This site was approved for Jefferson Seminary by act of the Kentucky General Assembly in February 1798. Its name was changed to Estill Seminary on February 3, 1816. The trustees were given authority to sell half of the unclaimed lands granted for educational purposes in order to erect buildings and purchase a library. The seminary was built in 1830 and used until 1897. On the site of the seminary, the Estill Collegiate Institute was established in 1906 through the cooperation of the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky and Estill Seminary trustees B.F. Jacobs, W.W. Park, L.A. West, Thomas Williams, and Hugh Riddell. The present structure, built in 1948, was Estill County High School and became a middle school in 1971.