No Title 2647

Supplement to “The Parklands”

Along with the heroic 1770s pioneer deeds of John Floyd—the Floyds Fork namesake—being lost to history, so has much of the history of the people and places along the river named for him.

Floyd’s life included helping free Daniel Boone’s daughter from the Indians, being captured by the British during the Revolutionary War, having Ben Franklin help get him home, and returning to Kentucky to help build settlements along Beargrass Creek in what is now St. Matthews in Louisville.

Floyds Fork was also the site of the Blue Rock Hotel near Fisherville, an early 1900s heath spa where people from distant Louisville came out by train for the fresh air and spring water.

Also in nearby Fisherville was an old mill that was later converted into a general store, and then a barn for horses.

Farther along Floyds Fork was the town of Seatonville, with its early grist and flour mill, wooden covered bridge, and a Seaton family cemetery with pioneers dating back to the 1700s.

In more modern times—the 1960s and 1970s—Seatonville was the site of several failed attempts to build world-class golf courses on a par with Valhalla, but all of that got washed away in bankruptcy and floodwaters.

Farther down the fork is the Stout House, a nearly 200-year-old house built on land owned by Squire Boone, Daniel Boone’s brother. Farther above that house is Turkey Run, a small stream that wanders down out of the hills from near the site of an old sawmill.

To read the July 2011 feature that goes along with this supplement, go to The Parklands.