Tucked away in far northern Calloway County, Ky. about a mile west of Dexter lies the old town of Wadesboro. Chances are you’ve never driven through Wadesboro or perhaps have even heard of it. However, the story of Wadesboro is fascinating, given the designation of the first town in far western Kentucky, the area known as the Jackson Purchase. For a while, all roads in western Kentucky led to Wadesboro.
Prior to the 1920s highway bridges crossing large rivers were almost non-existent in rural America. The reason for this is most highways, as we know them, simply didn’t exist. And the reason for that is not many people in rural America had cars.
You’ve heard of far western Kentucky. It is the section of the state between the Mississippi River and the Tennessee River. However, this part of the state did not become under definitive US control in 1792 when formed. In 1818, Andrew Jackson officially purchased the disputed land from the Chickasaw Indians. The Kentucky part of the sale became known as the Jackson Purchase.
Birmingham, Kentucky was the most notable community affected by the creation of Kentucky Lake. The town of several hundred people was situated on the banks of the Tennessee River in Marshall County, Kentucky.
For reasons not known to us, the town didn’t relocate in the early 1940s when TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) built a dam on the Tennessee River. The town was flooded permanently under several feet of water.
