River Mile: 427

Population: 1,096

U.S. Census Profile

Well-known now as the home of the late singer Rosemary Clooney and her actor nephew, George, the picturesque town of Augusta was founded in 1786 as a trading post by Philip Buckner, who named it after Augusta County, Va. Research found the town was built on an ancient Native American burial ground. The town was twice briefly the seat of Bracken County, before that finally moved to Brooksville in 1839. Early on the town was an active port, shipping tobacco, hemp, lifestock and wine. At the center of the wine business was Abraham Baker, who founded the Baker-Bird Winery. Augusta was attacked by Confederate Col. Basil W. Duke, who drove off two Union gunboats and beat back heavy resistance from the local Union militia before heavy losses forced him to drop plans to cross into Ohio during the Civil War.

Although Kentucky was a slave state, several abolitionists helped escaping enslaved people across the river to the relative safety of Ohio, though captured fugitive slaves were also held in the town’s jail. In 1908, Augusta and Bracken County saw violence between “Night Rider” tobacco growers who banded together to boycott the Duke Trust monopoly and those who sold to it. The town is graced by a several-mile stretch of unobstructed river views lined with historic homes and other buildings.