. The Ashland High School Tomcats played their first game under the stadium’s lights in 1944, adding another chapter to a sporting tradition that connected generations of residents.
Baseball also became an important part of the city’s recreational life. The Ashland Colonels, a minor league team, played at Armco Field from 1939 through 1942, and organized baseball later moved to Central Park. Ashland joined the Little League program in 1955, followed by Babe Ruth League baseball in 1957 and Junior American Legion baseball in 1959. The development of the Central Park ballfields helped create a lasting tradition of youth baseball, with several local players eventually advancing into professional baseball.
The Ohio River Floods of 1936 and 1937
The Ohio River was central to Ashland’s prosperity, but its proximity also exposed the city to destructive flooding. During March 1936, rising water inundated portions of the riverfront and surrounding streets, disrupting transportation and commercial activity. United States Geological Survey records show that the river gauge at Ashland reached 62.6 feet on March 23, while photographer Arthur Rothstein documented floodwaters spreading into city streets. His photograph, preserved by the Library of Congress, provides a contemporary visual record of the disaster.
Less than a year later, the much larger Ohio River flood of January 1937 brought widespread destruction to the valley. Prolonged rainfall caused the river and its tributaries to rise dramatically, overwhelming communities throughout Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and neighboring states. Ashland was among the cities affected, with floodwaters reaching downtown streets and threatening homes, businesses, and industrial facilities.
The Ashland Centennial Committee’s 1954 history preserves photographs of the January 1937 flood showing water surrounding commercial buildings along Greenup Avenue. One image records the southwest corner of 16th Street and Greenup Avenue, while another shows the 1500 block near the former Kress store. The centennial account also reported that Ashland recorded 14.07 inches of rain between December 19, 1936, and January 27, 1937, illustrating the sustained precipitation that preceded the disaster.
The flooding exposed the vulnerability of communities that had developed their transportation networks, factories, and commercial districts along the river. For Ashland, the disaster interrupted the normal activities of a growing industrial city and demonstrated the importance of flood protection, emergency services, and public infrastructure. Photographs of submerged downtown streets remain among the most striking surviving images of the city during the Depression era.
World War II and the Industrial Home Front
The outbreak of World War II brought another period of substantial demand for the products manufactured in Ashland and the surrounding Ohio Valley. Steel, iron, petroleum, and other industrial materials were essential to American wartime production, and the region’s established manufacturing facilities contributed to the broader mobilization of the national economy. Ashland’s industrial workers continued the manufacturing traditions that had developed over the preceding century, while residents participated in wartime conservation and material collection efforts.
An August 1942 photograph preserved by the Library of Congress documents one of these activities in Ashland. Taken for the United States Office for Emergency Management, the image shows a scrap pile where iron had been collected for national defense, with a small boy contributing an object believed to have been a toy. The photograph captures a local example of the national effort to collect scrap metal for wartime production and illustrates how the industrial demands of the war reached beyond factory gates into the everyday lives of Ashland residents.
Ashland Oil also expanded during the war as demand increased for petroleum products, while the region’s established steelmaking infrastructure remained closely connected to national industrial needs. The war reinforced the importance of the Ohio Valley’s manufacturing centers, but the following decades would bring technological changes and economic pressures that gradually transformed the industries upon which Ashland had depended.
Industrial Decline and the Closing of Ashland Works
The large steel operations that had shaped Ashland’s twentieth-century development eventually confronted changing markets, competition, and the increasing costs of maintaining older industrial facilities. The changes unfolded over decades as steel companies modernized some operations, consolidated production, and reduced activity at others. For a community in which generations of residents had worked at ARMCO and its successors, these developments affected more than industrial production, reaching into family incomes, neighborhoods, and the wider local economy.
By 2015, AK Steel, a successor to ARMCO, had idled most of the operations at Ashland Works, including its blast furnace and principal steelmaking facilities. A hot-dip galvanizing line continued operating, but in January 2019, the company announced plans to close the remaining facility before the end of that year. Its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission attributed the decision to production costs, competition, changing market conditions, and the availability of capacity at other company facilities. The remaining coating line ceased operations in November 2019.
The closure represented a major change for a city whose planned industrial development had begun in 1854 and whose steelmaking identity had grown through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although Ashland’s economy had long included businesses beyond steel production, the disappearance of the large manufacturing operations marked the end of an important chapter in its history.
Preserving the History of Ashland
Ashland’s historical landscape preserves evidence of several distinct periods in its development. The Indigenous earthworks in Central Park connect the city with the much older history of the Ohio Valley, while its original street plan reflects the ambitions of the investors who established the planned town in 1854. Historic buildings along Bath Avenue recall the industrial families who financed its early growth, and the downtown commercial district preserves examples of the architecture associated with the city’s expansion during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Preservation efforts gained particular importance during the 1970s, when architectural historian Edward A. Chappell conducted a comprehensive survey of Ashland’s historic buildings. His 1977 investigation documented approximately 150 structures, providing the foundation for a municipal preservation plan and subsequent National Register nominations. The resulting records preserved information about buildings, streetscapes, and neighborhoods that had already experienced substantial alteration or demolition, creating a valuable resource for understanding the city’s development.
The city’s surviving historical records also extend beyond its buildings. Early newspapers, historical photographs, industrial company collections, cemetery records, and nineteenth-century maps preserve information about the residents whose labor and daily activities sustained Ashland through periods of prosperity and hardship. Collections maintained by the Boyd County Public Library, the Kentucky Historical Society, and other regional institutions provide opportunities to investigate the experiences of industrial workers, merchants, educators, religious congregations, and families whose stories are not always visible in the city’s most prominent landmarks.
Ashland’s history reflects the wider experience of the industrial Ohio Valley, where river transportation, natural resources, railroads, and manufacturing transformed small communities into economically important cities. From Poage’s Landing to the development of ARMCO and Ashland Oil, its growth was driven by people who recognized the possibilities of its riverfront location and invested in the enterprises that shaped northeastern Kentucky. The city’s surviving records, historic neighborhoods, public institutions, and industrial landmarks preserve the evidence of those transformations, while the experiences of its residents reveal how deeply the fortunes of a community could become connected to the industries that sustained it.
Sources & Further Reading
Ashland Centennial Committee. A History of Ashland, Kentucky, 1786–1954. Ashland, KY: Ashland Centennial Committee, 1954. https://www.kykinfolk.org/boyd/general/History-Ashland/HistoryAshland.pdf.
Chappell, Edward A. “Historic Resources of Ashland.” National Register of Historic Places Multiple Resource Nomination. Kentucky Heritage Commission, 1978. Listed in the National Register, 1979. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c360cc29-12f3-4192-a7e6-c7f1fbe2d236.
Chappell, Edward A. “Bath Avenue Historic District.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. Kentucky Heritage Commission, 1979. https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/79003552.pdf.
Hayes, Eli L. “Ashland, Boyd Co., Ky., with East Ashland and Howland.” In Illustrated Atlas of the Upper Ohio River and Valley. Philadelphia: Titus, Simmons & Titus, 1877. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. https://www.davidrumsey.com/.
Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Ashland, Boyd County, Kentucky. New York: Sanborn Map Company, August 1890. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03122_002/.
Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Ashland, Boyd County, Kentucky. New York: Sanborn Map Company, October 1920. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03122_007/.
Rothstein, Arthur. Part of the Ohio River in the Streets of Ashland, Kentucky. Photograph, March 1936. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017759673/.
United States Office for Emergency Management. Ashland, Kentucky: A Scrap Pile Where Iron Has Been Collected for National Defense. Photograph, August 1942. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017700784/.
National Register of Historic Places. “Indian Mounds in Central Park.” National Register nomination, 1974. National Park Service. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/5f44cd5b-1906-412f-8ffb-d6337e560fa3.
Sprague, Stuart S. Boyd County: Armco Steel. Photograph, 1940. Stuart S. Sprague Photograph Collection, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/sprague_photo_collection/65/.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Ashland.” Historical Marker 1211. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/markers/ashland-2.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Ashland Furnace.” Historical Marker 1012. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/markers/ashland-furnace.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Booker T. Washington School.” Historical Marker 2184. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/markers/booker-t-washington-school.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Presbyterian Church.” Historical Marker 1416. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Amanda Furnace.” Historical Marker 1150. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Buena Vista Furnace.” Historical Marker 1010. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Clinton Furnace.” Historical Marker 1155. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Baseball at Central Park.” Historical Marker 2498. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/.
Kentucky Historical Society. “Putnam Stadium.” Historical Marker 2125. Kentucky Historical Marker Database. https://history.ky.gov/.
Boyd County Public Library. “Arnold Hanners Photograph Collection.” Local and Regional Resources. https://www.thebookplace.org/index.php/research-learn/genealogy-regional-resources.
Boyd County Public Library. “Ashland Cemetery Index.” Local and Regional Resources. https://www.thebookplace.org/index.php/research-learn/genealogy-regional-resources.
Boyd County Public Library. “Boyd County Marriage Index, 1860–1920.” Local and Regional Resources. https://www.thebookplace.org/index.php/research-learn/genealogy-regional-resources.
Boyd County Public Library. “Boyd County Obituary Index.” Local and Regional Resources. https://www.thebookplace.org/index.php/research-learn/genealogy-regional-resources.
University of Kentucky Libraries. Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program. Lexington: University of Kentucky. https://kdl.kyvl.org/.
Library of Congress. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86069622/.
Chappell, Edward A. A Historic Preservation Plan for Ashland, Kentucky. Ashland, KY: City of Ashland, 1978. Referenced in the National Register’s Historic Resources of Ashland nomination. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c360cc29-12f3-4192-a7e6-c7f1fbe2d236.
Hanners, Arnold. Ashland’s Past: A Pictorial History. Ashland, KY, 1976. Referenced in the Historic Resources of Ashland nomination. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c360cc29-12f3-4192-a7e6-c7f1fbe2d236.
Smith, John L. The Early History of Boyd County, Kentucky. Ashland, KY, 1944. Referenced in the Historic Resources of Ashland nomination. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c360cc29-12f3-4192-a7e6-c7f1fbe2d236.
Rist, Donald E. Iron Furnaces of the Hanging Rock Iron Region. Ashland, KY, 1974. Referenced in the Historic Resources of Ashland nomination. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c360cc29-12f3-4192-a7e6-c7f1fbe2d236.
Massie, Joseph L. Blazer and Ashland Oil: A Study in Management. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1960. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/.
Kleber, John E., ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992. https://www.kentuckypress.com/.
United States Geological Survey. Floods of Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, January–February 1937. Water-Supply Paper 838. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/wsp838.
AK Steel Holding Corporation. Annual Report for 2019. Filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 2020. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/918160/000091816020000029/form10-k2019.htm.
Author Note: Ashland’s history reveals how a small Ohio River settlement became one of eastern Kentucky’s major industrial cities, shaped by generations of workers, families, and businesses. I hope this article helps preserve the stories of the people who built Ashland and encourages readers to explore the city’s surviving historical landmarks and records.