Edmonson County, Kentucky

County: Edmonson County

State: Kentucky

Lat/Long: 37.2000, -86.2500

On January 12, 1825, the Kentucky General Assembly formed Edmonson County out of parts of Grayson, Hart, and Warren counties. Brownsville became the county seat. Legislators named the county after Captain John Edmonson, a Virginian who died at the Battle of River Raisin during the War of 1812. Home to Mammoth Cave, Edmonson County was slow to attract white settlement, with population in the 1830s reaching 2,642. Its close proximity to Bowling Green, a Confederate bastion, saw the county become the scene of several skirmishes during the Civil War.

Ron D. Bryant, "Edmonson County," John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 284-85.