Visitors Guide to Bardwell
Carlisle County, Kentucky
When the railroad was built through Carlisle County, the site of what is now Bardwell was semi-swamp land. In in the mid-1870s Alonzo Shanklin and A. W. Violett purchased tracts of lands. Shanklin’s property comprised what is now all of southern Bardwell and Violett’s property what is now all of the northern part of the community. When the Illinois Central Railroad wanted to build a town about one and a half miles north of present day Bardwell they met opposition from a local farmer and chose to build their switches on the Shanklin and A. W. Violett properties. During the construction of the railroad, the company had a commissary to feed the men. This commissary and the men needed water and the company hired a well digger. The well digger found that no matter how fast his men worked the well would fill up with water and mud. The well was boarded up to hold back the muck and the location became known as Boarded Well. The plat for Bardwell was surveyed in 1879 and embraced an area of one square mile on both Shanklin and A. W. Violett properties. Violett wanted to name the Crittenden after John J. Crittenden, the “man who kept Kentucky from joining either the north or the south during the Civil War.” Shanklin, wanted to name the new town after his hometown in Tennessee. The Railroad superintendent resolved the dispute by deciding to name the town after the Boarded Well. Because Boarded Well was difficult to pronounce it was shortened to Bardwell. Bardwell’s growth was slow in the beginning. The county seat was located north of Bardwell in Wickliffe which was connected to two railroads and fronted the Mississippi River. South of Bardwell was the already prosperous town of Arlington. It wasn’t until Bardwell was chosen as the county seat that it began to prosper.
