Bagdad is an unincorporated community

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in northeastern Shelby County

Shelby County, Kentucky

Shelby County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2010, the population was 42,074. Its name is in honor of Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky. Its county seat is Shelbyville...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was founded at what is currently the intersection of Kentucky Routes 12 and 395.

Name

The name of the community comes from the name of an old railroad station. According to one account, the station was named "Daddy's Bag", after a colorful railroad worker who lived there, which was eventually shortened to "Bagdad". Another account suggests that a person with a speech impediment named it "Granddad". Yet another story has it that the young speech-impaired son of a local feed merchant, whenever a customer walked into the door, would holler to his father, "Bag, dad!". This last one can be refuted since the community well predates the 1884 establishment of the feed mill that still operates there.

Bagdad is the hometown of former governor of Kentucky Martha Layne Collins

Martha Layne Collins

Martha Layne Collins is a politician from the US state of Kentucky. From 1983 to 1987 she was the 56th Governor of Kentucky, having served the previous four years as lieutenant governor. She was Kentucky's first and only female governor to date...

, Kentucky's first and so far only female governor.