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| Catlettsburg, Ky. |
The population of Catlettsburg is only two-thirds of its size as of the 1900 census. As the county seat of Boyd County… wait? I thought Ashland was the county seat of Boyd County. It’s not? No. It is actually Catlettsburg.
Confusion aside, the location of Catlettsburg is strategic being located at the confluence of the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers. It was a home of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 1911 until 1985. The population also declined to “urban sprawl,” which is not a concept you would think of when you think of a hamlet of 1,800 (within the city limits, but Catlettsburg’s ZIP code has a population of about 10,000). But in the 1960s and 1970s, the realignment and expansion of US 23/60 through the area prompted the removal of many residential units which were never replaced.
Catlettsburg was a major timber market in the late 19th century and as a result there are very few trees. I selected the picture above because it was one of the few tree-lined streets I noticed in the central area. It also featured homes (though many were converted to commercial use) which were, as noted above, an anomaly. For more of my Catlettsburg pictures, check out Flickr.