Place:Harlan, Kentucky, United States

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Harlan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1819. As of 2010, the population was 29,278. Its county seat is Harlan. The Commonwealth's highest natural point, Black Mountain, is in Harlan County.

With regard to the sale of alcohol, it is classified as a moist county—a county in which alcohol sales are prohibited (a dry county), but containing a "wet" city, in this case Cumberland, where package alcohol sales are allowed. In Harlan City, restaurants seating 100+ may serve alcoholic beverages

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Harlan County was formed in 1819 from a part of Knox County. It is named after Silas Harlan. A pioneer, he was born on March 17, 1753 in Berkeley County, West Virginia (when it was still part of Virginia), the son of George and Ann (Hurst) Harlan. Journeying to Kentucky as a young man with James Harrod in 1774, Harlan served as scout, hunter, and held the rank of Major in the Continental Army. Harlan assisted Harrod's party in Harrodsburg to deliver gunpowder to settlers in Kentucky, and to assist them against the British in the Revolutionary War.

Harlan built a log stockade with the help of his uncle Jacob and his brother James near Danville known as "Harlan's Station". He served under George Rogers Clark in the Illinois campaign of 1778–79 against the British. He also commanded a company in John Bowman's raid on Old Chillicothe in 1779, and assisted Clark in establishing Fort Jefferson at the mouth of the Ohio River in 1780.

Silas Harlan died leading the advance party at the Battle of Blue Licks on August 19, 1782. At the time of his death, Harlan was engaged to Sarah Caldwell, who later married his brother James and was the grandmother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan.

The county has been the site of repeated attempts to organize labor and gain better deals from owners, beginning in the early 20th century, primarily related to the coal mining industry. Violent confrontations among strikers, strikebreakers, mine company security forces and law enforcement in the 1930s led to the county being referred to as "Bloody Harlan" for several years. After the Battle of Evarts, May 5, 1931, the governor of Kentucky called in the National Guard to restore order. The county was the subject of the film Harlan County, USA (1976), which documented strikes and organizing during a second major period of labor unrest in the 1970s.

In 1924, Condy Dabney was convicted in the county of murdering a person who was later found alive.

From the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, Harlan County and nearby counties were settled by numerous persons of multiracial descent, with African, European and often Native American ancestors. Descendants, some of whose members have been called Melungeon, have documented the racial heritage of Harlan's early settlers through 19th-century photographs, DNA analysis and historic records. In 2007, the Ridgetop Shawnee Tribe of Indians formed as a non-profit to work on improving the lives of multiracial families and preserving Native American heritage. It established the Kentucky Native American Data Bank, which has the names of 1,000 people of documented Native American descent related to this region; it is accessible for free on Rootsweb. As of 2010 the tribe had suspended member registration and services.

Timeline

Population History

source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990

Research Tips

External links

www.rootsweb.com/~kyharlan/