Richmond, Kentucky - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

RICHMOND, a city and the county-seat of Madison (disambiguation)|Madison county, Kentucky, U.S.A., about 95 m. S.E. of Louisville. Pop. (1890) 5 0 73; (1900) 4653, of whom 2087 were negroes; (1910) 5340. It is served by the Louisville & Atlantic and the Louisville & Nashville railways. It is situated in the "Blue Grass Region," near the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. It is the seat of Madison Institute for girls (1856) and of the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School (1906). From 1874 to 1901 it was the seat of Central University, which in the latter year was consolidated with Centre College at Danville, Ky. (q.v.). The surrounding country is devoted largely to the cultivation of tobacco, Indian corn and wheat, and the breeding of fine horses and cattle; and Richmond is an important live-stock market. Among the manufactures are bricks, flour, tobacco and cigars, and carriages. On the 30th of August 1862 a Confederate force of about 7000 men under General Edmund Kirby Smith won a decisive victory here over a Union force of a nearly equal number under Generals Mahlon D. Manson (1820-1895) and William Nelson.