Rowan County Kentucky

Community Histories

Rockville/Bluestone

The community of Rockville was located about midway between Morehead and Farmers. It was a C&O railroad point and the station was off Freestone Rowan near the closed iron bridge. The main industries were farming, quarries and lumber.

When the Elizabethtown, Lexington & Big Sandy Railroad began operation in Rowan County in 1881, the stone, coal, and timber resources in the county began to be exploited. The abundant timber in the area was used for ties, staves and rough lumber. There were several quarries in the area including the Bluegrass Quarries Company and the Kentucky Bluestone Company.

The Bluegrass Quarries Company, owned and operated by C.S. Brown of Huntingtin, WV and was located ¾ mile southwest of Rockville railroad station. They had a mill at the foot of the bluff, equipped with gangs of saws for cutting the stone into dimension sized before shipping for construction work.

The Kentucky Bluestone Company was established in 1898 at Bluestone on the C&O Railroad. The stone is split with shims and wedges so that there is no waste of material for fracture by explosives. The company had a good mill with modern machinery for cutting the stone with gang saws as desired. Products from the quarry have been used extensively for bridge stone, sawed flagging stone, etc. and shipped all over the world.

These quarries were the economic backbone of this area. The stone was sawed into various sizes and used to build bridge abutments for the many rivers and streams that had to be crossed as the C & O laid track toward Ashland and on into West Virginia. The Cozy Building in downtown Morehead is an example of the sawed stone and is one of the few remaining buildings in the world with sawed bluestone.

Shortly before World War One the demand for stone began to slow down and that is when many of the quarries closed.

There was only one minor battle of the Civil War fought in Rowan County and it was in the Rockville/Bluestone area. On June 16, 1863, two battalions of the 1oth Kentucky Cavalry and Everett’s Confederate Cavalry at the Triplett Creek bridge met near Bluestone for a short skirmish. Badly outnumbered, the Confederates retreated towards West Liberty, setting the bridge on fire was they retreated. No Union soldiers were injured, one Confederate was dead, three were wounded and thirty-eight were captured. Guerrillas made a number of raids into Morehead, the fourth occurring on November 10, 1863. They returned on March 21,1864 to burn down the courthouse.

The Post Office was established as Freestone on April 16, 1883, was about 50 yards from the Freestone railroad station and served a population about 500. The Postmaster was Henry F. Martin. In July 1897, it was moved less than a mile down the road to serve Rockville. The name of the post office was Bluestone but it served the village and railroad station of Rockville. On April 17, 1920, the post office was moved a mile west and was renamed Bluestone. The village was also renamed Bluestone. The post office closed August 31, 1960 and mail was sent to Morehead post.

Article by Cindy Leach

Sources

Crosthwaite, Grace, "Rowan County - General History" (1973). County Histories of Kentucky. 74. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/74

Jack Ellis, Juanita Blair and Fred Brown, Jr. Notes

Jack Elam, on the Cassity/Cassidy Family Association web site

Morehead Advance, 7/1898

The Post Offices of Rowan County –Robert Rennick

https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=kentucky_county_histories

The Road Materials of Kentucky A Preliminary Report Covering Field and Laboratory Investigations of Rock, Gravel and Bituminous Sandstone Deposits Occurring Within the Commonwealth · Volume 22 By Charles Henry Richardson · 1924 Kentucky Geological Survey, Frankfort, KY 1924

Rowan County News 5/10/1956

Robert Rennick Place Names MSU Scholarworks

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