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Russell County, Kentucky

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

2historic places

—earliest paper

1826formed

17,991pop. 2020

16cemeteries

1CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 2 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1994. Most listings are in or near Fonthill, Jamestown.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Kentucky is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Russell titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

2 of 2 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

2 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
H.M. Smith General Merchandise and Fonthill Post Office	Fonthill	Building	2024
Russell Lodge No. 284	Jamestown	Building	1994

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Russell was formed in 1826 (1826-04-01) from Adair, Cumberland, Wayne.

RUSSELL created from ADAIR, CUMBERLAND, and WAYNE.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Russell County population from 1830 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1830	1840	1860	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
3,879	4,238	6,024	7,591	9,695	11,854	13,615	13,717	11,076	13,708	16,315	17,991

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument	Park unit	28.3 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

16 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 16 of 16 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Coffey Cemetery	36.97951	-84.98106
Coleman Cemetery	36.9359	-84.96078
Dixon Cemetery	36.92863	-85.16002
Eli Cemetery	37.05229	-84.97495
Hatfield Cemetery	36.97131	-84.88329
Hillcrest Cemetery	37.01736	-85.07561
Keen Cemetery	36.93034	-85.06523
Lawless Cemetery	36.9739	-85.11801
Lucenda Cemetery	37.02415	-85.04059
Military Spring Cemetery	36.98126	-84.90643
Murray Cemetery	36.94748	-85.10718
Old Friendship Cemetery	37.1059	-84.99384
Phelps Cemetery	37.00282	-85.1043
Reeder Family Cemetery	36.86585	-85.23788
Walters Cemetery	36.9809	-84.88717
Whittle Cemetery	37.02617	-84.94606

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Civil War battlefields nearby

ABPP

American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) Civil War study areas near this county.

Battlefield	Study acres	Dist.	Site ID
Mill Springs	2,133	26.6 km	KY006

Source: NPS American Battlefield Protection Program Civil War Study Areas (public ArcGIS feature service).

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Russell County, Kentucky

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.