Mud Lick is a rural

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Monroe County, Kentucky Monroe County is a county located in the Eastern Pennyroyal Plateau region of the U.S. state of Kentucky. Its county seat is Tompkinsville. The county is named for President James Monroe. It is a prohibition or dry county. History Monroe Coun ...

, United States. It is concentrated around the intersection of

Kentucky Route 63 Kentucky Route 63 (KY 63) is a north–south state highway that traverses Monroe and Barren counties in south central Kentucky. Route description KY 63 starts at the Tennessee state line at the northern terminus of Tennessee State ...

and Kentucky Route 870, northwest of Tompkinsville.

History

The community is believed to have been named for a salty stream that was frequently rendered muddy by animals drinking from it. Natural

mineral lick A mineral lick (also known as a salt lick) is a place where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that farm ...

s, whether associated with brine springs or just mineral-rich soils, were frequented by animals that literally licked the ground to ingest the salt or other trace minerals, often creating a muddy surface.

Big Bone Lick Big Bone Lick State Park is located at Big Bone in Boone County, Kentucky. The name of the park comes from the Pleistocene megafauna fossils found there. Mammoths are believed to have been drawn to this location by a salt lick deposited around t ...

in Boone County, Kentucky, is a famous example, but many such “licks” were known to American pioneer hunters and settlers. “Sulphur Lick” is a community name of similar origin in northeast Monroe County. A “Large Sulphur Lick” on Indian Creek near Flippin was described in a military survey (1797). A post office operated at Mud Lick from 1853 until the 1980s.

In popular culture

Former

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vario ...

wrestler

Hillbilly Jim James Morris (born July 5, 1952) is an American retired professional wrestler and current radio host, better known by his ring name, Hillbilly Jim. He is best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1984 to 1991, ...

was billed as being from Mud Lick, Kentucky. He now hosts a radio show, ''Hillbilly Jim's Moonshine Matinee'', on the

Sirius XM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...

radio station Outlaw Country (Channel 60), and references himself as broadcasting from Mud Lick, Kentucky.Outlaw Country
Sirius XM website. Accessed: 5 April 2017. An '' X-Files'' episode, "Kitten" S11 E6 (first aired February 7, 2018) takes place primarily in Mud Lick, with some scenes in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

and

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

Headquarters (Virginia). The premise is that U.S. Marines in Vietnam were exposed to a mind-altering gas, and later subjected to experiments at a facility in Mud Lick, making them see monsters and go on lethal rampages. In the sitcom

Mike & Molly ''Mike & Molly'' is an American television sitcom created by Mark Roberts on CBS. It premiered on September 20, 2010, and aired 127 episodes over six seasons. The series stars Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy as the eponymous Mike and Molly, ...

Rondi Reed played Margaret "Peggy" Biggs, the mother of Officer Mike Biggs. Peggy was from “Mud Lick” the topic of which was featured in a couple of episodes. Mud Lick, in Monroe County, is portrayed in the 1999 documentary film, American Hollow, documenting the close knit Bowling family of Mud Lick Hollow, Kentucky and its almost frozen in time aura. The area filmed by Rory Kennedy also takes place in Saul, Kentucky and is located in Perry County, Kentucky. https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/obituaries/article44071212.html

References

Unincorporated communities in Monroe County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky {{MonroeCountyKY-geo-stub