Appalachian Community Histories – Whitley City, McCreary County: Coolidge, Whitley Depot, and Kentucky’s Last County Seat
Whitley City sits near the middle of McCreary County, close to springs on Jenneys Creek and along the road and rail corridors that helped shape the county’s early public life. Its name sounds like a municipality, but that is part of what makes the place unusual. Whitley City became the county seat when McCreary County was formed in 1912, yet it has never been incorporated as a city. Kentucky Atlas notes that the older settlement was known as Coolidge, then Whitley Depot on the Cincinnati Southern Railway, before the county seat took the name Whitley City.
That makes Whitley City one of those Appalachian places where the public map and the lived map do not always match. It is a courthouse town without city government, a county seat whose importance came from the creation of the county around it, and a place where springs, railroads, roads, forest land, newspapers, and court records all help tell the story.
Before Whitley City
The older settlement name was Coolidge. According to Kentucky Atlas, Coolidge was established early in the nineteenth century because of nearby springs, including Dripping Spring. A Coolidge post office opened in 1880 and was renamed Whitley City in 1912. The same source states that the place later became known as Whitley Depot on the Cincinnati Southern Railway.
That older name matters because it points to a history before the courthouse. The site was not simply invented in 1912. People already knew the springs, the roadways, the creek bottoms, and the railroad stop. The later county seat grew out of an older settlement pattern, then took on a new role when the state carved McCreary County out of older county jurisdictions.
The railroad connection also places Whitley City in a larger story of south-central Kentucky. The National Register form for the Stearns Administrative and Commercial District describes this part of McCreary County as rugged, forested, and relatively isolated until the Cincinnati and Southern Railroad came through in the 1880s. The same form places Stearns three miles south of Whitley City and ties the surrounding area to railroad, timber, coal, and company-town development.
The Birth of McCreary County
McCreary County was created in 1912 from parts of Pulaski, Wayne, and Whitley counties. The Kentucky Historical Society’s marker for “McCreary County, 1912” states that it was the last of Kentucky’s 120 counties and that it was named for James B. McCreary, who lived from 1838 to 1918.
That last-county status is more than trivia. The Kentucky Legislative Research Commission explains that Kentucky’s 1891 Constitution placed restrictions on the creation of new counties. McCreary County, formed in 1912, is the only county created in Kentucky since that constitution was adopted.
In that sense, Whitley City became a county seat at the end of a long Kentucky pattern. Earlier counties had often been formed because residents wanted more accessible courthouse towns in a time of rough roads and long travel. McCreary County came late, after the state had already made county creation more difficult. Its formation joined older settlements, mountain communities, railroad stops, timber lands, coal operations, and farm neighborhoods into a new county identity.
From Depot to Courthouse Town
When McCreary County was created, Whitley City became the county seat. Kentucky Atlas gives the basic sequence clearly: Coolidge, Whitley Depot, and then Whitley City as the seat of the new county. The same entry says the origin of the names is not fully known, which is worth preserving instead of forcing a story that the records do not prove.
The county-level Kentucky Atlas entry places McCreary County in the Eastern Coal Field region, formed from Pulaski, Wayne, and Whitley counties, with Whitley City as the county seat. It also notes that the county is entirely within the Daniel Boone National Forest and includes part of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area and part of Cumberland Falls State Resort Park.
That landscape shaped the county seat’s role. Whitley City was not a large commercial city in the way Somerset, Corbin, or Williamsburg became regional anchors. Its importance came from being the place where county business gathered. The courthouse, county offices, lawyers, clerks, newspapers, elections, taxes, deeds, court cases, and public meetings made the community central even without incorporation.
The Courthouse and the Fires
The courthouse story is one of the clearest ways to understand Whitley City’s public history. Courthouse histories identify Whitley City as the county seat from 1912 to the present. The first courthouse was a two-story wooden building constructed in 1914. It was destroyed by fire in 1927. A second courthouse was built in 1928 and was destroyed by fire in 1951. The present courthouse was constructed in 1952 and 1953 at a cost of $118,000.
The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives also lists McCreary County among Kentucky courthouse disaster counties, with disasters recorded in 1921, 1927, and 1951.
For local historians and family researchers, those fires are not just architectural events. They affect the record trail. Courthouse fires can mean lost deeds, damaged court papers, missing marriage records, gaps in county administration, and broken evidence chains. In a county as young as McCreary, the courthouse fires also came early enough to affect the preservation of the county’s first decades.
The present courthouse stands as the third major courthouse in the county-seat story. Its location at 1 North Main Street places the public center of the county in Whitley City, where the town’s unincorporated status has never erased its county-seat role.
A County Seat Beside Stearns
Whitley City’s story is closely tied to Stearns, which lies just to the south. The Stearns Administrative and Commercial District National Register form describes Stearns as a former company town in south-central McCreary County, located where the Kentucky and Tennessee Railroad connected with the Cincinnati and Southern. It also describes the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company’s large timber and coal interests and places Stearns three miles south of Whitley City.
That relationship matters because Whitley City and Stearns developed with different kinds of authority. Stearns was the company and industrial center, tied to coal, lumber, rail yards, company offices, and planned commercial buildings. Whitley City was the county seat, tied to courthouse records, elections, county government, and public administration.
Together, the two communities help explain McCreary County’s early twentieth-century identity. One held the offices of county government. The other showed the power of outside capital, company planning, timber extraction, and coal development. Both depended on transportation routes, and both sat within a mountain landscape that had long shaped settlement.
Newspaper Memory and Local Records
For Whitley City, one of the strongest historical trails is the local newspaper record. The Digital Archives of the McCreary County Public Library includes the McCreary County Record from 1929 to 2015, with 60,774 pages available. The archive notes that the newspaper files include text-searchable issues from 1953 to 2015 along with early issues from 1929 to 1949.
That archive is especially valuable because Whitley City’s history is not only found in state summaries or courthouse architecture. It is found in county-seat notices, school news, obituaries, tax lists, local business advertisements, court reports, election coverage, road projects, church events, sports, fires, public meetings, and anniversary stories.
For many Appalachian communities, the everyday record is the real record. The McCreary County Record gives researchers a way to see Whitley City not only as a point on a map, but as a living county-seat community where ordinary public life unfolded week by week.
Whitley City’s Place in Appalachian History
Whitley City’s story is not dramatic because it became a great city. It is important because it did not have to become one. Its role came from being the public center of Kentucky’s last county, from standing near older springs and railroad routes, and from carrying courthouse functions in an unincorporated place.
The name preserves several layers at once. Coolidge points to the older settlement. Whitley Depot points to the railroad. Whitley City points to the courthouse era that began when McCreary County was created in 1912. The county itself points back to Pulaski, Wayne, and Whitley counties, and forward to the modern identity of a mountain county tied to Daniel Boone National Forest, Big South Fork, Cumberland Falls, coal, timber, railroads, and local memory.
Whitley City may not be incorporated, but it has served as the civic center of McCreary County for more than a century. Its history is the history of a place that became official through the courthouse, remembered itself through newspapers, and remained rooted in the mountain landscape around Jenneys Creek.
Sources & Further Reading
Kentucky Historical Society. “McCreary County, 1912.” Kentucky Historical Markers. https://history.ky.gov/markers/mccreary-county-1912
Historical Marker Database. “McCreary County, 1912.” https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=73738
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. County Government in Kentucky. Informational Bulletin No. 115. Frankfort: Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, 2025. https://legislature.ky.gov/LRC/Publications/Informational%20Bulletins/ib115.pdf
Kentucky General Assembly. “McCreary County: Newest Kentucky County.” A Kentucky History Moment. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/LegislativeMoments/Moments16RS/web/legislative%20moment%2051.pdf
McCreary County, Kentucky. “Documents.” https://www.mccrearycounty.com/Documents.html
Kentucky.gov. “McCreary County.” https://kentucky.gov/government/Pages/AgencyProfile.aspx?Title=McCreary+County
Kentucky Court of Justice. “McCreary.” https://kycourts.gov/Courts/County-Information/Pages/McCreary.aspx
Kentucky Association of Counties. “McCreary County Clerk.” https://kentuckycountyclerks.com/mccreary-2/
U.S. Geological Survey. “Whitley City.” Geographic Names Information System. https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/summary/516340
U.S. Census Bureau. “State of Kentucky Census Designated Places: ACS23.” TIGERweb. https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/tigerwebmain/Files/bas25/tigerweb_bas25_cdp_2023_acs23_ky.html
U.S. Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Maps: Preserving the Past.” https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
University of Texas Libraries. “Kentucky Historical Topographic Maps.” Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/topo/kentucky/
Pomerene, Joel B. Geology of the Whitley City Quadrangle, Kentucky and the Kentucky Part of the Winfield Quadrangle. Geologic Quadrangle 260. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1964. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/gq260
National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Stearns Administrative and Commercial District. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1988. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/e965a168-35d9-4fe3-836e-efce98201452
National Archives and Records Administration. National Register of Historic Places: Single Property Listings, Kentucky. https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_KY/SPFindAid_KY.pdf
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Rand McNally Bankers Directory.” FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/rand-mcnally-bankers-directory-105
McCreary County Public Library. “News & Local History Resources.” https://mccrearylibrary.org/news-local-history-resources/
McCreary County Public Library. Digital Archives of the McCreary County Public Library. https://mccreary.advantage-preservation.com/
McCreary County Public Library. “McCreary County Record.” Digital Archives of the McCreary County Public Library. https://mccreary.advantage-preservation.com/search
Community History Archives. “McCreary County Public Library.” https://communityhistoryarchives.com/places/mccreary-county-public-library/
OldNews.com. “McCreary County Record Historical Archive.” https://www.oldnews.com/en/newspapers/united-states/kentucky/whitley-city/mccreary-county-record
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Whitley City, Kentucky.” https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-whitley-city.html
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “McCreary County, Kentucky.” https://www.kyatlas.com/21147.html
Courthouses.co. “McCreary County Courthouse.” https://courthouses.co/us-states/h-l/kentucky/mccreary-county/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Courthouse Disasters in Kentucky.” https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Courthouse-Disasters.aspx
FamilySearch. “McCreary County, Kentucky Genealogy.” https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/McCreary_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
Genealogy Trails. “McCreary County, Kentucky.” https://genealogytrails.com/ken/mccreary/
University of Kentucky Libraries. “McCreary County, KY Free Blacks and Free Mulattoes.” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/2465
Kentucky Heritage Council. An Historic Context of the New Deal in East Kentucky, 1933–1943. https://heritage.ky.gov/Documents/NewDealBuilds.pdf
Kentucky Heritage Council. “Historic Contexts.” https://heritage.ky.gov/historic-places/resources-survey/Pages/publications.aspx
McCreary County Water District. “History.” https://www.mccrearywater.com/history
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Author Note: Whitley City is the kind of place where a courthouse, a railroad name, and an older spring settlement all meet in the records. Its history shows how a community can remain central to county life even without becoming an incorporated city.