Kimber's Country Market is one of two businesses still open within Blaine, Kentucky city limits. It's also the citiy's only gas station, grocery store and restaurant.

BLAINE, Ky. — Blaine, just about two hours east of Lexington, was once a city living off the fruits of a plentiful eastern Kentucky oil production site. Today, after devastating blows to its local infrastructure and resources, it consists of about 100 people, and a practically defunct city government.

What happened to Blaine, Kentucky?

At Kimber’s Country Market, the city’s one-stop shop for everything from power tools, groceries and over-the-counter medicine, co-owner Brad Skaggs said the town was much different when he was a young boy.

“Blaine used to be really prosperous,” he said. “Ashland Oil had an oil field out here. The first oil field Ashland Oil had in eastern Kentucky was out here. When I was a boy back in the 1980s, they probably had 50-100 men working out there, but when they put the lake in, they figured out there was a bunch of stuff going into the creeks. They shut the oilfield down and still have a radiation pit out here.”

He said there were about 400 children enrolled at local Blaine Elementary School when he was a student. Now, the eight-grade school has about 200 students.

Blaine joins the number of cities and towns throughout the country that have since declined after once boasting prosperous manufacturing, commercial, financial and agricultural ventures. Cities like Flint, Michigan and Allentown, Pennsylvania were once known for their manufacturing successes as Blaine was for its oil source, yet years later, each and many others have seen a sharp decline in revenue, residents and stature.

John David Preston, chief circuit judge in Lawrence County, said the downward spiral with city government began with the perfect combination of discontent on the city commission and a public battle over tax revenues.

The conflict ended with Preston deciding the exact boundaries of Blaine’s city limits, leaving some of the plaintiffs free from payment and others with tax bills.

Simultaneously, the city was struggling to find anyone willing to lead its commission, broken by disagreements over its next to last mayoral race.

Preston said officials with former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear’s office made personal phone calls to Blaine residents seeking someone who would want to be appointed.

Louisa Mayor Harold Slone, a Blaine native, said the city’s situation is “very sad.”

“I’m deeply rooted in Blaine. When I was young, the city government was a prominent part of where I lived,” Slone said. “You had a city hall; you had a fire department. For many years, you had the only volunteer ambulance service in the state of Kentucky in Blaine.”

In September 2013, Kentucky State Police began an arson investigation at the Blaine Volunteer Fire Department after a blaze heavily damaged the building and equipment, along with city records that included tax bills, Preston said.

Preston added the fire could be part of the reason Blaine residents have not paid city taxes in years.

According to West Virginia affiliate WSAZ-TV, there was possible evidence of an attempt to conceal evidence behind an alleged theft that took place prior to the fire.

Area affiliate WOWK-TV’s report on the fire quoted “a source close to the investigation” as saying locks on the outside doors to the department were removed and a 5-foot-tall safe containing “very important city documents” believed to be city records, tax documents and a few dollars in change were missing.

Now, the city lays in “suspension,” as Skaggs put it.

Preston said one way the city could be dissolved is if someone chooses to come forth with a dissolution lawsuit, which was not possible a few years ago before the city’s mayor stepped down.

He doubts it will happen at all.

“At this point, I don’t imagine anyone would want to pay a lawyer to file a suit to do it,” Preston said. “I just don’t think anybody has enough interest in doing so. That’s the statutory way to dissolve the city. There may be other ways, but that’s certainly one way.”

When asked if he thought anyone would be interested in “saving” Blaine’s city commission, Slone said no, but Skaggs said there is a small group of young people who may run for election in the upcoming cycle.

“We have a retired Marine interested,” Skaggs said. “There are people with interest to get the city back going, but in all reality we don’t know what to do to get it back going.”

The topic of what happened to Blaine is as much in limbo as its city government’s fate.

Outside, as they posed for photos in front of the family businesses, Skaggs stood with his wife and three kids and said, “I wish somebody would help us in Blaine — if we had anybody who knew how to get the city back together. We’ve all talked about it, but none of us know what to do.”

Bellamy & Adkins write for the Ashland, Kentucky Daily Independent.