[1] In 1978, 689 acres (279 ha) of the tract of land that would eventually become Green River State Forest were purchased by the federal government and the Kentucky Center for Research, with the plan being to build a synthetic fuel research facility in response to the 1970s energy crisis.

In July 1998, ownership of the land was transferred to the Kentucky Division of Forestry to establish the state forest.

Later, a further 404 acres (163 ha) were purchased using money from the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund and added to the preserve.

The forest has become Kentucky's first carbon sequestration project with more than 538 acres (218 ha) of former farm land being replanted with hardwood seedlings.

Green River State Forest is the only state forest in Kentucky that contains significant amounts of bottomland hardwoods and swampland, with the swamplands and sloughs being dominated by bald cypress, cottonwood, and river birch, and the bottomlands dominated by oak, pecan, and red maple.