Kentucky/Wise County

Kentucky The state of Kentucky was once a part of Virginia. The first permanent European settlement was established at Harrodsburg in 1774. Between 1784 and 1792, residents of this region known as the district of Kentucky held a number of conventions to discuss possible statehood. The General Assembly of Virginia passed an act on 18 Dec. 1789 to allow Kentucky to apply for statehood. Kentucky became the 15th state admitted in 1792 to the United States. Noted individuals who have resided in Kentucky include statesman Henry Clay (1777-1852), frontiersmen Daniel Boone (1734-1820), and U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who was born there in 1809. The capital of Kentucky is Frankfort. Wise County Wise County was formed in 1856 from Lee, Scott, and Russell Counties. It was named for Henry Alexander Wise who was governor of Virginia from 1856 to 1860. The county seat is the town of Wise. After the Civil War the town of Wise grew and the county's industry expanded because of the growth of the railroads and the increased mining of coal in the region. Noted novelist John Fox Jr. lived in the town of Big Stone Gap here for a portion of his life and wrote the best-selling novels The Trail of the Lonesome Pine and The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come.