Prestonsburg: first seat on the Big Sandy

Prestonsburg (opens in a new tab) sits on the Levisa Fork (opens in a new tab) of the Big Sandy, on land that was part of a 100,000-acre colonial grant to the family of Elizabeth Patton Preston. Her husband, John Preston, managed the grant on her behalf. The grant was meant to open land beyond the Blue Ridge to British settlement, but French and Native resistance and a change in British policy kept it from doing much for decades.

No one settled the tract until John Spurlock of Montgomery County, Virginia, arrived in 1791. He laid out the town of Preston’s Station in 1797. The Kentucky Secretary of State’s city record says the name was later changed to honor Col. John Preston, the landowner.

On December 13, 1799, the General Assembly created Floyd County (opens in a new tab), effective June 1, 1800, from parts of Fleming, Montgomery and Mason counties. It was named for the surveyor John Floyd, and Preston’s Station became its seat.

On April 8, 1808, the first courthouse burned and took the early records with it, so Floyd County’s surviving government records begin in 1808. The post office was called Floyd Court House from 1816 until the late 1820s. The town itself was formally established in 1818.

Some popular histories credit a surveyor named John Graham with the 1797 plat and give a May 3, 1797 date. The sources checked here name John Spurlock and give no day, so this story leaves both points open.

Kentucky today

Prestonsburg is still the Floyd County seat. The Samuel May House (opens in a new tab), built in 1817 and now owned by the city, is the Big Sandy Valley’s oldest known brick home, and Confederate units recruited there in the Civil War. Nearby Middle Creek (opens in a new tab) was the largest Civil War battle in eastern Kentucky, fought January 10, 1862.