Willow Shoals is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Lee County,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, United States. Located about 2 miles above Lock and Dam #13 on the North Bank of the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River in Kentucky, United States. The river and its tributaries drain much of eastern and central Kentucky, passing through the Eastern Coalfield, the Cumberland Mountains, and the Bluegrass re ...

, at the mouth of Big Willow Shoals Branch, a

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

was established at Willow Shoals on 20 September 1905 with John W. Stephenson as Postmaster. On 25 November 1905, the post office name was changed to Willow. The post office was discontinued in 1956, with mail then routed to Heidelberg, Kentucky. Willow Shoals (or Willow) appeared as a passenger stop on the Louisville and Atlantic Railroad, and later the

Louisville and Nashville Railroad The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of ...

, until at least the 1930s. The tracks passing through Willow Shoals are currently owned by

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

, and are part of their now-idle Eastern Kentucky Subdivision. Little remains of the original town, with only one residence, two barns, and the building which once served as General Store, Post Office, and Railroad Depot still standing. On 14 July 2016, the place name was restored to Willow Shoals by the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

Board of Geographic Names. Willow Shoals is within the boundaries of the

Daniel Boone National Forest The Daniel Boone National Forest (originally the Cumberland National Forest) is a national forest in Kentucky, United States. Established in 1937, it includes of federally owned land within a proclamation boundary. The name of the forest was ...

. Willow Shoals appeared in Season 10, Episode 6 of Homestead Rescue on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

References

Unincorporated communities in Lee County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky {{LeeCountyKY-geo-stub