Stephen Langford helped create the frontier outpost first called Langford's Station, which grew into Mount Vernon, the only modern town in the wilderness to emerge from such a station. Originally called Langford's Station, it was established by Stephen Langford, his son Benjamin and Benjamin's wife Nancy Peyton, Elizabeth Brown, and their slaves, Sam and Charity. After being indicted in Rutherford County, North Carolina, for aiding the British during the Battle of Kings Mountain, Langford relocated to Kentucky around 1781, first settling on Cedar Creek near William Whitley and then moving in 1790 or 1791 into what is now Mount Vernon in Rockcastle County. Travel routes from Cumberland Gap to the Kentucky settlements were difficult and dangerous, and the popular path through Rockcastle County along Skaggs Creek and its East Fork was especially troublesome. Langford pioneered a new route that left the established trail, crossed the Rockcastle River below Livingston, and roughly followed what is now U.S. 25 to his newly built station near a spring complex in a cove northeast of the old trace. Langford's New Trace improved travel, and the station offered safe lodging for travelers, though Langford lacked a legal claim to the land, a problem that persisted for decades. With Elizabeth Brown's help, the station became more than a roadside stop, and by 1795 it was replacing Crab Orchard as the gathering point for travelers preparing to pass through the wilderness. In 1796, state road commissioners Knox and Crockett held a meeting there for those interested in developing the Wilderness Road, which adopted much of Langford's new route. Activity around the station also supported a school with a paid teacher, and the venture became profitable enough for Langford to buy land in several Kentucky counties and expand into other business interests, including part ownership of the Goose Creek Saltworks in Clay City. Elizabeth died about 1806, Langford married Lois Mullins the following year, and in the spring of 1811 he died after taking part in the official formation of the town that had grown around his station, Mount Vernon.