Featured Memories
Meade County is created from Hardin and Breckinridge
The Kentucky legislature established Meade County on December 17, 1823, carving it out of land that until then belonged to Hardin and Breckinridge counties. It was the state's 78th county. Brandenburg was named the county seat two years later, in 1825.
Morgan's raiders cross the Ohio at Brandenburg
On July 7, 1863, the leading units of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's cavalry reached Brandenburg with orders to seize boats. They captured two steamers — the mail boat J.T. McCombs and the passenger boat Alice Dean — by having the McCombs feign distress so the Alice Dean would pull alongside. Over the following day roughly 2,000 men and their horses were ferried across the Ohio into Indiana. The Alice Dean was burned afterward. The McCombs was spared: her captain turned out to be a friend of one of Morgan's officers. The crossing began the deepest Confederate penetration into northern territory of the entire war.
April 3, 1974: the only F5 tornado in Kentucky history
On the afternoon of April 3, 1974, a tornado touched down about five miles southwest of Hardinsburg and tore a 32-mile path northeast, crossing into Meade County and striking Brandenburg head-on. Thirty-one people were killed and about 270 injured. One hundred twenty-eight homes were destroyed outright, many swept from their foundations, along with some thirty businesses. Eighteen of the dead were on Green Street alone. Damage exceeded ten million dollars in 1974 money. The National Weather Service rated it F5 — the top of the Fujita scale. Of the fifty-nine F5 and EF5 tornadoes recorded in the United States, it remains the ONLY one ever confirmed in Kentucky. It was one of seven F5s that fell in a single day during the 1974 Super Outbreak, which killed 315 people across the eastern United States, 77 of them in Kentucky.
April 3, 1974: the only F5 tornado in Kentucky history
On the afternoon of April 3, 1974, a tornado touched down about five miles southwest of Hardinsburg and tore a 32-mile path northeast, crossing into Meade County and striking Brandenburg head-on. Thirty-one people were killed and about 270 injured. One hundred twenty-eight homes were destroyed outright, many swept from their foundations, along with some thirty businesses. Eighteen of the dead were on Green Street alone. Damage exceeded ten million dollars in 1974 money. The National Weather Service rated it F5 — the top of the Fujita scale. Of the fifty-nine F5 and EF5 tornadoes recorded in the United States, it remains the ONLY one ever confirmed in Kentucky. It was one of seven F5s that fell in a single day during the 1974 Super Outbreak, which killed 315 people across the eastern United States, 77 of them in Kentucky.
The Doe Run Creek Historic District
The Doe Run Creek Historic District, southeast of Brandenburg off KY 448, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 19, 1978. The Doe Run Mill within it was listed separately on October 6, 1987. The mill building now houses a restaurant.
Every tornado recorded in Meade County since 1974
The National Weather Service has logged eleven more tornadoes in Meade County in the fifty years since the 1974 F5. None has killed anyone. June 13, 1987 (F1) · July 18, 1988 (F1) · May 5, 1996 (F1, ten injured, from north of Ekron to southeast of Brandenburg) · April 28, 2002 (F2, seven injured, 2:05 in the morning) · October 18, 2007 (EF1) · February 5, 2008 (EF1, six and a half miles) · April 19, 2011 (EF0, skipping eleven miles) · March 2, 2012 (EF0) · January 30, 2013 (EF0) · July 10, 2015 (EF0) · November 18, 2017 (EF1, one injured). The pattern worth noticing: two of these came in the small hours, when nobody is watching a radar.
St. Theresa Church at Rhodelia joins the National Register
St. Theresa Roman Catholic Church, standing about three miles northwest of Rhodelia on KY 144, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 17, 1977 — the first Meade County property to be listed.
Morgan's raiders cross the Ohio at Brandenburg
On July 7, 1863, the leading units of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's cavalry reached Brandenburg with orders to seize boats. They captured two steamers — the mail boat J.T. McCombs and the passenger boat Alice Dean — by having the McCombs feign distress so the Alice Dean would pull alongside. Over the following day roughly 2,000 men and their horses were ferried across the Ohio into Indiana. The Alice Dean was burned afterward. The McCombs was spared: her captain turned out to be a friend of one of Morgan's officers. The crossing began the deepest Confederate penetration into northern territory of the entire war.
The shape of the county: sinkholes, an escarpment, and a river
Meade County covers 325 square miles — 305 of land and 19 of water, meaning water is nearly six percent of the county. The Ohio River forms the entire northern boundary, and the far side is Indiana. Inland, much of the county is karst: limestone country where rainwater dissolves the rock from beneath and the surface collapses into sinkholes. That is why creeks here run underground and reappear elsewhere, and why springs matter so much locally. The Dripping Springs Escarpment separates a northwestern plateau from the karst plain behind it. Otter Creek drains the northeast toward the Ohio.
The Payneville Petroglyphs
An archaeological site near Payneville, catalogued as 15MD308 and known as the Payneville Petroglyphs, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 8, 1989. Its location is formally restricted — the National Park Service withholds the addresses of archaeological sites to protect them from looting. The listing is public; the place is not.
Eight Brandenburg buildings listed in a single day
On August 14, 1984, the National Register of Historic Places added six Brandenburg properties at once: the Methodist Episcopal Church on Broadway, the Goff-Baskett House and the Richardson House on Lawrence Street, the Jones-Willis House on Main, the Edward Yeakel House on Decatur, and the Meade County Clerk Office–Rankin House on Lafayette. The Meade County Jail on Main Street was listed the same day. The Brandenburg Commercial District followed on March 27, 1986. Taken together, these listings are why the town's older core still reads as a nineteenth-century county seat rather than a modern strip.
The Clarkson House at Flaherty
The Clarkson House, on Clarkson Road at Flaherty, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 24, 1983.
Thirty thousand people, three incorporated cities
The 2020 census counted 30,003 people in Meade County. Only three places in the county are incorporated cities: Brandenburg, the seat; Ekron; and Muldraugh, which straddles the line into Hardin County. Everyone else lives in unincorporated communities or open country.
Brandenburg grows up around a tavern
Brandenburg takes its name from Solomon Brandenburg, a War of 1812 veteran who patented land here in the early 1800s and built a log tavern on it. The settlement grew around that tavern, and in 1825 it was designated the seat of the new county — the role it still holds.
The county is named for a captain who never saw it
Meade County carries the name of Captain James M. Meade of the 17th United States Infantry, an officer of the War of 1812. Meade fought at Tippecanoe in 1811 and was promoted to captain afterward. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of the River Raisin, in what is now Monroe, Michigan — a defeat so severe that "Remember the Raisin" became a rallying cry for the rest of the war. The county was named in his honour a decade after his death.
Meade County is created from Hardin and Breckinridge
The Kentucky legislature established Meade County on December 17, 1823, carving it out of land that until then belonged to Hardin and Breckinridge counties. It was the state's 78th county. Brandenburg was named the county seat two years later, in 1825.