The First Congressional District - from Fulton to Frankfort. (Map credit - Google)

A new report from the Kentucky State Data Center at the University of Louisville forecasts significant lags in western Kentucky county populations through 2050. This is notably true in the Jackson Purchase where only McCracken County is projected to grow significantly. The Mississippi River counties, especially Hickman County which may lose more than one-quarter of its current population, will experience significant population decreases. Graves, Calloway, and Marshall counties will, according to the report, will do well to hold its present population.

Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Eldridge

The first question I posed to Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colman Eldridge was one shared by many frustrated Democrats in Western Kentucky.

"How does the Democratic Party plan to turn Western Kentucky from red to at least purple?" The first African American Chairman of any political party in Kentucky has obviously been thinking about the subject...

Records stored in the Hickman County Courthouse tell story of indentured children

With post Civil War Reconstruction unpopular in the South, including the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Legislature came up with a clever idea to answer a labor shortage caused by losing 20% of its unpaid labor force. The answer was reviving and expanding the system of indentured servitude to orphans and poor children. State law created a system (complete with fill-in-the-blank forms) that empowered the County Judge to "bind out orphans, and children whose parents are incapable of bringing them up in moral courses."

Ivan and Mary Potter shopping in Hazel KY

Meet the husband and wife team responsible for West Kentucky Journal.

Editor's Note: Updated - Ivan Potter retired from the Clinton City Council as of January 1, 2017.

WKJ now has over 6000 articles and 2.5 million yearly views.