The earliest accounts of Blue Licks describe it as a place where animals gathered to lick the salt deposits flowing from the springs in the area. The Reverend James Smith provides this account in his 1795–97 diary:
As you approach the Licks, at the distance of 4 or 5 miles from it, you begin to perceive the change. The earth seems to be worn away; the roots of the trees lie naked and bare; the rocks, forsaken of the earth that once covered them, lie naked on the neighboring hills, and roads of an amazing size, in all directions, unite at the Licks, as their common center. Here immense herds of buffalo used formerly to meet and with their fighting, scraping etc., have worn away the ground to what it is at present. In 1782, British
Captain William Caldwell led a force of
Indians against the small
Kentucky settlement of
Bryan's Station. Caldwell met stiff resistance, and after two days, retreated toward the
Ohio River. The pioneers –
Daniel Boone among them – were inclined to wait for reinforcements before pursuing the enemy, and although under the general leadership of Major John Todd, Major
Hugh McGary of the Lincoln County contingent made a brash and fateful decision to pursue immediately (after an insult for being timid from Todd), engaging Caldwell at Blue Licks. In the battle that followed, 60 of the 176 men who followed McGary were killed, Boone's son Israel among them. Another 7 were captured. The survivors fled back to Bryan's Station and Lexington. Reinforcements under [Benjamin Logan] eventually arrived and buried the dead militiamen. By the mid-19th century, the Blue Licks area had become a health resort, due in large part to the nearby saltwater springs that had been used for "salt making" since the 1770s. The mineral water found in the springs was rumored to cure everything from
asthma to
gout. By 1896, however, the area's last spring had gone dry. Efforts to locate another spring unearthed several geological and historical artifacts. A more extensive excavation of the area was conducted in 1945. ==Activities and amenities==