Madisonville - Madisonville, USA
Click to check upcoming Events 2024-2025 at Madisonville - Madisonville, USA
Madisonville, Kentucky - Wikipedia
Madisonville, Kentucky. Transportation[edit]. Notable people[edit]. External links[edit].
Madisonville, Kentucky's home rule-class capital, is the county seat for Hopkins County. It is located in Kentucky's Western Coal Fields area, along Interstate 69. At the 2010 census, it had 19,591 inhabitants. Madisonville Community College is located in the heart of the region.
Madisonville was established in 1807, and was named after James Madison, then-Secretary to State. [3] It was formally incorporated as Hopkins County in 1810. [2]
The Civil War divided Hopkins County and Madisonville. Union supporters joined James Shackleford's local regiment; Al Fowler recruited Confederate soldiers. Confederates led By Gen. Hylan B. Lyon, burned Madisonville's courthouse as they traveled through western Kentucky on December 17, 1864. Although Kentucky was still a Union state in 1864, the Union forces in the area imposed policies that triggered resentment and created sympathy for the Confederate cause.
Farming was the major occupation in Hopkins County for most of the 1800s, with tobacco the leading crop. Around 1837 an outcropping of coal was discovered, and the first coal mine in the county opened in 1869. Mining did not become a major industry until the Louisville & Nashville Railroad pushed its line southward from Henderson through Madisonville and toward Nashville in 1870. By the early 1900s, Madisonville was a rail hub, coal mining center, and had a large tobacco market. This continued until the 1960s when manufacturing and service industries came to the area.