| Caldwell County, Kentucky | |
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Caldwell County courthouse in Princeton, Kentucky.
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Location in the state of Kentucky |
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Kentucky's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | 1809 |
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| Named for | John Caldwell, Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky (1804). |
| Seat | Princeton |
| Area - Total - Land - Water |
348.18 sq mi (902 km²) 346.98 sq mi (899 km²) 1.20 sq mi (3 km²), 0.34 |
| Population - (2000) - Density |
13,060 18/sq mi (7/km²) |
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 |
Caldwell County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1809 from Livingston County, Kentucky. As of 2010, the population was 12,984. Its county seat is Princeton, Kentucky[1]. The county is named for John Caldwell, who participated in the George Rogers Clark Indian Campaign of 1786 and was the second lieutenant governor of Kentucky. Caldwell is a prohibition or dry county.
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Caldwell County was formed from Livingston County in 1809. Prior to that, Caldwell County had been part of Christian, Logan, and Lincoln Counties — Lincoln County having been one of the three original counties of Kentucky.
In the early nineteenth-century, Caldwell County witnessed the passage of the forced migration of the Cherokee to the West on the Trail of Tears during Indian removal. The Cherokee camped for several weeks in Caldwell County during the winter of 1838, mainly at Big Springs, now in downtown Princeton; at Skin Frame Creek, and in the Centerville area near Fredonia.
In 1860, the construction of Princeton College began, but it was delayed by the Civil War. Confederate troops camped on the grounds of Princeton College in 1861, using one of its buildings as a hospital. Following the Confederate retreat in early 1862, however, Union soldiers occupied Princeton for the remainder of the war. In December 1864, raiding Kentucky Confederate cavalry commanded by General Hylan B. Lyon burned the Caldwell County courthouse in Princeton, since it was being used to house the Union garrison.
The expansion of railroads in the late nineteenth century made Princeton an important junction on several major railway lines, most notably the Illinois Central and the Louisville & Nashville.
By the turn of the century, an agricultural boom in dark leaf tobacco had made Caldwell County, along with Christian County, a major tobacco growing area. However, the monopolization of the tobacco market by James B. Duke left many farmers in debt and discontented. Under the leadership of Dr. David Amoss of Cobb in Caldwell County, a vigilante force called the Night Riders was formed to combat the Duke monopoly. The Night Riders terrorized those who cooperated with the tobacco company by destroying crops, burning warehouses, and even physical intimidation. The Night Riders took over Princeton one night in December 1906, burning all of the Duke tobacco warehouses. The "Black Patch Wars" came to an end around 1908.
In the mid-twentieth century, Caldwell County began to shift from agriculture to industrialization. Caldwell County is still largely agricultural, however it is also home to factories such as Bremner, who are the largest private cookie and cracker factory in North America.
Since 1925, Caldwell County has housed the University of Kentucky Research and Education Center, a campus of the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture. The "UKREC" in Princeton is a leader in horticultural and biological sciences.
According to the 2000 census, the county has a total area of 348.18 square miles (901.8 km2), of which 346.98 square miles (898.7 km2) (or 99.66%) is land and 1.20 square miles (3.1 km2) (or 0.34%) is water.[2]
| Historical populations | |||
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| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1810 | 4,268 |
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| 1820 | 9,022 | 111.4% | |
| 1830 | 8,324 | −7.7% | |
| 1840 | 10,365 | 24.5% | |
| 1850 | 13,048 | 25.9% | |
| 1860 | 9,318 | −28.6% | |
| 1870 | 10,826 | 16.2% | |
| 1880 | 11,282 | 4.2% | |
| 1890 | 13,186 | 16.9% | |
| 1900 | 14,510 | 10.0% | |
| 1910 | 14,063 | −3.1% | |
| 1920 | 13,975 | −0.6% | |
| 1930 | 13,781 | −1.4% | |
| 1940 | 14,499 | 5.2% | |
| 1950 | 13,199 | −9.0% | |
| 1960 | 13,073 | −1.0% | |
| 1970 | 13,179 | 0.8% | |
| 1980 | 13,473 | 2.2% | |
| 1990 | 13,232 | −1.8% | |
| 2000 | 13,060 | −1.3% | |
| http://ukcc.uky.edu/~census/21033.txt | |||
As of the census[3] of 2010, there were 12,984 people, with 6,292 households in the county.
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