The Heritage of London, Kentucky

Long before London existed, the land that would become Laurel County sat astride the most important pioneer route in American history — the Wilderness Road. Blazed by Daniel Boone in 1775, this rugged trail carried more than 200,000 settlers from the Cumberland Gap into the heart of Kentucky between 1775 and 1810. Two great branches of the road, Boone's Trace and Skaggs' Trace, converged near present-day London, making the area a natural crossroads for westward migration.

The journey was perilous. In October 1786, one of the deadliest events on the entire Wilderness Road occurred just south of present-day London, when a caravan of settlers led by the McNitt family was attacked while camped for the night. Around two dozen pioneers were killed in what became known as McNitt's Defeat, and the site — 'Defeated Camp' — is preserved today within Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park, where a memorial marks one of the oldest pioneer graveyards in Kentucky.

Laurel County was officially formed in 1825, named for the mountain laurel that blankets the region's hillsides each spring. A year later, in 1826, the town of London was laid out as the county seat. Local tradition holds that the founding families — many of English descent — named the town after London, England, continuing a pattern of Old World names across the Kentucky frontier.

Early London grew slowly but steadily as a courthouse town. Farmers from across the county came to trade, settle legal matters, and socialize on court days. The town's position along the old Wilderness Road corridor kept a steady stream of travelers, drovers, and merchants moving through its streets.

Laurel County found itself on the front lines early in the Civil War. On October 21, 1861, Union forces under General Albin Schoepf repelled a Confederate advance led by General Felix Zollicoffer at the Battle of Camp Wildcat, fought on the steep slopes of Wildcat Mountain along the Rockcastle River just north of London.

Camp Wildcat is remembered as one of the first Union victories of the entire war, and one of the first engagements in which Kentucky troops fought on Kentucky soil. The battlefield is preserved today, with hiking trails and interpretive markers allowing visitors to walk the same ridgelines defended more than 160 years ago. Throughout the war, London changed hands repeatedly as armies moved along the Wilderness Road corridor toward Cumberland Gap.

The arrival of the railroad in 1883 transformed London from a sleepy courthouse village into a thriving market town. Vast stands of virgin timber in the surrounding mountains could suddenly reach national markets, and sawmills, stave yards, and supply stores sprang up around the depot.

This era also gave Laurel County one of its most colorful chapters: Sublimity Springs, a fashionable mineral-springs resort south of town that drew health-seekers and vacationers from across the South in the late 1800s. Though the resort is long gone, its name lives on in the Sublimity community and the lake at Levi Jackson park.

In 1931, descendants of Levi Jackson — an early settler and Laurel County's first judge — donated family land to create Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park. The park preserves a section of the original Wilderness Road, the Defeated Camp pioneer cemetery, and McHargue's Mill, a working reproduction watermill surrounded by the largest collection of millstones in the country. The Mountain Life Museum, a recreated pioneer settlement of authentic log structures, keeps frontier life vivid for new generations.

The creation of the Daniel Boone National Forest brought hundreds of thousands of acres of protected woodland to London's doorstep, while new highways — Interstate 75 and the Hal Rogers Parkway — made London the transportation hub of southeastern Kentucky.

Laurel County proudly claims a starring role in fried chicken  history. Colonel Harland Sanders developed his world-famous recipe at his café and motel on the Laurel–Knox county line in nearby Corbin in 1940, and the region celebrates that legacy every September with the World Chicken Festival in downtown London. Featuring the world's largest stainless steel skillet — over 10 feet across — the festival draws more than a quarter-million visitors and fries up thousands of chicken dinners over four days.

Today London is a city of roughly 8,000 residents and the commercial heart of a county of more than 60,000. Its downtown blends historic storefronts with new restaurants and shops, while the surrounding county offers world-class outdoor recreation at Laurel River Lake, the Rockcastle River, and the Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail. Nearly 250 years after the first wagons rolled down the Wilderness Road, London remains what it has always been — a crossroads of Kentucky.