Elliott County, Kentucky

Elliott County
County
Elliott County courthouse in Sandy Hook
Location within the U.S. state of Kentucky
Kentucky's location within the U.S.
Coordinates: 38°07′00″N83°06′00″W / 38.1167°N 83.1°W / 38.1167; -83.1
Country	United States
State	Kentucky
Founded	1869
Named for	John Milton Elliott or John Lyle Elliot
Seat	Sandy Hook
Largest city	Sandy Hook
Area
• Total	235 sq mi (610 km2)
• Land	234 sq mi (610 km2)
• Water	1.0 sq mi (3 km2)  0.4%
Population  (2020)
• Total	7,354
• Estimate  (2023)	7,245
• Density	31/sq mi (12/km2)
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Congressional district	5th
Website	elliottcounty.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx

Elliott County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Its county seat is Sandy Hook. ^[1] The county was formed in 1869 from parts of Morgan, Lawrence, and Carter counties, and is named for John Milton Elliott a judge, U.S. Congressman, and a member of the 1st Confederate States Congress from Kentucky; he was also involved in the formation of the Confederate government of Kentucky. ^[2] Some historians, however, contend the county was named after John Milton Elliot's father, John Lyle Elliot a U.S. Congressman and Confederate Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. ^{[3] [4]} In regard to alcohol sales, Elliott County is a dry county, meaning the sale of alcoholic beverages is prohibited everywhere in the county.

History

Elliott County was established in 1869 from land given by Carter, Lawrence, and Morgan counties. A fire at the courthouse in 1957 resulted in the destruction of many county records. ^[5]

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 235 square miles (610 km²), of which 234 square miles (610 km²) is land and 1.0 square mile (2.6 km²) (0.4%) is water. ^[6]

Adjacent counties

• Carter County (north)
• Lawrence County (east)
• Morgan County (south)
• Rowan County (west)

Demographics

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1870	4,433		—
1880	6,567		48.1%
1890	9,214		40.3%
1900	10,387		12.7%
1910	9,814		−5.5%
1920	8,887		−9.4%
1930	7,571		−14.8%
1940	8,713		15.1%
1950	7,085		−18.7%
1960	6,330		−10.7%
1970	5,933		−6.3%
1980	6,908		16.4%
1990	6,455		−6.6%
2000	6,748		4.5%
2010	7,852		16.4%
2020	7,354		−6.3%
2023 (est.)	7,245	[7]	−1.5%
U.S. Decennial Census [8] 1790-1960 [9] 1900-1990 [10] 1990-2000 [11] 2010-2021 [12]

As of the census ^[13] of 2000, there were 6,748 people, 2,638 households, and 1,925 families residing in the county. The population density was 29 per square mile (11/km²). There were 3,107 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile (5.0/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 99.04% White, 0.03% Black or African American, 0.07% Native American, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.01% from other races, and 0.83% from two or more races. 0.59% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 2,638 households, of which 33.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.00% were married couples living together, 9.70% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.00% were non-families. 24.70% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the average family size was 3.02.

People of British ancestry form an overwhelming plurality in Elliott County. ^{[14] [15] [16] [17] [18]}

In the county, the population was spread out, with 25.40% under the age of 18, 9.10% from 18 to 24, 27.50% from 25 to 44, 24.70% from 45 to 64, and 13.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 95.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.50 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $21,014, and the median income for a family was $27,125. Males had a median income of $29,593 versus $20,339 for females. The per capita income for the county was $12,067. About 20.80% of families and 25.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 30.50% of those under age 18 and 26.40% of those age 65 or over.

Politics

Elliott County had voted for the Democratic Party's nominee in every presidential election since the county was formed in 1869, up until the 2016 presidential election when it voted 70.1–25.9% in favor of Donald Trump. ^[19] This was the longest streak of any county voting Democratic in the United States. ^[20] It was also the last Southern rural county never to have voted for a Republican in any Presidential election, until 2016. ^[19] According to interviews from residents of the county, this overwhelming Democratic support was primarily due to love for tradition as well as an appreciation for big government following FDR's New Deal. ^[21] Even in nationwide Republican landslides like 1972 and 1984, when Republican candidates won the state of Kentucky overall with over 60% of the vote, Elliott County voted 65.3% and 73.4% Democratic, respectively. Reagan, in particular, only performed 3% better in the county in 1984 than 1936 GOP nominee Alf Landon, despite the fact that Reagan won everywhere but Minnesota and Washington, D.C., and a national popular vote swing of 41%, while Landon lost every state but Maine and Vermont.

It was Democrat John Kerry's strongest county in Kentucky in 2004. ^[22] With white Americans making up 99.04% of its population, Elliott County was the second-whitest in the country to vote for Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, the whitest being Mitchell County, Iowa. Obama garnered 61.0% of the vote, while Republican John McCain received 35.9%. In fact, Elliott County provided Obama with the highest percentage of the vote in all of Kentucky, although this was nonetheless the worst Democratic performance in the county since its founding.

Obama would again win the county in 2012, his only such victory in the staunchly conservative region of rural Eastern Kentucky. However, he eked out only a narrow 49.4% plurality over Mitt Romney's 46.9%, thus ending an over century-long streak of Democratic landslides in Elliott County. Reflecting the increasing rural–urban divide of modern American politics, Obama's strongest county in the state was instead Jefferson County, home to Louisville—the most populous city in Kentucky—which he won by a comfortable 54.7–43.6% margin. The county is part of the Bible Belt, and according to interviews residents are socially conservative on issues such as LGBT rights. ^[23]

Elliott County's hard swing towards the Republican Party continued in 2016, when it voted for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton by a 70.1–25.9% margin, ^[24] decisively ending the Democratic Party's 140-year victory streak. ^[19] Despite Trump's victory, Democratic candidates for down-ballot offices managed to carry the county. In the Senate race, Democratic nominee Jim Gray won 56.0% of the county's vote to Republican Senator Rand Paul’s 44.0%. In 2016 Democratic State Rep. Rocky Adkins, a Sandy Hook native whose state house district includes the entire county, was reelected and took 86% of the vote in Elliott. Trump won the county again in 2020 with a larger 74.99% of the vote than he did 4 years prior. By 2024 he managed to make Elliott an even deeper shade of red, getting 80% of the vote, a figure that once was more commonly associated with fierce Unionist Kentucky counties like Jackson and Clay.

Until 2020, Elliott was one of two counties in Kentucky (the other being nearby Wolfe County) that had voted against Senator Mitch McConnell in all of his elections (though this streak would also come to an end in 2020). ^[25] It also had never voted for Representative Hal Rogers in any of his contested elections until 2018, when he won 54.6% of the county's vote over Democratic nominee Kenneth Stepp. ^[26] Until the 2020s, the county remained reliably Democratic in state-level races, voting for the party's entire slate in the 2015 and 2019 statewide elections. However, in 2023, the county voted Republican in every state-level election on the ballot except governor. Democratic governor Andy Beshear's vote share also decreased in Elliott County, from 59.27% in 2019 to 53.48% in 2023, despite winning by a higher margin statewide in 2023. ^{[27] [28]}

On Election Day 2012, Elliott County had the lowest percentage of registered Republicans in Kentucky, with just 215 of 5,012 (4.2%) registered voters affiliating with the GOP. ^[29] By October 2016, this proportion had increased to 429 out of 5,213 (8.2%). ^[30] In April 2019, it stood at 562 of 5,318 (10.6%). ^[31] By June 2022, this share had nearly doubled, with 1,007 registered Republicans out of 5,243 registered voters (19.2%). ^[32] As of May 2024, 1136 out of 4947 (23%) of the county's voters are registered Republicans. ^[33]

United States presidential election results for Elliott County, Kentucky ^[34]

Year	Republican		Democratic		Third party(ies)
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
2024	2,335	80.21%	532	18.28%	44	1.51%
2020	2,246	74.99%	712	23.77%	37	1.24%
2016	2,000	70.05%	740	25.92%	115	4.03%
2012	1,126	46.94%	1,186	49.44%	87	3.63%
2008	902	35.86%	1,535	61.03%	78	3.10%
2004	871	29.46%	2,064	69.80%	22	0.74%
2000	827	34.73%	1,525	64.05%	29	1.22%
1996	421	20.89%	1,298	64.42%	296	14.69%
1992	444	17.58%	1,796	71.13%	285	11.29%
1988	550	23.33%	1,797	76.24%	10	0.42%
1984	601	26.20%	1,683	73.37%	10	0.44%
1980	551	24.59%	1,668	74.43%	22	0.98%
1976	455	18.49%	1,987	80.74%	19	0.77%
1972	782	34.04%	1,499	65.26%	16	0.70%
1968	515	23.56%	1,387	63.45%	284	12.99%
1964	323	13.74%	2,026	86.18%	2	0.09%
1960	789	31.27%	1,734	68.73%	0	0.00%
1956	1,033	32.53%	2,143	67.47%	0	0.00%
1952	629	23.27%	2,074	76.73%	0	0.00%
1948	410	16.28%	2,095	83.17%	14	0.56%
1944	514	23.00%	1,721	77.00%	0	0.00%
1940	634	23.95%	2,013	76.05%	0	0.00%
1936	480	23.77%	1,539	76.23%	0	0.00%
1932	382	15.09%	2,150	84.91%	0	0.00%
1928	601	31.33%	1,317	68.67%	0	0.00%
1924	614	26.16%	1,702	72.52%	31	1.32%
1920	860	32.61%	1,764	66.89%	13	0.49%
1916	525	31.12%	1,151	68.23%	11	0.65%
1912	396	25.70%	1,006	65.28%	139	9.02%
1908	618	34.62%	1,159	64.93%	8	0.45%
1904	594	34.02%	1,143	65.46%	9	0.52%
1900	624	31.28%	1,367	68.52%	4	0.20%
1896	577	30.56%	1,294	68.54%	17	0.90%
1892	453	28.85%	1,079	68.73%	38	2.42%
1888	426	28.03%	1,090	71.71%	4	0.26%
1884	261	23.02%	873	76.98%	0	0.00%
1880	115	14.45%	623	78.27%	58	7.29%

Communities

City

• Sandy Hook (county seat)

Unincorporated communities

• Ault
• Bascom
• Beartown
• Bell City
• Bigstone
• Blaines Trace
• Bruin
• Brushy Fork
• Burke
• Clay Fork
• Cliffside
• Culver
• Devil Fork
• Dewdrop
• Dobbins
• Edsel
• Eldridge
• Fannin
• Fannin Valley
• Faye
• Fielden
• Forks of Newcombe
• Gimlet
• Gomez
• Green
• Halcom
• Ibex
• Isonville
• Little Fork
• Little Sandy
• Lytten
• Middle Fork
• Neil Howard's Creek
• Newcombe
• Newfoundland
• Ordinary
• Roscoe
• Shady Grove
• Sarah
• Sideway
• Spanglin
• Stark
• Stephens
• The Ridge
• Wells Creek
• Wyatt

See also

• United States portal

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Elliott County, Kentucky

References

1. "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Archived from the original on May 31, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
2. "Elliott County".
3. The Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Volume 1. Kentucky State Historical Society. 1903. p. 35.
4. Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Govt. Print. Off. p. 117.
5. Hogan, Roseann Reinemuth (1992). Kentucky Ancestry: A Guide to Genealogical and Historical Research. Ancestry Publishing. p. 225. ISBN   9780916489496 . Retrieved July 26, 2013.
6. "2010 Census Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. August 22, 2012. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
7. "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
8. "U.S. Decennial Census". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
9. "Historical Census Browser". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
10. "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
11. "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 27, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
12. "State & County QuickFacts". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
13. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau . Retrieved January 31, 2008.
14. "Ancestry of the Population by State: 1980 - Table 3" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 11, 2012. Retrieved February 10, 2012.
15. Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America By Dominic J. Pulera.
16. Reynolds Farley, 'The New Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell Us?', Demography, Vol. 28, No. 3 (August 1991), pp. 414, 421.
17. Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, 'The Use of Nativity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns', Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44-6.
18. Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, 'Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82-86.
19. Simon, Jeff (December 9, 2016). "How Trump Ended Democrats' 144-Year Winning Streak in One County". CNN . Retrieved December 10, 2016.
20. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
21. Nelson, Ellot (May 10, 2013). "Democratic Party Survives in Rural Elliott County, Kentucky". Huffington Post. Retrieved June 28, 2019.
22. "NYT Electoral explorer". Archived from the original on February 6, 2009.
23. Nelson, Ellot (May 10, 2013). "Democratic Party Survives in Rural Elliott County, Kentucky". Huffington Post. Retrieved June 28, 2019.
24. "Kentucky President Results 2016". CNN. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
25. "2020 Kentucky Senate Results". Politico. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
26. Lewis, Joe (November 7, 2018). "Elliott County Election Results". Morehead State Public Radio (wmky). wmky. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
27. "2019 General Election" (PDF). Kentucky State Board of Elections. Retrieved December 7, 2019.
28. "Certification of Election Results for 2023 General Election Final" (PDF). Commonwealth of Kentucky - State Board of Elections.
29. "Voter Registration Statistics Report". Kentucky State Board of Elections. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
30. "Voter Registration Statistics Report" (PDF). Kentucky State Board of Elections. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 24, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
31. "Voter Registration Statistics Report" (PDF). Kentucky State Board of Elections. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 6, 2019. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
32. "Voter Registration Statistics Report" (PDF). Commonwealth of Kentucky - State Board of Elections. July 15, 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 17, 2022. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
33. Commonwealth of Kentucky - State Board of Elections Voter Registration Statistics Report
34. Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved April 10, 2018.

External links

• The Year of Plenty, children's historical fiction set in Elliott County
• The Kentucky Highlands Project
• Elliott County Chamber of Commerce

38°7′N83°6′W / 38.117°N 83.100°W / 38.117; -83.100