Owingsville: Iron, Springs, and a County Seat

Owingsville was established in eighteen eleven as the county seat of the newly formed Bath County, named not for any English city but for the mineral springs in the area that recalled the famous spa at Bath, England. The town itself was named for Thomas Dye Owings, a Maryland ironmaster who had come to Kentucky in the late seventeen nineties and managed the nearby Slate Creek Iron Furnace. Owings donated part of his land for the new townsite.

The iron industry was central to early Kentucky's economy, and Bath County's springs drew visitors seeking cures for whatever ailed them. Owingsville was incorporated in eighteen twenty-nine and has remained the county seat ever since, a compact town in the rolling farmland of eastern Kentucky between Lexington and the mountains.