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Carter County, KentuckyGenealogy and History Research Website
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Carter County was formed in 1838 from Greenup and Lawrence counties.
It was named for Colonel William Grayson Carter,
who was a State Senator in the Kentucky legislature when the county was formed.
The county seat, Grayson, was named for his uncle, Colonel Robert Grayson.
Carter County is a land of forests, creeks and Appalachian foothills.
The elevation of the county ranges from 542 to 1300 feet above sea level.
In 2010, the county population was 27,462 in a land area of 411 square miles, an average of 69 people per square mile.
The Appalachians may be the most ancient great mountain range on the earth.
They were formed some 460 million years ago and are believed to have once been the highest mountains on this planet (over 30,000 feet).
The limestone of Carter County originated as living coral reefs surrounding an island archipelago in the ancient Kanty Ocean.
The islands became part of North America as the sea was closed by the African tectonic plate during the creation of the super-continent Pangaea.
Our region lay very close to earth's equator during this period. Over the past 290 million years, advancing glacial ice sheets pressed down
on the land north of the Ohio River many times. The glaciers never reached East Kentucky.
The Appalachian Mountains are the rain forest of North America.
Their ecosystem is one of the most diverse on the continent, home to nearly eighty species of trees.
Many Native American tribes refused to climb the higher peaks in the Appalachians. They considered those heights sacred.
