County Past
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Spencer County, Kentucky

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

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
14historic places
—earliest paper
1824formed
19,490pop. 2020
5cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 14 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1976. Most listings are in or near Taylorsville, Fairfield, High Grove.

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 Spencer titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

9 of 14 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

14 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
All Saints ChurchTaylorsvilleBuilding1992
BeechlandTaylorsvilleBuilding1976
Bourne-Anderson HouseTaylorsvilleBuilding1977
Camp Branch Historic DistrictTaylorsvilleDistrict1994
Miller, Isaac, FarmFairfieldDistrict1994
Minor Chapel A. M. E. ChurchTaylorsvilleBuilding1992
Riverview SchoolHigh GroveBuilding1994
Ross, L.W., HouseTaylorsvilleBuilding1992
Shelburne, Perry, HouseTaylorsvilleBuilding1992
Shelburne-Cox HouseTaylorsvilleBuilding1992
Stidger, Felix Grundy, HouseTaylorsvilleBuilding2016
Stone House on Plum CreekWhitfieldBuilding1987
Taylorsville Historic DistrictTaylorsvilleDistrict1992
Van Dyke HouseRivalsBuilding1987

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Spencer was formed in 1824 (1824-01-15) from Bullitt, Nelson, Shelby.

SPENCER created from BULLITT, NELSON, and SHELBY.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

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

19k12k5,48818301840188019201930196020002020
183018401860188019001920194019501960198020002020
6,8126,5816,1887,0407,4067,7856,7576,1575,6805,92911,76619,490

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

5 cemeteries and 3 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 5 of 5 listed
NameLatLon
Hunters Cemetery37.94527-85.36466
Ingram Cemetery37.98194-85.25286
Little Mount Cemetery38.08507-85.26812
Rogers Cemetery37.9591-85.31009
Valley Cemetery38.02978-85.36273
Historical populated places — 3 of 3
NameLatLon
Leatherwoods Settlement38.01273-85.24856
Riverhill Farm38.02249-85.34232
Zion37.98404-85.32345

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 Spencer County, Kentucky

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