Crittenden County, Kentucky

Crittenden County, Kentucky
Crittenden County Courthouse in Marion
Location in the U.S. state of Kentucky
Kentucky's location in the U.S.
Founded	1842
Named for	John J. Crittenden
Seat	Marion
Largest city	Marion
Area
• Total	371 sq mi (961 km2)
• Land	360 sq mi (932 km2)
• Water	11 sq mi (28 km2), 3.0%
Population
• (2010)	9,315
• Density	26/sq mi (10/km²)
Congressional district	1st
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	www.marionky.gov/index.shtml

Crittenden County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. At the 2010 census, the population was 9,315. Its county seat is Marion. The county was formed in 1842 and named for John J. Crittenden, senator and future Governor of Kentucky. It is a prohibition or dry county.

Crittenden County, located on the Ohio and Tradewater Rivers in the Pennyroyal region of Kentucky, was created by the state legislature on April 1, 1842, from a portion of Livingston County. It became the state's 91st county, and was named for John J. Crittenden, a U.S. senator, attorney general, and governor of Kentucky. The first county seat was in Crooked Creek, but it was moved to Marion just two years later.

Crittenden County was once crossed by the Chickasaw Road, which was a part of the Old Saline Trace. This foot path was used by Native Americans when hunting game that crossed the Ohio River to the salt licks in Illinois. The first settler in the area was James Armstrong, who arrived from South Carolina in 1786 and built a log cabin. His family joined him five years later, along with other families that came to settle in the area. Early in the nineteenth century, Flynn's Ferry was established where the trail crossed the river.

Generally pro-Confederate during the American Civil War, the county saw little fighting, although both armies passed through it repeatedly. Several skimishes did place there, and the county courthouse was burned by Confederate Brigadier General Hylan B. Lyon during his raid across western Kentucky in December 1864. Lyon's men, all Kentuckians, burned a total of seven courthouses, since the Union Army was using them for barracks. The Confederates allowed the locals to remove the records before setting fire to the courthouses.