County Past
Home › Kentucky › Simpson County

Simpson County, Kentucky

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

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
15historic places
—earliest paper
1819formed
19,594pop. 2020
9cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 15 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1977. Most listings are in or near Franklin.

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 Simpson titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

7 of 15 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

15 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Cedars, TheFranklinDistrict1996
Duncan HouseFranklinBuilding1982
Franklin Downtown Commercial DistrictFranklinDistrict1983
Franklin Downtown Commercial District (Boundary Increase)FranklinDistrict1983
Franklin Grade and High SchoolFranklinBuilding2010
Goodnight HouseFranklinBuilding1977
Hampton HallFranklinDistrict1996
Hargis HouseFranklinBuilding1996
Harristown Historic DistrictFranklinDistrict1996
Moore, Randolph Gilbert, HouseFranklinBuilding1996
Octagon HallFranklinBuilding1980
Simpson County CourthouseFranklinBuilding1980
Sinking Creek Cave SystemFranklinSite1983
Triple Pine FarmFranklinSite1996
West Cedar Street Historic DistrictFranklinDistrict1996

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Simpson was formed in 1819 (1819-04-01) from Allen, Logan, Warren.

SIMPSON created from ALLEN, LOGAN, and WARREN.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Simpson County population from 1820 to 2020 (Census historical series).

20k12k4,8521820184018801920196020002020
182018401860188019001920194019501960198020002020
4,8526,5378,14610,64111,62411,15011,75211,67811,54814,67316,40519,594

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

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

9 cemeteries and 15 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 9 of 9 listed
NameLatLon
Chisholm Cemetery36.68767-86.59719
Cold Water Presbyterian Cemetery36.78986-86.40625
Greenlawn and Shady Rest Cemetery36.72663-86.57069
Hopewell Cemetery36.7853-86.44776
Peden Cemetery36.68747-86.52411
Pirkle Cemetery36.65453-86.42573
Pleasant View Cemetery36.78099-86.66299
Randolph Cemetery36.65709-86.75603
Restlawn Memorial Gardens and Mausoleum36.63471-86.5624
Historical populated places — 15 of 15
NameLatLon
Auburn36.79606-86.70698
Bethel Grove36.75852-86.67569
Black Jack Road36.74053-86.55896
Hop Over36.70535-86.41816
Knobs36.8244-86.67286
Lake Spring36.67265-86.58497
Locust Grove36.77794-86.71625
New Salem36.79276-86.65458
Oak Grove36.73792-86.52343
Oak Ridge36.82045-86.54253
Paradise36.79578-86.51502
Prospect Hill36.79427-86.62776
Round Pond36.6817-86.47957
Stevenson36.82341-86.5687
Sylvan36.76488-86.59621

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

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 Simpson County, Kentucky

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