Wurtland, KY

Wurtland is a Greenup County home rule-class city on the south bank of the Ohio River, with 983 residents in the 2020 census. It belongs to the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area and sits between Worthington and Raceland, with Greenup, the county seat, three miles west. U.S. Route 23 follows the river side of town. Kentucky Route 67’s Industrial Parkway begins at U.S. 23 and carries the connection south toward EastPark industrial park and Interstate 64. The city’s map is riverbank, highway, and neighboring industrial towns.

Wurtland’s older layers are tied to iron and fuel. Alexander Fulton settled here around 1830 and established Fulton’s Forge Works; nearby, the Shreve brothers built a steam furnace in 1824. A Kentucky historical marker calls that furnace the first in the Hanging Rock Iron Region to use steam-powered blowing engines, producing charcoal-fired iron until the works were abandoned after 1860. The Oil Works post office operated from 1864 to 1871, then the Wurtland post office opened in 1876, named for George and Samuel Wurts of nearby furnaces. The city incorporated in 1970. Wurtland is a Kentucky river town whose modern highway links sit over an iron-making past.