Portal:Kentucky/Selected city/3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bardstown is a city in Nelson County. The population was 10,374 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Nelson County[1]. It is named for David Bard, the man who obtained the land for the city from the governor of Virginia, and his brother William Bard, the surveyor who laid out the town. Bardstown is the second oldest city in Kentucky. It was settled in the 1770s, and received its charter in 1790.
Bardstown was the first center of Catholicism west of the Appalachian Mountains. The Diocese of Bardstown was established on February 8, 1808, and served all Catholics between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, an area now served by 44 dioceses and archdioceses in 10 states. Its cathedral still stands as the Basilica of Saint Joseph Proto-Cathedral. The seat of the diocese was transferred to Louisville in 1841. Bardstown is still the home of a Catholic high school, Bethlehem High School.
Bardstown is the home of My Old Kentucky Home State Park, on which the Federal Hill mansion ( the alleged inspiration for Stephen Foster's song "My Old Kentucky Home") was built by Judge John Rowan and his wife Ann Lytle Rowan of the Lytle family, from whose father William Lytle they had been deeded the land as a wedding gift. The Federal Hill mansion is depicted on the reverse of the Kentucky state quarter issued by the United States Mint in 2001.
