Welcome To Wickliffe - Welcome Signs on Waymarking.com

Wickliffe, the seat of Ballard county, is located on the Mississippi River in the southwest of the county. It was founded in 1880 at the site of an earlier settlement and named for Col. Charles A. Wickliffe, legislator, Confederate officer, and nephew and namesake of Kentucky's fifteenth governor. Wickliffe replaced Blandville, the previous county seat, in 1882. The Wickliffe post office opened in 1879 after moving from its previous location at nearby Fort Jefferson.

The modern day city of Wickliffe is home to a Mississippian culture village now known only as Wickliffe mounds. Wickliffe mounds was occupied from around 1100-1300 CE. Today, Wickliffe mounds is the 11th state historic site of Kentucky, and home to a research center and museum.

In 1780 during the Revolutionary War, General George Rogers Clark established Fort Jefferson on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River one mile south of present-day Wickliffe. The fort was intended to protect what was then the western boundary of the infant United States from raids by the British Army and Native Americans. It was abandoned in 1781 after a siege by the Chickasaw.

The site later served as a Union Army post during the American Civil War. General Ulysses S. Grant directed a demonstration against the Confederate-held position at Columbus, Kentucky, in January 1862. Troops from the post joined in capturing Fort Henry in February 1862. It served as a Union supply post for operations in the western theater of the war.

Type of community: Town

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Date Logged Log User Rating   11/04/2010 trailhound1 visited it