Our History

As the State of Kentucky grew in population, more counties were added making our current 120 counties. I have covered early on in these tips, the formation of the various counties and from what county(ies) the new county was formed. But, counties lost and gained land over the years as boundaries were changed due to disputes or rules of the Kentucky Congress. Thus, this tip will show the current counties and what areas they lost to different counties. Hopefully this will help explain to our researchers see that ancestors might have lived in an area of a county that had boundary changes thus finding records in more than one county’s repositories. There will be several entries for each county as follows: County name, date founded, date the current boundaries were formed, took land from counties and lost land to counties (dates). Note that if a date is in parenthesis after a lost land to county, this is an additional loss. If no date is shown in the lost land to column, this would be the formation date of that county. I would like to thank Rosenn Reinemuth Hogan for much of the information in this tip along with the KY Encyclopedia and other sources. - Suzanne Yelton Shephard

As an example, in looking at Adair Co below. Adair was formed in 1802. Its current boundaries were settled in 1860. It took land at formation from Green Co and also took land from Cumberland Co in 1805. It gave up land to Metcalfe Co at that county’s formation, lost land to Russell Co when it was formed, lost land to Wayne Co in 1804 and lost land to Casey Co in 1844.

In 1990, the county population was 15,360 in a land area of 406 square miles, an average of 37.8 people per square mile. The county seat is Columbia.

Noted residents included: Thomas Bramlet, Governor of KY; Colonel Frank Wolford, James R. Hindman (Lt. Gov), Colonel William Casey, Jane Lampton Clemens (mother of "Mark Twain."), and author Janice Holt Giles.

Marriage and land records are available from 1802.

Adair County Timeline

Migration Patterns of Kentucky

 The Fincastle Surveys from Sandi Gorin & the SCKY list

The Early History of Adair County - 1907 edition of the Adair County News

 The John Field Home in Adair County, 2015

Columbia Kentucky Court House 1887

Rev. Wood Cundiff Recalls Days On Kentucky Farm

Famous Adair Countians

• Columbia was the childhood home of Jane Lampton, the mother of Mark Twain
   
• Theodore O'Hara reportedly finished "Bivouac of the Dead" in a boarding house on the public square
   
• Cy Barger, Major League Baseball player for the Brooklyn Dogers, was from Columbia
   
• Elmer Smith, Major League Baseball player who hit the first grand slam in a world series, lived in Columbia upon his retirement. (His daughter, Sally was married to a local doctor, George Nell)
   
• Dr. L.C. Nell, whose first wife and four of five children drowned in the Gradyville flood, was elected State Representative in 1903, State Senator in 1905, member of Presidential Electoral College in 1924 and again to both the Senate and House in the 1930s
   
• Dr. James C. Salato Wildlife Education Center, at the Department of Fish and Wildlife in Frankfort, was named for a local doctor and Commissioner of the Dept. of Fish and Wildlife for several years
   
• The late Janice Holt Giles and her husband Henry, both authors of fiction books, are from the Knifley area of Adair County
   
• Ed Diddle, former basketball coach of Western Kentucky University and the person Diddle arena at WKU was named for, grew up in the community of Gradyville, Ky. in Adair County
  

Historical Sites

Adair County Courthouse 500 Public Sq. Columbia

John Field House 111 E. Fortune St. Columbia

Dr. Nathan Gaither House 100 S. High St. Columbia

Janice Holt and Henry Giles Log House 302 Spout Springs Rd. Knifley

Daniel Trabue House 299 Jamestown St. Columbia

Zion Meetinghouse and School SE of Columbia on KY 55 Columbia

Off-site History Pages

Adair County History from the March Issue of The Kentucky Explorer. This wonderful article is compliments of Carlis B. Wilson.

Columbia - Adair County History

"The Founding of Lindsey Wilson College"

A Pictorial of Adair County

The Digital Library of Appalachia

Early Stations and Forts in Kentucky

Historic Homes of Columbia

The Old Settler's Barn

Kentucky Historical Society

Page updated July 2023