Portal:Kentucky/Selected city/5
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Ashland is a city in Boyd County, nestled along the banks of the Ohio River. The population was 21,981 at the 2000 census. Ashland serves as an important economic and medical center for northeast Kentucky.
Ashland dates back to the migration of the Poage family from the Shenandoah Valley via the famed Cumberland Gap in 1786. They settled upon a homestead along the Ohio River and named it Poage's Landing. It remained an extended-family settlement until the mid-1800s. In 1854, the name of the city was changed to Ashland, after Henry Clay's Lexington estate, and to reflect the city's growing industrial base. Ironically enough, the first child born in the new town of Ashland was named Ashland Poage, a mixture of the old and new names.
Ashland boasts a 47-acre wooded Central Park, founded in 1854, playgrounds and other amusements. It was bounded between Lexington and Central Avenue, and 17th and 22nd Streets. In 1936, the Works Progress Administration constructed a central road through the park; one year later, a pond was constructed in the southeast quadrant. Twenty years later, after complaints of mosquito problems, the pond was filled in with five feet of dirt and it became a softball practice field.
