Bullitt County is located just 17 miles south of Kentucky's largest city, Louisville. It was created from two counties, Jefferson (Louisville) and Nelson (Bardstown) on December 13, 1796. Bullitt County was named for Kentucky's first Lieutenant Governor, Alexander Scott Bullitt. Settlers had already begun to settle in this area years earlier, due to the wonderful roads laid out by the herds of buffalo, deer and elk that migrated to this area for the salt as the largest lick in Kentucky's history, Bullitt's Lick, named for Captain Thomas Bullitt who found it on a surveying expedition in 1773.
Alexander was a nephew of Captain Thomas Bullitt. Famous frontiersmen, Daniel and brother Squire Boone were among many who forged thick forested hills and valleys following buffalo and deer herds to salt licks.
Bullitt's Lick was the site of the first commercial industry in Kentucky - salt production. It served all Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee territories sending salt in barrels down the Salt, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on to New Orleans. The Wilderness Trail made a meandering turn here in Bullitt County to the Salt Licks, becoming the first inland intermodal distribution system for commerce in the western frontier. Should you travel on I-65, Ky. Hwy. 44, and/or Ky. Hwy. 61 while visiting us in Bullitt County, you'll be tracing parts of that historical trail that led from the Cumberland Gap, in the east, to Bullitt's Lick and on to the Falls of the Ohio in Louisville.
Salt, taken for granted today, was a precious commodity to pioneers. Huge continuously burning fires kept row after row of black iron kettles boiling to yield a few bushels of salt each day. The salt was shipped by flatboats on the Ohio River for distribution from Pittsburgh and New Orleans. Commercial salt production in Bullitt County was Kentucky's first industry.
Bullitt's natural resources, especially timber, suffered greatly at the hand of Kentucky's earliest industrial history, the salt industry and the iron industry. Timber fired the kettles boiling salt water into salt, and fired furnaces that melted ore into iron. After a century of this early industrial development, a successful businessman and visionary formed The Bernheim Foundation and purchased over 14,000 acres of land to allow the land to return to natural forestland. By visiting Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, you can see native flora and fauna and learn about the evolution of this area since its earliest history.