Frankfort, Kentucky

• 1. Frankfort, Kentucky

  ›

  Frankfort, Kentucky owes its name to a death. In 1780, a pioneer named Stephen Frank was killed by Native Americans at a ford on the Kentucky River. Survivors named the crossing Frank's Ford in his memory. Over time, that name became Frankfort.

  Today, 28,602 people call this city home, making it the fourth-smallest state capital by population in the United States. The Kentucky River still runs through its center, dividing the city into distinct neighborhoods on either bank.

  Why this particular river crossing became the seat of Kentucky government is a question with no simple answer. Larger, more established towns competed for that status in 1792. What finally persuaded the decision-makers reveals as much about frontier priorities as about the city itself.

• 2. Winning the Capital

  ›

  On the 20th of June 1792, five commissioners gathered to choose the location of Kentucky's capital. They came from Bourbon, Mason, Madison, and Fayette counties. Their names were John Allen, John Edwards, Henry Lee, Thomas Kennedy, and Robert Todd.

  Andrew Holmes offered his log house as a temporary capitol for seven years, and that offer stood at the center of Frankfort's winning bid. Alongside it came town lots, £50 worth of locks and hinges, and 10 boxes of glass. The offer also included 1,500 pounds of nails and $3,000 in gold.

  James Wilkinson had spent years preparing the ground. In 1786, he purchased a 260-acre tract on the north side of the Kentucky River. He believed Frankfort could be a shipping hub. Farm produce would travel down the Kentucky River to the Ohio, then south to the Mississippi, and on to New Orleans.

  John Brown, a Virginia lawyer who had introduced the bill granting Kentucky statehood while in Congress, built a home in Frankfort in 1796. That house still stands, known as Liberty Hall. The Kentucky General Assembly funded a governor's residence that same year, and it was completed in 1798. That building is claimed to be the oldest official executive residence still in use in the United States.

  In 1829, Gideon Shryock designed Kentucky's third statehouse in the Greek Revival style. That building served as the state capitol from 1830 to 1910.

• 3. River Town

  ›

  The Kentucky River makes an S-turn as it passes through the center of Frankfort. That curve creates four distinct parts of the city. Downtown and South Frankfort sit in the river valley, facing each other across the water. The East and West sides spread up from the valley walls.

  Frankfort's position on the Kentucky River has meant the city has flooded many times. The two highest recorded floods struck in 1937 and 1978.

  The North Frankfort levee, finished in 1969, was the first major structural answer to the flooding. The South Frankfort floodwall followed in the 1990s. Together, they protect a downtown where five bridges now cross the river.

  The Singing Bridge, built in 1893, was already more than four decades old when the worst flood on record, in 1937, struck the city.

• 4. War and Assassination

  ›

  During the Civil War, the Union Army built fortifications on a promontory overlooking Frankfort, now called Fort Hill. The position gave Federal forces a commanding view of the capital below.

  Confederate forces occupied Frankfort starting on the 3rd of September 1862. It was the only time during the entire Civil War that Confederate troops controlled a Union state capital. The occupation was brief, and Union authority was restored.

  William Goebel, the 34th Governor of Kentucky, was shot on the 3rd of February 1900, while walking toward the state capitol. Former Secretary of State Caleb Powers and several others were later convicted of conspiring to murder him. All were eventually pardoned.

  Fort Hill today houses Leslie Morris Park, open to the public as an American Civil War battlefield with trails through historic fortifications.

• 5. Schools and the Plaza

  ›

  The Clinton Street High School served African American students in Frankfort from either 1882 or 1884, operating under segregation until 1928. Its successor, the Mayo-Underwood School, continued that mission from 1929 to 1964.

  The Mayo-Underwood School was torn down as part of an urban renewal plan. The land was cleared to build the Capital Plaza, a development that included an office tower, a hotel, and a shopping area.

  The Capital Plaza Office Tower opened in 1972 and became a visual landmark for the center of Frankfort. By the early 2000s, neglect had left sections of the plaza closed to pedestrians due to safety concerns. In August 2008, state officials recommended demolition.

  Demolition of the office tower was completed on the 11th of March 2018, and was televised by WKYT-TV and streamed live on Facebook. Its replacement, the Mayo-Underwood State Office Building, completed in 2019, honors the school demolished five decades earlier to make way for the original plaza.

• 6. Culture and Civic Life

  ›

  Buffalo Trace Distillery, founded in 1792, produces Kentucky Bourbon in the heart of Frankfort. Castle & Key Distillery and Three Boys Farm Distillery are also based in the city. The Jesse R. Zeigler House, built in 1909, is Kentucky's only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building; it remains a private residence today.

  Paul Sawyier, born in 1865, was a Kentucky Impressionist artist whose many paintings document the history of Frankfort and the surrounding area. He died in 1917. In 1965, the city named its public lending library the Paul Sawyier Public Library after him. Kentucky State University, within Frankfort's city limits, is both a historically Black university and an 1890 land-grant institution.

  In March 2018, the Kentucky General Assembly passed Senate Bill 151, and thousands of teachers marched through Frankfort in protest. The Kentucky Supreme Court struck the bill down as unconstitutional on the 13th of December 2018, preventing it from taking effect on the 1st of January 2019.