Ground will be broken Friday afternoon for the new Blue Grass Regional Stockyards Marketplace to replace the old stockyards that burned to the ground in a massive fire Jan. 30. The fire was ruled accidental.
The new state-of-the-art stockyards will be built on Ironworks Pike near the northern split of Interstates 75 and 64, a more rural setting than the previous location off Forbes Road near Leestown Road not far from downtown Lexington.
There was a strong pull to keep the stockyards in Fayette County, although it is used by farmers from many surrounding counties. In 2015, 106,000 animals were sold at the stockyards. Those sales generated about $200 million.
At the time the new site was announced, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray said “Blue Grass Stockyards is to cattle what Keeneland is to thoroughbreds.”