Ashland Wedding

Ashland is a city located in Boyd County, Kentucky, nestled along the banks of the Ohio River. The population was 21,981 at the 2000 census. Ashland is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). As of the 2000 census, the MSA had a population of 288,649. Ashland serves as an important economic center for northeast Kentucky.

Ashland's recorded history begins with the migration of the Scotch-Irish Poage family from the Shenandoah Valley via the famed Cumberland Gap. They settled a homestead along the Ohio River in 1786 by the name of Poage's Landing. The Poage settlement remained an extended-family community until the mid 1800's [1].

From its roots in iron manufacturing as a result of Ohio's pig iron industry, Poage's Landing became a center of industry for eastern Kentucky. It was not until 1854, however, that industrial development began with the charter of the Kentucky Iron, Coal and Manufacturing Company by the Kentucky General Assembly. This was also the time that Ashland received its current name when a stockholder in the Kentucky Iron, Coal and Manufacturing Company suggested it be named after the famous statesman Henry Clay's home, Ashland, in Lexington.