Morganfield, KY

Morganfield is the Union County seat in western Kentucky, not far from the Ohio River and the state's western coal fields. The 2020 census counted 3,256 residents. The city was named for Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan, who owned the land, and it became the county seat when Union County was formed in 1811. That history sits right in the middle of town, where the courthouse, older neighborhoods, and City Cemetery connect Morganfield's government and memory. Abraham Lincoln gave his only political speech in Kentucky here, a detail that gives this compact county seat an outsized place in the state's political lore.

The city also carries a stranger bit of business history: Mabel Williams, whose singed eyelashes led to a homemade mixture of petroleum jelly and coal dust, became part of the story behind Maybelline cosmetics. Beyond the center, Higginson-Henry Wildlife Management Area, Mauzy Lake, Moffitt Lake, and birding trails open the landscape toward water and bottomland. Morganfield's local scoop is a Kentucky county seat where Lincoln, Maybelline, Civil War memory, and wetland edges all meet.