Logan County is a county in the southwest Pennyroyal Plateau area of Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,432. Its county seat is Russellville.
History
The county is named for Benjamin Logan, who had been second in command of the Kentucky militia during the American Revolutionary War and was a leader in bringing statehood to the area. Created from Lincoln County on September 1, 1792, Logan was the 13th Kentucky county in order of formation. Its original territory stretched from the Mississippi in the west to the Little Barren River in the east, and from the Green and Ohio Rivers in the north to the Tennessee border on the south; since then, 28 other counties have been formed within that area. The settlement of Logan Court House was made the county seat at its incorporation under the name Russellville.
Future President Andrew Jackson fought a pistol duel against Charles Dickinson at Harrison's Mill in Logan County on May 30, 1806. Jackson was seriously wounded and Dickinson was killed. Four men were killed in a mass lynching on August 1, 1908, in Russellville, during the civil unrest associated with the Black Patch Tobacco Wars. Sharecroppers Joseph Riley, and Virgil, Robert, and Thomas Jones, the last three members of the same family, were all hanged from the same cedar tree. They were the last persons lynched in Logan county.
Logan was a major tobacco-growing county, with Dark Fired Tobacco produced by a special smoke processing. From 1906 some of its farmers became involved in the violent Black Patch Tobacco Wars, joining the Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee to mobilize against the monopoly power of the American Tobacco Company, which had driven down prices to where farmers could barely make a living. Paramilitary Night Riders threatened other tobacco planters to "persuade" them to join the PPA. In late 1907 and early 1908, hundreds of Night Riders conducted raids against tobacco warehouses in some Kentucky towns. They struck Russellville on January 3, 1908, taking over the city and dynamiting two tobacco factories.
21st century
In 2009, the Logan County/Russellville Little League Baseball team won the Little League World Series Great Lakes Regional Tournament as the 4th team from Kentucky to do so (as of 2017, Kentucky has had seven teams win the Great Lakes Tournament) to represent the Great Lakes Region in the Little League World Series.
Geography
Logan County is on the south border of Kentucky; its south line abuts the north line of Tennessee. Its low hills are completely devoted to agriculture or urban development. Its highest point ( ASL) is Rainbow Rock Knob WSW, located ESE from Russellville. The Red River flows northwestward through the central and west part of the county, discharging into Todd County on the west.
Adjacent counties
- Muhlenberg County - northwest
- Butler County - north
- Warren County - northeast
- Simpson County - southeast
- Robertson County, Tennessee - south
- Todd County - west
Lakes
- Briggs Lake
- Boy Scout Lake
- Lake Herndon
- Spa Lake
- Lake Malone (part)
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| footnote = U.S. Decennial Census<br/>1790–1960 1900–1990<br/>1990–2000 2010–2020
The racial makeup of the county was 87.1% White, 6.1% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 1.8% from some other race, and 4.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 3.1% of the population.
There were 11,000 households in the county, of which 30.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 26.2% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 28.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
- Schochoh
- South Union
- Whipporwill
Attractions
- Lake Malone State Park
- Red River Meeting House
Notable people
- Peter Cartwright — 2nd Great Awakening preacher
- Alice Allison Dunnigan — African American journalist and activist
- Philip Alston — counterfeiter and early settler near Russellville
- Jim Bowie
- Green Pinckney Russell (1861–1939) — American school administrator and teacher
- Mark Thompson (baseball) — MLB pitcher
Politics
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Elected officials
{| class=wikitable
|-
| colspan="3" |Elected officials as of January 3, 2025
|-
!rowspan=2 | U.S. House
| |James Comer (R)
| |
|-
| |Brett Guthrie (R)
| |
|-
! scope=row|Ky. Senate
| |Mike Wilson (R)
| |32
|-
! scope=row|Ky. House
| |Jason Petrie (R)
| |16
|}
See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Logan County, Kentucky
- News Democrat & Leader, local newspaper