7 Towns in Kentucky With the Best Downtown Areas
La Grange has freight trains that still run down the middle of Main Street several times a day, slowing to about ten miles per hour as they pass the storefronts. Paducah was named a UNESCO Creative City for crafts and folk art in 2013, the only US city in that designation. Bardstown's downtown is a National Historic District of around 200 contributing buildings, with working bourbon distilleries within walking distance of the courthouse. The seven Kentucky downtowns below are each built around a specific identity, and each is walkable enough to cover in an afternoon.
Berea
Berea is a college town in Madison County named for the Macedonian city mentioned in Acts 17 of the New Testament. Berea College, founded in 1855 as the first racially integrated, coeducational college in the South, runs a no-tuition labor-program model in which every student works on campus. The college's craft program produces high-quality woodworking, weaving, broom-making, and ceramics, much of which is sold at the Berea College Visitor Center & Shoppe, the College Square Shops, and Gallery 103. Off-campus, the Old Town Artisan Village concentrates working studios in restored 19th-century commercial buildings (Fine Wine Caddy, Dinah Tyree Watercolors, Old Town Fabric, Music Makers). The Cabin of Old Town Artisan Gallery, an 1813 log cabin, displays folk art in its original walls. The Berea City Trails connect the college, downtown, and the artisan district.
Paducah
Paducah sits at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers in far western Kentucky, and was designated a UNESCO Creative City for crafts and folk art in 2013, the only US city in that category. The National Quilt Museum on Jefferson Street holds the largest collection of contemporary quilts in the country, with rotating exhibitions drawn from a permanent collection of more than 700 works. The annual AQS QuiltWeek brings tens of thousands of quilters to town each spring. Calico Country Sew & Vac and Jefferson Street Studios & Helene's Hand-Dyed Fabrics serve the working quilting community.
The Lloyd Tilghman House & Civil War Museum (the home of a Confederate general), the Paducah Railroad Museum, and the Inland Waterways Museum cover the city's roles in 19th-century river commerce, the Civil War (Grant occupied Paducah in 1861), and the modern barge trade. Restaurants downtown include the Artisan Kitchen, Social 360, and Backwoods BBQ.
Elizabethtown
Elizabethtown (called Etown by locals) is the seat of Hardin County in the central Bluegrass region. The downtown is anchored by the 1825 Brown-Pusey House, a Federal-style brick home built as an inn for stagecoach travelers and now operated as a community house and museum. The Historic State Theatre, a 1942 Art Deco movie palace, has been restored and books touring music, comedy, and films. The Hardin County Playhouse runs community theater seasons in a converted commercial building. The Hardin County History Museum on Main Street covers local history from the Lincoln family (Thomas Lincoln, the president's father, lived in the area before moving to Indiana) forward. Boutiques on the square include O'Neals, Quilted Elephant Studio, and Raiment + Boon.
Bardstown
Renowned as the Bourbon Capital of the World, Bardstown is the seat of Nelson County and one of the older towns in Kentucky, established 1780. Baptist minister Elijah Craig, who lived in the area, is widely (if not conclusively) credited with the practice of aging whiskey in charred oak barrels around 1789. Working distilleries within or just outside town include Heaven Hill (with its Bourbon Experience visitor center), Lux Row, Barton 1792, Willett, and several smaller operations on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
The town's downtown is a National Historic District with about 200 contributing buildings. The 1818 My Old Kentucky Home (officially Federal Hill, the Rowan family home that inspired Stephen Foster's 1853 song) sits on the east side of town as a state park. The Old Bardstown Village & Civil War Museum recreates a frontier village. The Blind Pig Bourbon Market and the Saturday farmers' market on the courthouse square round out a downtown shopping circuit.
La Grange
La Grange is the seat of Oldham County, 25 miles northeast of Louisville. The town's defining feature is the active CSX rail line that runs straight down the middle of Main Street; freight trains pass through several times a day, slowing to about 10 mph as they cross. The La Grange Railroad Museum on Main Street covers the line's history with rolling stock, scale models, and a working signal tower. The Train Observation Tower a few doors down gives a higher vantage point. Downtown businesses include Copper Awning Flea Market, La Grange Coffee Roasters, and One Nineteen West Main. The Oldham County History Center, in an 1887 stone schoolhouse, holds local archives.
Pikeville
Pikeville sits in the heart of the eastern Kentucky Appalachian Mountains in Pike County, on the Big Sandy River. The Hatfield-McCoy feud, the most famous family conflict in American history, played out in this region between roughly 1863 and 1891. The Big Sandy Heritage Center on Second Street holds the largest single collection of Hatfield-McCoy artifacts in existence, alongside exhibits on Civil War, Cherokee, and early settler history in the Big Sandy valley.
Downtown Pikeville is small but active, with the University of Pikeville campus directly adjacent. Local businesses include Bridgett's Quilting, Dueling Barrels Distillery and Brewery (a working distillery in the downtown core), Kate & Kris Boutique, Broken Throne Brewing, and Joyce's Place. The Appalachian Center for the Arts, in a renovated 1920s school building, hosts performing arts and gallery exhibitions.
Cave City
Cave City is the gateway town to Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest known cave system in the world at over 400 mapped miles. The park entrance is ten minutes northwest of downtown. The cave is the main draw, but the town has its own roadside ecosystem of attractions built up over decades: Dinosaur World (a 20-acre outdoor sculpture park with around 150 life-sized replicas), Mammoth Cave Wildlife Museum, and the Big Mike's Mystery House and rock shop. Downtown businesses include Market Ky, Wild Wonderful Gift Shop, Ivy & Oak Boutique, The Bouji Palomino, and Cave City Pizza.
Small-town downtowns in Kentucky carry more weight than the size of the population suggests. Berea, Paducah, and Bardstown each anchor a specific cultural identity (folk crafts, quilts, bourbon). La Grange has working freight trains running through the middle of it. Pikeville sits at the heart of feud country. Cave City is the door to the longest cave on Earth. The seven above are not a comprehensive list, but they are a strong cross-section of what Kentucky has built around its courthouse squares.
