Appalachian Community Histories – Cains Store, Pulaski County: The Battle of Mill Springs, Smith Cain’s Store, and Caintown
Along the roads of western Pulaski County, Kentucky, near present-day Nancy, a small country store became the center of a community whose history would eventually extend from the American Civil War into the closing decades of the twentieth century. Known as Cain’s Store, Cains Store, Cainville, and Caintown, the settlement developed around local commerce, rural postal service, and the families who lived along Wolf Creek. Its name would appear in military records, nineteenth-century business directories, government documents, and local newspapers, preserving the history of a place that never needed to become a large town to play a meaningful role in the surrounding countryside.
In January 1862, Union Colonel Robert L. McCook established his brigade headquarters at Cain’s Store shortly before the Battle of Mill Springs. Just over a year later, the federal government authorized a post office inside Smith W. Cain’s store, giving the settlement an official identity that would remain associated with the area for generations. What began as a rural business became a recognized community, serving nearby farmers and families while maintaining connections to Somerset and the neighboring settlements of western Pulaski County.
The Cain Family, Wolf Creek, and the Origins of the Community
The history of Cains Store begins with the families who settled the countryside west of Somerset, particularly those who acquired land along Wolf Creek and the surrounding waterways during the nineteenth century. The settlement’s origins predate its formal recognition as a post office, although the precise date when the original store opened has not been established.
In her 1952 book A History of Pulaski County, Kentucky, local historian Alma Owens Tibbals reproduced information from county land records that provides an important starting point for understanding the community’s development. A deed dated February 28, 1859, records the sale of land along Wolf Creek by Chrisley Tarter and his wife, Elizabeth, to Smith Cain of Russell County for $3,175. The transaction included property in the area of present-day Caintown, suggesting that Cain’s association with the surrounding land began several years before the establishment of the post office. The deed transcription does not, however, establish the precise location or opening date of his store.
Tibbals also recorded that Chrisley Tarter had moved into the area in 1844 after purchasing property associated with Andrew Jasper, one of the earlier settlers of western Pulaski County. The Tarter family’s presence reflects the agricultural settlement of the region before its businesses and postal offices began appearing in published directories. Farms, family-owned property, local roads, and nearby watercourses provided the foundations for the community that would eventually become known as Caintown.
By the early 1860s, Smith W. Cain’s store had become a recognizable landmark along the roads leading through western Pulaski County. Its importance would soon extend beyond the surrounding farms when Union troops preparing for a major military engagement established their headquarters there.
Colonel Robert McCook and the Civil War at Cain’s Store
The American Civil War brought Cains Store into the history of one of the first major Union victories in the Western Theater. During the winter of 1861 and 1862, Confederate forces occupied positions near the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky, while Union troops under Brigadier General George H. Thomas advanced toward Logan’s Crossroads in preparation for an attack.
On January 16, 1862, Colonel Robert L. McCook established the headquarters of his Third Brigade at Cain’s Store. The Ninth Ohio Infantry and Second Minnesota Infantry were present with him, placing the small settlement directly along the route of the Union army’s advance. On January 17, these troops departed the store and marched toward Logan’s Crossroads, where they joined other Union forces assembling for the approaching confrontation. The Kentucky Historical Society preserves these movements on historical marker 2438, dedicated in 2014 along West Highway 80 near Nancy.
The conditions facing the soldiers were difficult. Winter rains had left the roads muddy, complicating the movement of men, horses, artillery, and military supplies. Meanwhile, Confederate commander George B. Crittenden recognized that the concentration of Union forces threatened his position near Beech Grove. Rather than wait for the Union army to complete its preparations, Confederate officers decided to advance toward Logan’s Crossroads and attempt a surprise attack.
At approximately 6:30 on the morning of January 19, Confederate troops encountered Union pickets and began the fighting that became known as the Battle of Mill Springs. The engagement developed into a fierce struggle through wooded terrain, muddy fields, and the fences separating local farms. Union regiments initially holding the Confederate advance required reinforcement, and McCook’s brigade was ordered forward to support the threatened line.
McCook’s official report, written at Somerset on January 21, 1862, provides a firsthand account of the engagement. His Ninth Ohio Infantry advanced to the right of the Mill Springs road, while the Second Minnesota moved forward to strengthen the Union position on the left. Fighting soon developed at extraordinarily close range, particularly where the Minnesota soldiers encountered Confederate infantry behind a rail fence.
The Second Minnesota engaged Confederate troops in a struggle that included musket fire, bayonet fighting, and close physical combat. On the opposite portion of McCook’s line, the Ninth Ohio eventually launched a bayonet charge that helped break the Confederate position. With additional Union troops pressing forward, the Confederate attack collapsed, and Crittenden’s forces retreated toward their fortified encampment near the Cumberland River.
The Union victory at Mill Springs helped weaken Confederate control over eastern Kentucky and contributed to the collapse of the Confederate defensive line in the state. Confederate General Felix K. Zollicoffer was killed during the fighting, and the defeat forced Confederate troops to abandon their position near Beech Grove.
For Cains Store, the battle established a lasting connection to the Civil War. Although the principal fighting took place away from the original store, the community had served as headquarters for soldiers who participated in the engagement. Its place in the campaign would later become one of the two historical events commemorated by the Kentucky Historical Society’s roadside marker.
Smith W. Cain and the Establishment of the Post Office in 1863
The second major development in Cains Store’s history occurred on March 30, 1863, when the United States Post Office Department authorized the establishment of a post office inside Smith W. Cain’s store. Christopher C. Gossett was appointed its first postmaster, beginning a period in which the community’s name would appear in federal postal records for more than a century.
The post office transformed the store into something more than a place to purchase groceries and household supplies. Residents could collect letters, send correspondence, receive newspapers, and conduct postal business during their visits, making it a regular gathering place for people living across the surrounding countryside. For rural families separated from Somerset by miles of roads, the establishment of a nearby postal office offered a valuable connection to the outside world.
The relationship between country stores and postal service was common throughout nineteenth-century Kentucky. Many smaller communities developed around a single merchant’s business, where the storekeeper or another resident served as postmaster. As these offices became established, their names often appeared on government maps, business directories, and correspondence, giving otherwise scattered rural settlements recognizable identities.
The name Cains Store originated with the business of Smith W. Cain, but other forms gradually entered local usage. Cainville appeared as an alternative name during the nineteenth century, while Caintown became increasingly associated with the surrounding settlement. Rather than necessarily representing separate communities, these names reflected the different ways the locality was identified in postal records, commercial publications, and everyday conversation.
Cain’s Store in the 1881 Kentucky State Gazetteer
One of the most informative contemporary descriptions of Cains Store appears in R. L. Polk & Company’s Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1881–1882. The publication identifies Cain’s Store as a country post office in Pulaski County with approximately 60 inhabitants, situated about 16 miles west of Somerset. Mail arrived twice each week, and Somerset served as the county seat and railroad shipping point for the locality.
The directory identifies C. C. Gossett as the postmaster and operator of a general store. It also records M. J. Cain, H. A. Compton, and G. A. Rainwater as distillers, while E. L. Foster and Jacob Roysden are listed as blacksmiths. Cainville appears separately in the publication with a reference directing readers to the entry for Cain’s Store.
These details provide a picture of the community’s economy nearly two decades after the establishment of the post office. The presence of multiple distillers and blacksmiths demonstrates that the settlement supported economic activities extending beyond its original store. Blacksmiths were essential to an agricultural community, maintaining horseshoes, agricultural tools, wagons, and other iron equipment, while local distilling provided another means of processing and marketing grain.
A later land record reproduced in Alma Owens Tibbals’s county history provides additional evidence of distilling in the area. An agreement dated March 22, 1883, refers to property belonging to E. L. Tarter near a warehouse associated with Cain and Tarter along Wolf Creek. The agreement concerned the use of land for distilling spirits from grain for a period of five years, subject to federal laws and regulations. Although the original deed would be necessary to establish the complete ownership arrangements, the surviving transcription adds another detail to the history of local enterprise at Cain’s Store.
Pulaski Masonic Lodge No. 551
Cains Store also became the home of a formal fraternal organization during the nineteenth century. On October 23, 1874, the Grand Lodge of Kentucky chartered Pulaski Lodge No. 551 at Cains Store, giving local Masons an organized institution within their own community.
The Grand Lodge’s official records identify the lodge as becoming defunct on October 19, 1892, although it was restored on May 16, 1893, before its later closure in July 1896. Its establishment and subsequent history demonstrate that the settlement supported organized social institutions in addition to its commercial and postal activities.
Caintown, Rural Mail Routes, and Community Life
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the name Caintown had become established in the surrounding countryside. Local families continued to identify themselves with Cains Store and its neighboring settlements, while the postal network connected the community to Nancy and Somerset.
A particularly revealing account appeared in the June 18, 1920, edition of The Somerset Journal. The newspaper reported the resignation of W. W. Tartar, who had carried mail from Nancy to Caintown for approximately 25 years. His service demonstrates the importance of rural mail carriers in maintaining communication between scattered communities before automobiles and improved highways became widespread.
The newspaper praised his reliability, reporting that he had missed relatively few trips during his years of service. His resignation represented the end of a long career connecting residents of Caintown to the regional postal system.
Local newspapers also offer glimpses of the ordinary social relationships that rarely appear in government records. In April 1921, The Somerset Journal reported that Lucy Cain and Bonnie Tarter, both from near Cains Store, had visited Andrew Lane’s home and attended church at Faubush. Other reports mentioned residents traveling between Cains Store, Mintonville, Waterloo, and neighboring communities to visit relatives, conduct business, and attend religious services.
The community’s distilling history also intersected with changes in federal law during the Prohibition era. In September 1920, The Somerset Journal reported that federal marshals and the Pulaski County sheriff had conducted raids in western Pulaski County. Near Cains Store, officers found and destroyed part of a still along with several barrels of mash, while additional hard cider was confiscated nearby. The newspaper did not identify the individuals responsible, and there is no established connection between this incident and the distillers listed in the nineteenth-century business directory.
Together, these newspaper accounts provide a fuller picture of Caintown as a living rural community. The settlement was not simply a postal address or a former Civil War campsite, but a place where families maintained relationships, merchants conducted business, and residents participated in the broader social and economic life of western Pulaski County.
The Changing Location and Closure of Cains Store Post Office
Although Cains Store retained its name, the post office did not remain permanently inside Smith W. Cain’s original store. Kentucky place-name historian Robert M. Rennick documented the changing locations of Pulaski County’s rural post offices in his three-part study published in La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History in 2007.
Rennick identified the original office with Cain’s store and described its subsequent movement through several locations serving the settlement known as Caintown. Its final location was just east of the junction of Kentucky Highways 80 and 837, near the northern end of Tick Ridge. According to his research, the office closed on March 31, 1977.
Some compiled postal listings present a different chronology, with separate entries for Cain’s Store from 1863 to 1894 and Cains Store from 1897 to 1983. The discrepancy between the 1977 closure reported by Rennick and the later date appearing in the postal index remains unresolved without examination of the original Post Office Department records. The different entries may reflect changes in postal administration or recordkeeping rather than a single uninterrupted period of operation.
The eventual disappearance of the independent post office did not mean that the community itself ceased to exist. Its name survived in local geography, family histories, cemeteries, and the records of residents who continued to identify with the surrounding area. The original store site is no longer clearly marked, but the broader history of Cains Store remains recoverable through the documents left by the families and institutions connected to it.
Preserving the History of Cains Store
On October 17, 2014, the Kentucky Historical Society dedicated historical marker 2438 along West Highway 80 near Nancy. One side commemorates the establishment of the Cain’s Store post office and the appointment of Christopher Gossett, while the reverse recalls Colonel Robert McCook’s headquarters and the presence of the Ninth Ohio and Second Minnesota infantry regiments before the Battle of Mill Springs.
The marker connects two chapters of the settlement’s history that might otherwise appear unrelated. Its Civil War connection placed a small rural community within a major military campaign, while its post office served generations of residents whose daily lives depended on local businesses and communication with neighboring towns.
Cains Store’s history demonstrates how much can be recovered about a small Appalachian settlement through the surviving records of ordinary institutions. A county deed identifies the land associated with its early development, military reports connect it to the Civil War, a nineteenth-century business directory documents its economy, and local newspapers preserve the names and activities of residents who might otherwise have disappeared from the historical record.
Although the original store and independent post office are gone, Cains Store remains part of Pulaski County’s historical landscape. Its story belongs not only to the Battle of Mill Springs but also to the farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, distillers, postal workers, and families who made a small country store the center of their community.
Sources & Further Reading
Kentucky Historical Society. “Cain’s Store Post Office.” Kentucky Historical Marker No. 2438. Dedicated October 17, 2014. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://history.ky.gov/markers/cains-store-post-office Kentucky History
R. L. Polk & Co. Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1881–1882. Vol. 3, pt. 1. Detroit: R. L. Polk & Co. and A. C. Danser, 1881. Entry for “Cain’s Store” and “Cainville.” https://ldsgenealogy.com/KY/books/Kentucky-state-gazetteer-and-business-directory-1881-1882-Vol-III-pt-1-part-10.htm LDS Genealogy
United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, vol. 7, Operations in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Alabama, and Southwest Virginia, November 19, 1861–March 4, 1862. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1882. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth154610/ The Portal to Texas History
National Park Service. “The Battle of Mill Springs.” Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/misp/learn/historyculture/battle.htm National Park Service
National Park Service. “The Union Advances.” Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/misp/union-advances.htm National Park Service
National Park Service. “Order of Battle: Union.” Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/misp/learn/historyculture/order-of-battle-union.htm National Park Service
National Park Service. “Aftermath.” Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/misp/learn/historyculture/aftermath.htm National Park Service
National Archives and Records Administration. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971. Microfilm Publication M841, Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. Kentucky, roll 49, Powell through Woodford Counties. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html National Archives
National Archives and Records Administration. Post Office Department Records of Site Locations, 1837–1950. Microfilm Publication M1126, Record Group 28. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices National Archives
Rennick, Robert M. “Pulaski County Post Offices.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 38, no. 4 (September 2007). See discussion of Cains Store, Caintown, and the post office’s changing locations and closure. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP38-4.pdf La Posta Pub
Tibbals, Alma Owens. A History of Pulaski County, Kentucky. Louisville, KY: Moore, 1952. Particularly useful for Caintown, Wolf Creek, early families, land transactions, and county history. https://books.google.com/books?id=hUh4D_2eUFMC Google Books
Grand Lodge of Kentucky, Free and Accepted Masons. Book of Constitutions. Entry for Pulaski Lodge No. 551, Cains Store, Pulaski County, chartered October 23, 1874. https://glky.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Constitution2014Final.pdf Grand Lodge of Kentucky
United States Bureau of the Census. 1940 Census Enumeration District Descriptions: Kentucky, Pulaski County, ED 100-10 through ED 100-15. National Archives and Records Administration. Enumeration districts 100-14 and 100-15 identify roads through Cains Store. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1940_Census_Enumeration_District_Descriptions_-Kentucky–Pulaski_County-_ED_100-10,_ED_100-11,_ED_100-12,_ED_100-13,_ED_100-14,ED_100-15–NARA-_5863048.jpg Wikimedia Commons
United States Bureau of the Census. 1950 Census of Population, Pulaski County, Kentucky. Enumeration District 100-22. National Archives and Records Administration. The district description identifies the road running via Cains Store. https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?county=Pulaski&state=KY 1950 Census
The Somerset Journal. “Resigns as Carrier.” Somerset, KY, June 18, 1920. Report on W. W. Tartar’s approximately twenty-five years carrying mail between Nancy and Caintown. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/6_18_1920.htm KYGenWeb
The Somerset Journal. “Three Raids.” Somerset, KY, September 10, 1920. Contemporary report concerning federal and county officers destroying still equipment and mash near Cains Store. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/9_10_1920.htm KYGenWeb
The Somerset Journal. Local correspondence concerning residents of the Cains Store area. Somerset, KY, April 15, 1921. Transcribed by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/news/4_21/4_15_1921_2.htm
Pulaski County Public Library. Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library. Collections include Pulaski County court records, censuses, tax lists, wills, marriage bonds, and historic Somerset newspapers. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/ Pulaski County Public Library
Pulaski County Public Library. “Digital Resources.” Includes digitized runs of the Commonwealth Journal, Commonwealth, Somerset Journal, and Central Record. Accessed September 26, 2026. https://pulaskilibrary.com/digital-resources/ Pulaski County Public Library
Kentucky Historical Society. Kentucky Newspapers on Microfilm: Counties Nelson–Robertson. Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society. Pulaski County holdings include the Somerset Gazette, Somerset Reporter, Somerset Republican, Somerset Journal, Somerset Paragon, and other newspapers. https://www.kyhistory.com/digital/api/collection/LIB/id/1469/download Kentucky History
Rainwater, Roscoe. Here’s the Plan of the Rainwater Clan: Genealogical Research of Roscoe Rainwater, Vernon, Texas. 1972. The Rainwater Collection. Useful for Rainwater family connections and twentieth-century research concerning the Cains Store area. https://www.therainwatercollection.com/reference/17_RoscoeRainwater-research.pdf
The Filson Historical Society. “Wait-Beaty Family Papers, 1782–1982, bulk 1814–1874.” Louisville, KY. Archival collection containing Pulaski County property, legal, family, and school material useful for broader regional context. https://filsonhistorical.org/research-doc/wait-beaty-family-papers-1782-1982-bulk-1814-1874/
Author Note: Cains Store is one of those small Pulaski County places whose surviving records reveal far more history than its size suggests. Its story connects rural commerce, the postal system, local families, and the Battle of Mill Springs in one community.