Athens ( ) is a small unincorporated

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

in Fayette County to the east of

Interstate 75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from St ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

in the United States. First settled in 1786 as the community of Cross Plains, the town was chartered as Athens in 1826 and had its own post office from that time until 1906. The current commercial center was reduced to its present size by a series of fires in the mid-19th century.

Athens Historic District

The Athens Historic District was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1979 for its

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

, and Late Victorian

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

. The Athens Historic District contains the remaining buildings of an early 19th-century village established in the southernmost part of Fayette County. The village is located in the heart of the

Bluegrass region The Bluegrass region is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It makes up the central and northern part of the state, roughly bounded by the cities of Frankfort, Paris, Richmond and Stanford. The Bluegrass region is characteriz ...

of Kentucky. In 1775 a fort was established by

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...

one-half mile west of present-day Athens. The community of Cross Plains was founded in 1783 and renamed Athens in 1825 after the

Kentucky General Assembly The Kentucky General Assembly, also called the Kentucky Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It comprises the Kentucky Senate and the Kentucky House of Representatives. The General Assembly meets annually in ...

chartered the town. During the early 19th century the community boasted several manufacturing industries including a woolen factory as well as a bagging and rope factory. By 1860 all of the manufacturing buildings had been destroyed by fire. Local historian Robert Peter described why the buildings were not rebuilt in Athens: "Several destructive fires for so small a place have visited Athens during the course of its eventful career. In 1853-54 all the business houses on the south side of Main Street, west of the Cleveland pike were swept away in a single blaze. The buildings consumed were the Bledsoe Hotel, Harvey Nelson's dry goods store, John Donnally's store, a shoemaker's shop and a few dwellings." This description of the fires that destroyed the main part of the town attests to how large and thriving the community of Athens was in the early part of the 19th century. There are still several buildings remaining in Athens from its early history. The Dr. Parker House is a two-story log and frame building erected between 1780 and 1820. There is also a second log building that has been covered by clapboards adjacent to the Dr. Parker House. Built during the 1780s, this could be the oldest building in Athens still standing. The Marshall Tavern is a brick building that served as an inn and was built around 1840. The Aubrey Inn, built circa 1800, stands at the corner of Main and Cleveland Road. Across the street from the tavern is the building that formerly housed Flannery's store. These buildings have mostly been converted to residential dwellings and there are few buildings that still serve a commercial functions.

References

Neighborhoods in Lexington, Kentucky Populated places in Fayette County, Kentucky Lexington–Fayette metropolitan area {{FayetteCountyKY-geo-stub