Elliott County, Kentucky

Elliott County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the population was 7,852, a figure that declined to 7,508 in 2018, per the Census Bureau’s latest estimate.[1] Its county seat is Sandy Hook.[2] The county was formed in 1869 from parts of Morgan, Lawrence, and Carter counties, and is named for John Lyle Elliott, U.S. Congressman; 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.

Elliott County
U.S. 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″N 83°06′00″W
Country United States
State Kentucky
Founded1869
Named forJohn Lisle Elliott or John Milton Elliott
SeatSandy Hook
Largest citySandy Hook
Area
 • Total235 sq mi (610 km2)
 • Land234 sq mi (610 km2)
 • Water1.0 sq mi (3 km2)  0.4%%
Population
 • Estimate 
(2018)
7,508
 • Density34/sq mi (13/km2)
Time zoneUTC−5 (Eastern)
 • Summer (DST)UTC−4 (EDT)
Congressional district5th
Websiteelliottcounty.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx

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

Politics

Elliott County had voted for the Democratic Party's nominee in every presidential election since it was formed in 1869, up until the 2016 presidential election when it voted 70.1–25.9% in favor of Donald Trump.[7] This was the longest streak of any county voting Democratic in the United States.[8] It was also the last Southern rural county never to have voted for a Republican in any Presidential election, until 2016.[7] 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.[9] 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.

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. This made it the most Democratic county in the state for the second election in a row, since it had also been Democrat John Kerry's strongest county in Kentucky in 2004.[10] 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.

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,[11] decisively ending the Democratic Party's 140-year victory streak.[7] 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%, and 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 an even larger share of the vote than he did 4 years prior.

Along with nearby Wolfe County, Elliott was one of two counties in Kentucky that has voted against Senator Mitch McConnell in all of his elections (though this streak would also come to an end in 2020).[12] 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.[13] However, Elliott County has remained reliably Democratic in non-presidential races, voting for the party's entire slate in the 2015 and 2019 statewide elections.

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.[14] By October 2016, this proportion had increased to 429 out of 5,213 (8.2%),[15] and as of the Kentucky State Board of Election’s most recent update in April 2019, it stood at 562 of 5,318 (10.6%).[16]

Presidential election results
Presidential election results[17]
Year Republican Democratic Third parties
2020 75.0% 2,246 23.8% 712 1.2% 36
2016 70.1% 2,000 25.9% 740 4.0% 115
2012 46.9% 1,126 49.4% 1,186 3.6% 87
2008 35.9% 902 61.0% 1,535 3.1% 78
2004 29.5% 871 69.8% 2,064 0.7% 22
2000 34.7% 827 64.1% 1,525 1.2% 29
1996 20.9% 421 64.4% 1,298 14.7% 296
1992 17.6% 444 71.1% 1,796 11.3% 285
1988 23.3% 550 76.2% 1,797 0.4% 10
1984 26.2% 601 73.4% 1,683 0.4% 10
1980 24.6% 551 74.4% 1,668 1.0% 22
1976 18.5% 455 80.7% 1,987 0.8% 19
1972 34.0% 782 65.3% 1,499 0.7% 16
1968 23.6% 515 63.5% 1,387 13.0% 284
1964 13.7% 323 86.2% 2,026 0.1% 2
1960 31.3% 789 68.7% 1,734 0.0% 0
1956 32.5% 1,033 67.5% 2,143 0.0% 0
1952 23.3% 629 76.7% 2,074 0.0% 0
1948 16.3% 410 83.2% 2,095 0.6% 14
1944 23.0% 514 77.0% 1,721 0.0% 0
1940 24.0% 634 76.1% 2,013 0.0% 0
1936 23.8% 480 76.2% 1,539 0.0% 0
1932 15.1% 382 84.9% 2,150 0.0% 0
1928 31.3% 601 68.7% 1,317 0.0% 0
1924 26.2% 614 72.5% 1,702 1.3% 31
1920 32.6% 860 66.9% 1,764 0.5% 13
1916 31.1% 525 68.2% 1,151 0.7% 11
1912 25.7% 396 65.3% 1,006 9.0% 139

Demographics
Historical population
CensusPop.%±
18704,433—
18806,56748.1%
18909,21440.3%
190010,38712.7%
19109,814−5.5%
19208,887−9.4%
19307,571−14.8%
19408,71315.1%
19507,085−18.7%
19606,330−10.7%
19705,933−6.3%
19806,90816.4%
19906,455−6.6%
20006,7484.5%
20107,85216.4%
2018 (est.)7,508[18]−4.4%
U.S. Decennial Census[19]
1790-1960[20] 1900-1990[21]
1990-2000[22] 2010-2019[23]

As of the census[24] 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.[25][26][27][28][29]

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.

Communities

See also

References
  1. "Elliott County, Kentucky". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
  2. "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Archived from the original on 2011-05-31. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  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 26 July 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. Simon, Jeff (December 9, 2016). "How Trump Ended Democrats' 144-Year Winning Streak in One County". CNN. Retrieved December 10, 2016.
  8. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  9. Nelson, Ellot. "Democratic Party Survives in Rural Elliott County, Kentucky". Huffington Post. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  10. "NYT Electoral explorer". Archived from the original on February 6, 2009.
  11. "Kentucky President Results 2016". CNN. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  12. "2020 Kentucky Senate Results". Politico. Retrieved 7 November 2020.
  13. Lewis, Joe. "Elliott County Election Results". Morehead State Public Radio (wmky). wmky. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
  14. "Voter Registration Statistics Report". Kentucky State Board of Elections. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
  15. "Voter Registration Statistics Report" (PDF). Kentucky State Board of Elections. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
  16. "Voter Registration Statistics Report" (PDF). Kentucky State Board of Elections. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
  17. Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  18. "Population and Housing Unit Estimates". Retrieved July 29, 2019.
  19. "U.S. Decennial Census". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  20. "Historical Census Browser". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  21. "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  22. "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  23. "State & County QuickFacts". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  24. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
  25. "Ancestry of the Population by State: 1980 - Table 3" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-02-10.
  26. Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America By Dominic J. Pulera.
  27. Reynolds Farley, 'The New Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell Us?', Demography, Vol. 28, No. 3 (August 1991), pp. 414, 421.
  28. 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.
  29. 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.

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