Railroads

Before railroads, a trip to a nearby farm was an all-day affair. People loaded wagons pulled by horses or mules. Product orders from area stores took weeks to arrive, and markets for timber and other commodities were nonexistent. Without the ability to travel out of the county easily, Morehead remained isolated.

Enter the Elizabethtown Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad, which built a freight station and lay rail through Morehead in 1881 to connect Kentucky cities Lexington and Ashland. Products soon began to flow in and out of Morehead. The lumber industry boomed. At last, residents were able to expand their horizons by traveling to distant cities and states.

During the next 93 years, the railroad industry would be an invaluable asset to Morehead’s growth.

Several railroad companies, including the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Tripplet & Big Sandy, The Kentucky Northern, the Morehead & North Fork, and the Christy Creek, were integral in providing passenger service and transporting timber, coal, clay and general freight until those industries played out.

Though these railroad lines are now abandoned, their legacy of transforming Morehead and Rowan County into an industrial hub remains.

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If walls could talk, these might tell you about the final gun battle in the Rowan County War.

On that day in June 1887, more than 1,500 shots were exchanged right here on Railroad Street, now First Street, where you’re standing. Members of the Tolliver family, in their attempt to maintain control of the county, ran into the station and briefly exchanged gunfire with the regulators before attempting to escape.

They say this building still has the scars — or bullet holes — to prove it.

It’s Rowan County’s oldest commercial building, built in 1881 by the Elizabethtown & Big Sandy Railroad, which was bought out by the Chesapeake & Ohio in 1892. It is one of only two C&O two-story freight stations still standing, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This freight station offered both passenger and freight service until the depot next door was built in 1904. Passenger service was transferred, and the building then served only freight until the line closed in 1985.

When rail service ceased, the building was purchased by local businessman Curly Barker. He stored appliances and furniture here for his Big Store business across the street. It was later rented as a liquor store and then by a swimming pool supply company. In 2014, the building was rented, repaired and restored by the Morehead & North Fork Railroad, a local preservation group named for one of the six historic railroads in the county, and converted into the Morehead History and Railroad Museum. The museum contains information about railroads and general history for Morehead, Rowan County and eastern Kentucky. Plans include laying track between the museum and depot, and moving and restoring a 1924 C&O caboose to become an annex to the museum.