Buffalo Trace Distillery

Distilling on this stretch of the Kentucky River dates to the 1770s Leestown settlement. In 1870, E. H. Taylor Jr. acquired and refurbished the established distillery, investing more than $70,000 in new construction by 1872. A lightning strike destroyed the plant in 1882's "Great Fire"; Taylor rebuilt it at a cost of $44,000.

George T. Stagg, a whiskey wholesaler, bought the distillery in 1878 while Taylor stayed on to run it. The plant was formally renamed the George T. Stagg Distillery in 1904.

Albert Bacon Blanton was born in 1881 on a farm near the site and joined the distillery as a 16-year-old office boy in 1897. He worked his way through nearly every department, was named superintendent of the still house, warehouses, and bottling operation in 1900, and became company president in 1921 -- just as Prohibition took hold. Blanton kept the plant running by selling whiskey for medicinal use under federal permit, then rebuilt production after repeal. He led the distillery for decades and lived on the property. The company introduced Blanton's, marketed as the world's first commercial single-barrel bourbon, in 1984. The distillery was renamed Buffalo Trace in 1999 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2013.