PITTS POINT

PITTS POINT ACADEMY



At the junction of the Rolling Fork and Salt Rivers was a town, that at one time in Bullitt's history, was a bustling important river town. Originally it was called Pittstown. In August of 1831 Abraham and Hannah Froman sold 600 acres to two'brothers James G. and John S. Pitts for $1500 "current" money. Abraham Froman was operating a ferry across the river at that time. The Pitt brothers laid off their town and filed the plot which is in the deed books in the county court clerk's office. The plot is in three colors and shows the additions made to the town, one of which was by J.J. Froman, sometime prior to 1860. A Post Office was established in 1842 and the first public school was organized about 1850. In 1852 Sam Goldsmith started a fish business which he may have operated from a boat. The population in 1860 was 300.
According to G.W. Howe's Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1859 and 1860, No. I the town contained the following businesses and professions.

Benett, N.D. - physician
Boyer, Wm. H. - carpenter
Butler Lodge, No. 194 - Masonic
Carpenter & Conell-Franklin Hotel proprietors
Caswell & Co. - bakers
Chaddie, Wm. - surveyor
Collings, S.W.-saddle and harness maker
Rolling Fork Seminary - Miss Ellen Stiles, Principal
Runner, Sammuel - tailor
Snellen, Z.P. - mason & builder
Sutlan, W.D. - painter
Tydings, C.B. - physician

Between 1864 and 1866 Pitt's Point Male and Female Academy was started. It was a well known institution. In 1865 a battle was fought by the townspeople against a band of guerrillas who were/ led by two brothers named Wigginton. The town derived its importance from the place where it was located. Salt River was not navigable to Shepherdsville but was to a place beyond Pit t's Point. This made the town the shipping point for most goods produced in the county. Products would be loaded on wagons and taken to the town where they were loaded on one of the small packetts or steamers that put to port there. When the steamboat as replaced by the automobile and other forms of transportation Pitts Point declined until the entire area was purchased by the Federal Government and today is part of the Fort Knox military reservation.

The Ghost Town of Bullitt County-1956


You don't have to go out West to find a genuine ghost town. There's one less than 20 miles from Louisville.

That's as the crow flies. The Kentucky ghost town is in such an isolated location that it might be easier to go West, after all, to visit one.

Pitts Point, at the confluence of Salt River and Rolling Fork in Bullitt County, is so abandoned that it would take an individual with a strong heart to walk down its spooky Main Street without jumping with the snapping of a twig. Ghosts seem to be hiding behind every tree and tumbledown building.

This ghost town was once a bustling river landing. At its peak it was a community of severai hundred persons. But as the steamboat trade began to decline, so did Pitts Point's population.

Still, a prosperous little town continued to exist until expansion of Fort Knox some 15 years ago. At that time the Government purchased the entire town.

All of the residents were paid for their homes and moved elsewhere. Yet the houses and business places of Pitts Point were left standing and have remained so-more or less-to this day.

Some 14 years of flood, storm, forest fire and practice artillery shelling have left their effect on the town. The numerous forest fires which have swept the Fort Knox reservation somehow have spared the town site. But many of the buildings have collapsed, and trees and undergrowth have blocked the streets.

It is almost impossible to get to Pitts Point today by vehicle. It can be done by following a rugged tank road from Belmont. That's by way of a nine- mile trail which isn't fit for a horse to travel, although I did manage to make this trip recently in a four-wheel-drive jeep. But the best way to reach Kentucky's almost-forgotten ghost town is by boat from West Point, on the Ohio at the mouth of Salt River. This is a 14-mile trip through the spectacular gorges of the lower Salt River Valley. It's the way I chose for my second visit to Pitts Point.

To reach the town from either direction, however, it is necessary to get a pass from the commanding general at Fort Knox, as Pitts Point is located some eight miles inside the reservation boundary and in the center of an artillery range.

The exact date of the first settlement at Pitts Point is uncertain. But it was before 1790, or shortly after Col. Thomas Bullitt discovered and developed the nearby salt lick which became known as Bullitt's Lick.

The settlement received its name from the resemblance of its location-on the point of two streams-to another famous frontier station, Fort Pitt, which is the present day Pittsburgh. When salt makers came down the Ohio River from Fort Pitt, they named the area Pitts Point.

This became the shipping point for all the salt produced at Bullitt's Lick. The salt was loaded on keelboats and taken down Salt River to West Point, there to be shipped to various points up and down the Ohio River.

In early days a customs inspection point for hemp, tobacco and salt was established at Pitts Point and a large warehouse was erected for storage of these cornmodities.

With the coming of the steamboat, Pitts Point gained even more importance. It was practically the head of navigation on Salt River in periods of low water. Several packets operated daily between Pitts Point and Louisville.

Old-timers reminisce over pleasant trips to Louisville aboard the Mattie Hays, Nellie Grant and the Bellevue, which were in the fleet of fine boats which operated on Salt River.

After the salt works nearby Bullitt's Lick started to decline, Pitts Point continued to bustle, for the nearby hills supported numerous sawmills and lumber products had to be shipped out.

The Civil War probably saw Pitts Point at its peak of activity. In its streets a battle was fought between the home guard and a guerilla band.

Shortly after the war, Pitts Point became a college town. It was in this period that numerous small colleges cropped up all over the country. Pitts Point Academy became one of the best known institutions of higher learning in Central Kentucky. Numerous present-day residents of Bullitt and Hardin Counties attended the school.

Portions of the old college building are still standing-as are some of the walls of other buildings-but from all indications the next hard wind may blow this relic into Salt River.

Tradition says it was to Pitts Point that Henry Clay took his famous trip up Salt River during the 1832 election which resulted in the expression in which defeated political candidates are described as having "gone up Salt River."

During its best years, there were several stores at Pitts Point, as well as a post office, a hotel and the college. One ferry crossed Salt River and another crossed Rolling Fork.

Towering above the town is Dawson Knob, one of the highest hills in this section of Kentucky, with an elevation of 1,042 feet. Young folks who used to climb Iroquois Hill at Louisville about 20 years ago to see an airplane beacon flashing far to the south were watching the one which was situated atop of Dawson Knob.

As I turned to leave Pitts Point after my visit, two large deer leaped over a honeysuckle hedge near the abandoned church and went bounding thr ough the forgotten village. From all visible signs, they are the only residents of Pitts Point in 1956- unless you want to count the ghosts.

BACK