Buffalo, KY

Buffalo is a southern LaRue County community along Kentucky Route 61, south of Hodgenville and surrounded by the rolling farm country of central Kentucky. Its first local name was Buffalo Wallow, a reference to buffalo wallows along the creek and a rib bone that early storekeepers believed came from one of the animals. A gristmill arrived in 1854, followed by a general store, churches, hotels, and a post office that gave the settlement a useful center.

For a place without an incorporated city hall, Buffalo has a surprisingly deep civic past. East Lynn College opened in the 1870s, its brass band became a regional curiosity, and E.S. Ferrill & Sons grew from a drugstore into a mail-order general store and hardware business. Today KY 61 carries the through traffic, the post office keeps mail service local, and Hodgenville handles larger county errands. Buffalo's streets still sit in the same creek-country pattern, with old commercial stories tucked behind the road and farms stretching out beyond it.