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Christian county, Kentucky was formed in the year 1796, and named in
honor of Colonel William
Christian. It lies in the south-western part of the State,
adjoining the Tennessee
line: Bounded on the north by Hopkins and Muhlenburg; east by
Todd; south by the State of
Tennessee, and west
by Trigg.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area
of 1,875 km˛ (724 mi˛). 1,868 km˛ (721 mi˛) of it is land and 7 km˛
(3 mi˛) of it is water. The total area is 0.37% water.
This county is twenty-two miles wide and thirty-two long, containing
an area of seven hundred and four miles, and is the eleventh county
in the State in point of wealth. The southern division of the county
is generally composed of rich, fertile, level bottoms, and produces
fine crops of tobacco, corn, wheat, rye, oats, and grass. The
northern division is broken, and in some portions almost
mountainous, with a soil less fertile, but sufficiently rich to
sustain a large population-finely timbered, well watered, and
abounding in inexhaustible beds of coal and iron ore. The general
basis of the soil is a red clay, founded on cavernous limestone; and
like most of the southern counties, abounds in sinks, caves and
caverns. The situation of the county is elevated, and the surface of
the country has a descending inclination in all directions from the
centre, as it contains the head waters of Pond, Trade Water, Little,
and the west fork of Red rivers : The first emptying into Green
river, the second into the Ohio, and the two last into Cumberland
river. Mineral and Sulphur springs abound, and many invalids visit
them during the watering season. The staple products are corn,
wheat, oats and tobacco-not less than 6,500 hogsheads of the latter
article being exported annually ; while coal from the mines, in
large quantities, finds its way to market.
There are eleven Towns in Christian county.
Hopkinsville, the county
seat, was laid out in 1799, on the lands of
Bartholomew Wood, and
called Elizabethtown-by which name it was known for several years.
In 1804, it was incorporated by its present name, in honor of
Gen.
Samuel Hopkins. It is now an incorporated city, with a population in
1870 of 3,136, and on Jan. 1, 1873, of about 3,600. It has 4
warehouses engaged in the inspection and sale of
tobacco, and 1
rehandling establishment; is the most important station on the
Evansville, Henderson, and Nashville railroad; and the seat of one
of the great charities of the state, the
Western Lunatic Asylum.
Petersburg, 18 miles w. of
Hopkinsville, on the Henderson and
Madisonville railroad, population about 100.
Fairview, 12 miles E.,
population about 250, is partly in Christian and partly in
Todd county ;
in the latter part, the house now occupied by Andrew J. Kenner, is
pointed out as that in which ex-President Jefferson Davis was born.
Pembroke, 10 miles s. E., population in 1870, 278. Oakgrove, 13
miles s. E., on the Clarksville road.
Longview, 8 miles s., on the
turnpike to Clarksville, population about 100.
Garretsburgh, 16
miles s., near the
Tennessee line, population about 125. Bennetttown,
12 miles s. w., population about 125. St. Elmo, on
Tennessee state
line, 12 miles from Hopkinsville, population about 40. Belleview, 8
miles s. w., population about 140.
Lafayette, 20 miles s. w., near
the
Tennessee line, population in 1870, 215. Crofton, 16 miles N.
W., on E., H. and N. railroad, population about 150.
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