Paducah, Kentucky
McCracken County, McCracken County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Welcome to Paducah, KY.. Founded by Gen. William Clark, 1827, at confluence of Tennessee, Ohio Rivers. Named for legendary Chickasaw Indian Chief Paduke. County seat McCracken County. Home Vice President Alben W. Barkley; this airport named in his honor. Nearby is Atomic Energy Plant. (See other side). (Reverse) Barkley Field, Paducah, KY. - Birthplace author Irvin S. Cobb; home Linn Boyd, member Congress, Speaker (1851-55), sponsor Texas Annexation Resolution. Town was first captured by Union Gen. Lew Wallace and Gen. Wm. T. Sherman. Railroad and river traffic center. See other side. Presented by Airport Board.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Where the Tennessee River meets the Ohio, William Clark—of Lewis and Clark fame—laid out the town of Paducah in 1827, giving it a name tied to the Chickasaw and their remembered chief Paduke. The rivers and, later, the railroads made it a busy trade center and the seat of McCracken County. It sent Alben Barkley to the vice presidency, produced humorist Irvin S. Cobb, and was seized early in the Civil War by Union generals Lew Wallace and William T. Sherman.
Why it matters
Paducah's rise at a great river junction shows how geography, commerce, and conflict together built the towns of the American interior.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Clark
- · Alben W. Barkley
- · Irvin S. Cobb
- · Linn Boyd
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Red Banks Trace
Vincennes, IN · est. 1966
The Red Banks Trace was an early Indian and pioneer trail running from Anthony's Ferry on the Ohio River — at present-day Henderson, Kentucky — north to Vincennes. There it tied into the road toward Nashville and the Natchez Trace, and fed the trails leading north and west across Illinois.
Jackson Purchase
McCracken County, KY
In 1818, the young United States acquired an 8,500-square-mile wedge of land between the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers from the Chickasaw Nation for $300,000, in a treaty brokered by General Andrew Jackson and Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby. Known ever after as the Jackson Purchase, the tract opened westernmost Kentucky and Tennessee to American settlement. Its clean river boundaries still define the region's eight Kentucky and twenty Tennessee counties.
Paducah's Indian Name
Paducah, KY
Paducah is the only major Kentucky city bearing an Indigenous name, honoring the legendary Chief Paduke. His people, a group associated with the Chickasaw, lived and hunted in this area until their land was ceded in the 1818 Jackson Purchase. When General William Clark—of Lewis and Clark fame—platted the town in 1827, he set aside its earlier name, Pekin, in favor of Paducah.
Lewis & Clark in McCracken County
Paducah, KY
In November 1803, as Lewis and Clark led the nucleus of the Corps of Discovery down the Ohio River toward their rendezvous with the West, they passed through what is now McCracken County. Camping near present-day Paducah and stopping at Fort Massac just across the river in Illinois, they recruited men for the journey, including the skilled interpreter George Drouillard. Years later, in 1827, William Clark returned to establish the town of Paducah itself.