Augusta City Hall is located at 219 Main Street, Augusta, KY 41002.
Phone: 606-756-2183.
Neighborhoods
The town of Augusta [†] is set along a relatively straight stretch of the Ohio River between the Bracken and Little Turtle Creeks. The riverfront was admirably suited to the 19th-century river traffic. The town was laid out into lots, streets, and alleys, by Captain Philip Buckner, founder of the town, before 1795, when much of the land changed hands. Although much of the early development took place along the river, the public square was set back a block from it, between Second and Third Streets.
The detailed plat of the town in the 1884 Atlas of Bracken and Pendleton Counties is very informative. It still shows the same concentration of rowhouses between Main and Upper Streets, with additional development east and west. There have been almost no intrusions since that date, although a number of individual buildings have disappeared.
Augusta was settled in 1797, one year after Bracken County was formed, although the town had been laid out a few years previous by Philip Buckner. The natural harbor provided by the mouth of Bracken Creek proved beneficial to river traffic. A ferryboat connecting Kentucky to Brown County, Ohio, was started circa 1800, thus lending greater importance to the city as a transportation center. The first town-controlled ferry across the Ohio was established in 1822 under the apparent ownership of Augusta College and served as one of the college's greatest sources of income. In 1849 the ferry rights were mortgaged to John Armstrong and later sold to Dr. Joshua T. Bradford Long a commercial outlet for Northern Kentucky owing to its location on the river, Augusta's fortunes declined as the railroad replaced the steamboat and as larger cities to the west and east became distribution centers in the post-steamboat transportation system.
† Mrs. John S. Parker, Bracken County Representative, Water Street-River Side Drive Historic District,, nomination document, 1975, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Towns: Brooksville City •