The story of America’s westward dream began in Kentucky

Reporter/Multimedia Journalist

Long before the nation declared its independence, settlers were chasing freedom, opportunity and survival on the frontier.

The initial push to expand westward started in Kentucky.

If the walls outside Old Fort Harrod State Park could talk, they would have more than 250 years of history to tell about where America was at the time and where it was going.

Before America declared its independence from the British, explorers like James Harrod were set on blazing a trail west.

“The original goal out here was really to get away from British rule,” said Julius Lane, a historical interpreter at the Old Fort Harrod State Park.

MORE AMERICA 250 STORIES

“They wanted to come out here, somewhere where they could plant their crops and live off of the land and not have to worry about paying anything extra or taxes,” Lane said.

At Old Fort Harrod State Park in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, the history of what was the first European settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains comes to life. Historians like Julius Lane help tell the tale.

“James Harrod came here in 1774 with about 32 men and established this fort,” Lane said.

“He would have brought the axes they needed to build the fort, the guns they needed to defend the fort, the traps they needed to feed the fort and the clothes they needed to clothe the fort. And literally everything else you can imagine, they brought with them the first time they came to Kentucky,” Lane said.

But like all good things, the freedom Fort Harrod provided did not come for free.

“The year 1777, we often term the year of the Bloody Sevens, because it was the year of the most attacks at the forts of Kentucky,” Lane said.

The settlers were constantly on guard, watching for Native Americans like the Shawnee, who relentlessly defended their territory.

“However, during that year, none of the attacks ever caused the demise of the fort. It was never burned. It was never abandoned. It was never demolished. And so, it’s the first permanent settlement here in Kentucky,” Lane said.

“If this fort wasn’t successful, we might not have Kentucky as we know it today. We might not have California or Texas or anything else as we know it today,” Lane said.

Fast-forward 250 years later: Old Fort Harrod State Park serves as a living history lesson of what it took to expand a nation.

Fort Harrod

“It’s important so people know where they came from. And quite honestly, how we take for granted what we have today,” said Autumn Morrison, the Old Fort Harrod State Park manager.

“If it wasn’t for James Harrod coming out here and successfully setting up this fort and it not falling, the whole idea of Western expansion might have collapsed right then and there, and we might still nowadays be the original 13 colonies,” Lane said.