Blue Licks Battlefield State R

Blue Licks State Park: This is where Israel Boone the youngest son of Daniel and Rebecca Boone was killed along with several others Kentuckians. We had a very good time exploring the trails and seeing the sites...here is some of the history of the park. Hope you enjoy...

Scenic trails include Buffalo Trace (.15 mile), the Licking River Trail (1 mile), Savannah Loop (0.5 mile), Indian Loop Trail (0.8 mile), and the Heritage Trail (2.5 mile). The River Trail is a one-mile loop trail to the Licking River, near the site where Daniel Boone and his men were captured by Shawnee Indians on a saltmaking expedition. Trek on the Buffalo Trace hiking trail-the trampled remains of an ancient buffalo path.

On January 25, 1927 Blue Licks State Park became Kentucky’s fifth state park. Judge Samuel Wilson of Fayette County, chairman of the Blue Licks Battlefield Monument Commission, presented a deed for thirty-two acres to the Kentucky State Park Commission on behalf of local citizens who had donated the land. Located north of the Lower Blue Licks Crossing in present day Robertson County, the site of the Battle of Blue Licks enshrines the memory of the men who died in one of the worst military defeats of the American Revolution.

The Battle of Blue Licks has the combined drama of frontier warfare and the Revolutionary War. On August 19, 1782, nearly seventy Kentuckians died in what some historians have called the “Last Battle of the American Revolution.” While that claim is debatable, the struggle at Blue Licks embodies the conflict between the American Indian, Kentucky settlers, and the British Crown.


At present, Blue Licks has 148 acres and over fifty campsites with water and electricity. Each August, the park hosts a reenactment of the Battle of Blue Licks. One unique feature of the park is the existence of a rare plant. The Short’s Goldenrod is the first plant in Kentucky placed on the endangered species list of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plant is named after amateur botanist Dr. Charles W. Short.