The City of Perryville
Perryville
The area that became Perryville was first settled between 1776 and 1780 by a group of Virginians led by James Harbison. The settlement became known as Harbison’s Station, and a stockade was built around a cave that exists today behind 403 South Buell Street. Settlers poured into the surrounding region in the decades after Kentucky achieved statehood in 1792.
Perryville was incorporated as a city on January 17, 1817. It was named in honor of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a War of 1812 naval hero and victor of the Battle of Lake Erie. Buell Street (which runs behind you) was originally the city’s Main Street, and in the 1830s and 1840s a commercial center called Merchant’s Row (today the 300 and 400 blocks of South Buell Street) grew along the Chaplin River.
By 1860 Perryville numbered approximately 350 residents. The Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862, forever changed this small Kentucky town and remains the definitive event in its history. Union and Confederate infantry fought in the streets, and several buildings were struck by artillery fire or burned. Wounded from both sides sought shelter in the city, and Perryville served as a hospital for several months after the engagement. After the war Perryville’s streets were renamed for Union and Confederate generals.
Perryville continued to prosper into the 20th Century. Temperance crusader Carrie A. Nation spent her formative years here, and local legend states that the first taverns she broke up were along South Buell Street. National figures with Perryville ties include Moneta Sleet, Jr., who won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 1969; singer/songwriter Kendall Hays; singer Eddie Montgomery; and actor George Clooney.
Marker is at the intersection of South Buell Street (U.S. 68) and West Third Street, on the left when traveling south on South Buell Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
