Catlettsburg's history begins in the decades directly following the American Revolution, as many frontiersmen passed through the area on their western trek along the Ohio River.

Due to its location along the route of the American frontier, the Catletts provided hospitality to such notable patrons as General Stonewall Jackson, Henry Clay, Felix Grundy, and future U.S. President James Garfield.

Catering to the ever-growing river traffic, the Catlett business flourished and the present-day town grew up around it.

This required the construction of the railroad bridge that crosses the Big Sandy River at Catlettsburg, which carries an average of 80 trains daily.

The Catlett House is still standing two hundred years later and has long been used as the "servants' quarters" of Beechmoor Place, a large home located on Walnut Street (U.S.

Col. Moore was noted as a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and had previously served as a captain in the Kentucky Volunteer Infantry.

He named his home Beechmoor, a portmanteau of his surname and that of a magnificent beech that stood on the fertile grounds at the time.

Beechmoor's eastern wing, being 200 years old and built by the Catletts, is cited as the oldest known building in a 300-mile radius.

Built of Kentucky's virgin hemlock maple (now virtually extinct), the exterior walls are between 9 and 12 inches thick.

The main portion has a stone foundation, and is held up by the same virgin timber, each 64 feet (20 m) in diameter, and running the entire 42-foot (13 m) width of the house.

Several attempts have been made by local civic groups to acquire the property as a museum or civic use property due to its historical significance to the area but have not been successful as of this time, due to the family's desire to retain ownership.

The church is of mid-to-late 19th century Grecian design, with most original fixtures in place, and is sometimes used for wedding ceremonies.

Beginning in the late 19th century and lasting until the early 1920s, Catlettsburg was the largest hardwood timber market in the world due to its location at the mouth of the Big Sandy River.

Due to the profitability of harvesting such hardwoods, most all virgin timber that existed for several miles around Catlettsburg was felled during that period.

Very few trees of desirable breeds such as oak were left standing once the boom was over, mostly to mark private property lines.

One known exception to history's hardwood harvest is the existence of a large oak, standing on a knob in the Hampton City section.

There is also a hemlock maple tree (which measures over 350 inches in diameter) located on the same property, one of very few that remain in North America as they were all but extinct due to their heavy usage in home construction from 1750 to 1925.

[citation needed] Rail transportation began to slowly replace the river's prominence as a mode of transportation as the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) railroad began construction of a bridge across the Big Sandy River linking Catlettsburg with Kenova, West Virginia in 1885.

The bridge is still traversed by trains many times each day, as a part of CSX Transportation's (formerly C & O Railway) main operations.

The Chatteroi railroad preceded the C & O by a few years as the first rail line to travel through Catlettsburg's city limits, as it followed the Big Sandy River north from the coal fields to Ashland.