Livingston, Kentucky

Livingston is a tiny railroad town in the eastern corner of Rockcastle County, population around one hundred seventy, that owes its existence entirely to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. When the L-and-N punched its mainline through the narrow Rockcastle River gorge in eighteen seventy, the company needed a service stop on the steep grade, and Livingston grew up around that need. The town takes its name from the station, which was named for James Livingston, a local landowner. Livingston today is quieter than ever, but the gorge it sits beside draws paddlers who come for the Class Three and Four rapids of the Rockcastle River, one of the last free-running rivers in Kentucky.