8 miles outside of Paris, in the Bourbon County district, Millersburg, KY was founded in 1779 by several families. The founders are “Robert Pollock, William McClellan, William Steele, and brothers William, Robert and John Miller”, which is listed on the Millersburg website.  With a population of about 800, Millersburg, you could say, is a small town where everyone knows everyone.  Such a town would never expect a real life disaster. 

June 22, 2022 the unimaginable happened. Around 3 o’clock on the Wednesday afternoon Millersburg was full of smoke. The streets were crowded with residents and firefighters putting out the biggest fire Millersburg had ever seen. Several buildings, one being the post office and two vacant, were burnt to the ground along with apartments. Families left with no home lost almost everything, if not everything. Historic buildings that were built between 1891 and 1897 were gone within one night. 

“ It was hard to get home that Wednesday. The smoke made it hard to see the roads to even get home.” Bree Callahan said in our interview on August 18. Bree is a Bourbon County High school student, and she’s also a resident of Millersburg. In addition, she said, “ It makes it harder to get our mail since the post office burned down, especially to the people who depended on the post office to get their mail.” 

“ The smoked filled the air and it made it hard to breath. It also made our town dark and it smelt like smoke for days.” Stated Vicky Joseph who’s another resident of millersburg. “ It’s very weird to drive down main street and the buildings are not there.  Other than the post office being gone, the fire didn’t affect me as much as it did to the families who lost their homes.” She voiced at the end of our interview. 

Life in Millersburg hasn’t changed but the town has. Residents have to adapt to not having the post office. They also have to get used to not having the historic buildings around. Even though this large fire wiped out these buildings, the community has not let this event affect their everyday life. They have a little post office and they are rebuilding what was lost.