Ashland, Kentucky

== History == Ashland dates back to the migration of the Poage family from the Shenandoah Valley via the Cumberland Gap in 1786.

In 1854, the city name was changed to Ashland after Henry Clay's Ashland estate in Lexington and to reflect the city's growing industrial base.

The city was formally incorporated by the General Assembly two years later in 1856.

In 1881, Ashland was the site of the Ashland tragedy which took the lives of three people.

(ARMCO) opened its steel mill, Ashland Works, in 1922.

In 1925, a new city hall was erected at the corner of 17th Street and Greenup Avenue.

The government switched from a council-manager to a city commissioner-manager form of government in 1950.

One of the paper's claims to fame is the first printings of a supposed image of Jesus in the clouds of Korea in 1951.

The then-named Ashland-Boyd County Airport opened in 1953 and featured a 5,600 ft (1,700 m).

The highest recorded temperature was 105 °F in July 1954.

In July 1976, a new 10-acre (40,000 m2) park at the former Clyffeside Park was envisioned.

The lowest recorded temperature was −25 °F in January 1994.

Passenger rail service was moved from Catlettsburg to the Ashland Transportation Center in March 1998.

In 2004, the AK Steel Sports Park was constructed along Blackburn Avenue in South Ashland.

The Pendleton Art Center, formed in 2005, is located within the downtown.

Hatcher Elementary closed its doors in Spring 2010.

Ashland, Kentucky is mentioned as the location of the Rebel-Georgian Coalition camp in the NBC television series Revolution Episode 1.17 "The Longest Day" first aired May 13, 2013.

AK shut down completely in 2019.

It is a principal city of the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, referred to locally as the "Tri-State area" and home to 376,155 residents in 2020.

== Demographics == As of 2021, there were 21,476 people, 8,859 households, and 6,192 families residing in the city.

The 465-bed facility, which was purchased by the University of Kentucky in December 2022, is the city's largest employer at over 4,000 employees.