Paris, Kentucky

History

Joseph Houston settled a station in the area in 1776, but was forced to relocate due to prior land grants. In 1786, Lawrence Protzman purchased the area of present-day Paris from its owners, platted 250 acre for a town, and offered land for public buildings in exchange for the Virginia legislature making the settlement the seat of the newly formed Bourbon County. In 1789, the town was formally established as Hopewell after Hopewell, New Jersey, his hometown. The next year, it was renamed Paris after the French capital to match its county and honor the French assistance during the American Revolution.

Among the early settlers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were French refugees who had fled the excesses of their own revolution. One Frenchman was noted in a 19th-century state history as having come from Calcutta, via Bengal, and settled here as a schoolteacher.

The post office was briefly known as Bourbontown or Bourbonton in the early 19th century, but there is no evidence that this name was ever formally applied to the town itself. It was incorporated as Paris in 1839 and again in 1890.

African American students attended Paris Colored High School. Paris is the "sister city" of Lamotte-Beuvron in France.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 15.5 km2, of which 15.4 sqkm is land and 0.1 sqkm, or 0.52%, is water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 9,183 people, 3,857 households, and 2,487 families residing in the city. The population density was 1351.2 /mi2. There were 4,222 housing units at an average density of 621.2 /mi2. The racial makeup of the city was 84.23% White, 12.71% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 1.35% from other races, and 1.38% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.62% of the population.

There were 3,857 households, out of which 31.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.8% were married couples living together, 16.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.5% were non-families. 31.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.90.

In the city, the population was spread out, with 25.3% under the age of 18, 9.0% from 18 to 24, 28.5% from 25 to 44, 21.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 88.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.7 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $30,872, and the median income for a family was $37,358. Males had a median income of $29,275 versus $21,285 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,645. About 17.5% of families and 17.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.2% of those under age 18 and 15.9% of those age 65 or over.

Arts and culture

Between 2006 and 2008, fifteen buildings were renovated in the downtown.

Artistic and cultural sites and events include:

• Downtown Paris ARTWALK, an artistic event.
• Nannine Clay Wallis Arboretum, a 4 acre arboretum where many trees were planted in the 1850s when the house was built.
• The Hopewell Museum, a Beaux Arts structure built in 1909 which served as the area's first post office.
• Duncan Tavern, a stone structure built in 1788, which houses a genealogical collection.
• The Vardens Building, a Victorian architecture building which contained a surgeon and dental office, and a ballroom, and is now a retail space.
• The Shinner Building, built in 1891, listed by Ripley's Believe It or Not! as the world's tallest three-story structure.

Paris has a public library, the Paris-Bourbon County Library.

Education

Local schools in includes, Paris High School (in the Paris Independent Schools district), and Bourbon County High School (in the Bourbon County Schools district).

Notable people

• William Patterson Alexander (1805–1884), missionary in Hawaii
• Bill Arnsparger (1926–2015), football coach, head coach of New York Giants
• Pauline Redmond Coggs (1912 – 2005), social worker, civil rights activist
• Blanton Collier (1906–1983), NFL coach of 1964 champion Cleveland Browns
• Joseph Duncan (1794–1844), sixth Governor of Illinois
• John Price Durbin (1800–1876), Chaplain of the Senate, President of Dickinson College
• William Lee D. Ewing (1795–1846), fifth Governor of Illinois
• Lemuel T. Fisher, newspaper publisher
• John Fox, Jr. (1862–1919), author of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
• Silvana Gallardo, actress and acting coach, was living in Paris at the time of her death
• James G. Jones (1814–1872), first mayor of Evansville, Indiana, Indiana Attorney General
• Mary Rootes Thornton McAboy (1815–1892), poet
• Garrett Morgan (1877–1963), invented tri-state traffic signal and emergency breathing device{{cite web |access-date= December 6, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120115032510/http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/education/gamorgan.htm |archive-date= January 15, 2012 |url-status= dead
• Bernie Haynes Robynson (1900–2001), printmaker, illustrator born in Paris, Kentucky; and part of the Harlem Renaissance movement
• George Snyder, silversmith, clockmaker, and inventor of modern bait-casting fishing reel
• Robert Trimble, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
• Jim Tucker (1932–2020), basketball player, attended Paris Western High School
• Francis Marion Wood (1878–1943), educator and school administrator, worked in Paris
• John R. Baylor (1822–1894), Indian agent, publisher and editor, politician, senior officer of the CSA, and 1st Governor of Arizona Territory

References

References

1. "The City of Paris". City of Paris.
2. (November 6, 2018). "County by County Results". [[WKYT]].
3. "City of Paris - Mayor".
4. Commonwealth of Kentucky. Office of the Secretary of State. Land Office. "Paris, Kentucky". Accessed 24 September 2013.
5. "2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau.
6. {{GNIS. 2404473
7. "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Kentucky: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2022". United States Census Bureau.
8. "Find a County". National Association of Counties.
9. "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Paris city, Kentucky". U.S. Census Bureau, American Factfinder.
10. [https://books.google.com/books?id=0dc_AAAAYAAJ&dq=Origin+of+name+of+Bengal%2C+KY&pg=PA294 William Henry Perrin, J. H. Battle, G. C. Kniffin, ''Kentucky: A History of the State''], "Embracing a Concise Account of the Origin and Development of the Virginia Colony, Its Expansion Westward, and the Settlement of the Frontier Beyond the Alleghanies : the Erection of Kentucky as an Independent State, and Its Subsequent Development", Adair County (Ky.): F. A. Battey, 1887, p. 294
11. Rennick, Robert. ''Kentucky Place Names'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=3Lac2FUSj_oC&pg=PA226 p. 226]. University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 1987. Accessed 1 August 2013.
12. (1901). "Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year ... with Accompanying Papers". U.S. Government Printing Office.
13. "Paris, KY - Sister City".
14. Bureau, US Census. "City and Town Population Totals: 2020-2024".
15. "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov.
16. "U.S. Census website". [[United States Census Bureau]].
17. Note: Paris Main Street manager and tourism director Linda Stubblefield quoted in a ''Chevy Chaser Magazine'' article (October 2008).[http://www.smileypete.com]
18. [http://www.visitmyparisky.com/main_street/ArtWalk.html Paris, Kentucky's tourism site] {{webarchive. link. (2009-06-15)
19. [http://stevewalton.name/Photos.html Photos of Paris, Kentucky] {{webarchive. link. (2011-07-22)
20. "parisartwalk - Profile".
21. "Custom 404 Page".
22. "Kentucky Public Library Directory". Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives.
23. "Illinois Governor Joseph Duncan". National Governors Association.
24. "Illinois Governor William Lee Davidson Ewing". National Governors Association.
25. "Silvana Gallardo, actress who had been living in Paris, Ky., dies at age 58".
26. (1916). "Courts and lawyers of Indiana". Federal Publishing Company.
27. "Robynson, Bernie Haynes. (b. Paris, KY, 1900; active New York, NY, 1954)".
28. Hills, Patricia. (2019-01-05). "Painting Harlem Modern: The Art of Jacob Lawrence". University of California Press.
29. (1953-03-14). "Former Paris Boy Is Cage Star At Duquesne". The Paducah Sun.
30. (May 23, 2020). "Paris Western star, Duquesne All-American Jim Tucker has died".
31. Kleber, John E.. (2014-10-17). "The Kentucky Encyclopedia". [[University Press of Kentucky]].