Hopkinsville is a town located in Kentucky.



Hopkinsville is a city in Christian County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 30,089 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Christian County.

History

---

Wood donated five acres of land and a half interest in his spring for the county seat. The following year a log courthouse, jail, and "stray pen" were built on the public square facing Main Street. The plat for the town, first called Christian Court House, was surveyed by John Campbell and Samuel Means in 1799. In honor of Wood's eldest daughter, the town was renamed Elizabeth that same year. However, a town in Hardin County had the same name, and when the city incorporated in 1804, the General Assembly renamed the settlement Hopkinsville, in honor of General Samuel Hopkins of Henderson County.

Hopkinsville in the Civil War
The Civil War generated major social and economic division among the people in Hopkinsville and Christian County. A physical evidence of this discord led to the establishment of Union Camp Joe Anderson, located northwest of Hopkinsville. Men who trained there became members of the 35th Kentucky Cavalry, the 25th Kentucky Infantry and the 35th Kentucky Mounted Infantry. The Union General James S. Jackson, a Hopkinsville attorney before the war, was killed in the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, in October 1862. Private citizens, who supported the Union cause provided the army with mules, wagons, clothing, and food. Rebel support in Hopkinsville and Christian County was evident in the establishment of the Oak Grove Rangers and-the 28th Kentucky Cavalry. This county marked the birthsite of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. Several local businessmen and plantation owners contributed money and war supplies to the "Lost Cause." The war period brought military take-over of Hopkinsville at least half a dozen times by both Confederate and Union forces. In December 1864 Confederate troops under General Hylan B. Lyon, captured the town and burned the Christian County courthouse. A skirmish between Union and Confederate forces took place in the field across from Western State Hospital near the end of the war.

The Black Patch Tobacco Wars and the Night Riders
In the early years of the twentieth century, tobacco planters formed a protectionist Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee. This was in opposition to a corporate monopoly: the American Tobacco Company (ATC) trust, owned by James B. Duke.

Many farmers found that they could no longer sell their tobacco crop at a profit and that the ATC was the region's only buyer, now that the many tobacco companies had formed the trust using that agency to purchase all tobacco from any farmer at a fixed price. Upon establishing the protective association and rivalling the monopoly by practicing boycotts of tobacco sales, some farmers formed the Silent Brigade in an effort to apply social pressure for the purpose of terrorizing farmers into joining the Association against the Trust and holding to its boycott of raising no tobacco or selling...