4 Everyday Things That Vanished From Kentucky Towns Since the 1990s

Mount Sterling’s October Court Day returns this month, the way it has for generations.

But not everything you grew up with in a Kentucky town lasted that long.

Here’s what locals no longer find in their towns.

1. Kmart Stores

Your Kmart in Georgetown, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Hopkinsville, London or Corbin had closed by November 2017, the Lexington TV station WKYT reported.

The Lexington Kmart had closed just a month earlier.

More were on the way.

If you lived in Frankfort, Versailles, Henderson or Glasgow, your Kmart was set to close in late January 2018.

In 2019, the Northern Kentucky Tribune reported that the Kmart in Erlanger had joined a growing list of Sears and Kmart closings.

One other store on that list was in Somerset.

2. Greyhound Bus Stops

Greyhound had 916 passengers board buses at its Hopkinsville stop in 2004, the Kentucky New Era reported.

Then came the announcement.

The company was set to end service there and in 20 other Kentucky cities on June 21, 2005.

If you lived in Morehead, Mount Sterling or Winchester, your town was on the list too.

A Greyhound spokesperson said the decision was about keeping the company profitable.

Madisonville wasn’t among the 21 cities on the list.

If you still needed a Greyhound stop, the paper pointed you to Clarksville, Tennessee, or Madisonville.

3. Video Rental Stores

Blockbuster, the video rental chain, had closed its last Kentucky stores more than a decade before January 2025, public radio station WKMS reported.

Family Video closed its last shops in the state, and across the country, in 2021.

Did your town have a Blockbuster or a Family Video?

A few shops held on.

If you still rent movies, Star Trax Video and Tanning in Owensboro and Movie Vault & PETropoliS in Lawrenceburg were among the shops open in January 2025.

Symsonia Video, in a Graves County community of fewer than 500 people, was one of the last movie rental shops in Kentucky.

4. The Kentucky Post

The Kentucky Post stopped publishing on December 31, 2007.

If you read it, you read it in the afternoon, Monday through Saturday, according to Scripps.

E. W. Scripps launched the paper in 1890.

That’s 117 years.

The end came when a joint operating agreement with Gannett and The Cincinnati Enquirer, signed in 1977, expired.

Combined circulation for The Cincinnati Post and The Kentucky Post fell from about 188,000 when that agreement began to about 27,000 on weekdays by March 2007.

If you’ve flown out of the Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport, Scripps credits the paper with helping bring it to Boone County.

The paper also backed the reform forces that brought an end to a Newport regime in the late 1950s.

It also led a campaign to clean up the Licking River.

Print White Pages Listings

Print Media said in September 2015 that residential listings would no longer be included in its directories in select Kentucky markets, including Corbin.

A February 2016 release said the same change was coming to Madisonville and Muhlenberg County.

Neither release named a date.

The releases pointed you to an online directory and YP.com instead.

You could also order a free copy of the residential listings on a computer disc or in print.

Parkway Toll Booths

The state eliminated tolls on the Daniel Boone Parkway with $13 million in federal funding that Congressman Hal Rogers helped obtain, the Associated Press reported in August 2003.

If you drove that road before the change, you paid a toll.

The state announced in June, at a ceremony, that it would rename the road the Hal Rogers Parkway.

Rogers was there.

He helped symbolically topple a toll collection booth.

Burley Auctions After the Buyout

Burley auctions no longer had price supports after the federal tobacco buyout ended a system in place since the Depression, the Maysville Ledger Independent reported in June 2005.

If you grew burley, that ended your option of a guaranteed sale at auction.

Warehouses in Maysville, Mount Sterling, Lexington, Danville, Harrodsburg and Somerset planned independent auctions that fall without price support.

If you farmed in Mason County, the extension agent there expected 25 to 30 percent less tobacco grown in the county that year than the year before.

Farm Progress reported in May 2006 that the 2005-06 season brought the first burley auctions without price supports.

Organizers planned to hold auctions again in 2006-07.

Kentucky had 29,237 farms with tobacco acres in the 2002 Census of Agriculture, according to University of Kentucky agricultural economists.

By the 2007 census, the count had fallen about 72 percent, to 8,113.

The 2022 census counted 984 farms, about 97 percent fewer than in 2002.

Court Day

Mount Sterling's October Court Day started in the 18th century and became the annual trading day for much of Eastern Kentucky, according to the city.

The festival dates to 1794, and it always starts on the Friday before the third Monday in October.

That puts this year's festival on Friday through Sunday, October 16 to 18.