Throwback Thursday: 225 years since the founding of Bowling Green

It’s been 225 years since the founding of Bowling Green. History is a collection of stories.
Heading into the holiday season, we are grateful for over two centuries of stories being told
about our community. This week, we go back to our American Revolutionary War-era 18th
century roots to tell the story of Bowling Green.

Brothers George and Robert Moore served their new country in the War for American
Independence. Colonists who took up arms against the British in Virginia, they were rewarded
by their new country after the Treaty of Paris ended the war in 1783. That was the case for
many colonials who were gifted land grants after the war, in what was then considered the wild
western wilderness. Kentucky joined the union as the fifteenth state in 1792.

Before the Moore brothers journeyed through the new state, there had been a long line of early
pioneers and hunters that had already established small settlements. One nearby was
McFadin’s Station, near Cumberland Trace and Drakes Creek. The Moores stopped to
rest at this place before continuing a little further westward and stopping near what is now
Downtown Bowling Green.

The Moores donated two acres that the County’s first council and courthouse would be built
upon, which is now where Fountain Square Park sits. 225 years ago, in 1798, the very first city
commission meeting was held, and the people dubbed the place “Bowlin Green.” Thus, Bowling
Green was officially founded.

It would take more than a decade for the city to officially incorporate in 1812, and as the wild was
still in the wilderness of the area, contention arose between another Revolutionary War veteran,
who had also received a local land grant. John McNeel, known as John the Turbulent for
biting a man’s ear off in a bar argument, owned land on the other side of Barren River near
the Weldon Peete Park area. Calling his town Jeffersonville, McNeel spent years trying to move
the county seat there, going so far as moving a courthouse piece by piece across the river.

The City of Bowling Green seal features the year 1798. We would be remiss not to mention this
quasquibicentennial milestone before the end of 2023.