Gradyville is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Adair County,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, United States. Its elevation is 699 feet (213 m). It was the birthplace of

Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky University (WKU) is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky, United States. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a few decades earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glas ...

basketball coach Edgar Diddle.

History

A post office was established in the community in 1848, and given the name of its first postmaster, William F. Grady. In February 1882, an Act of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky was approved that prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages within one mile of Wilmores and Kemp's store-house in Gradyville. The Act imposed a $20 fine for each occurrence of violating the act. Gradyville suffered a

flash flood A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice and snow. Flash f ...

on June 7, 1907, as the result of a

cloudburst Cloudburst in New Orleans A cloudburst is an enormous amount of precipitation in a short period of time, sometimes accompanied by hail and thunder, which is capable of creating flood conditions. Cloudbursts can quickly dump large amounts of wat ...

that precipitated three inches of rain in an hour. The sudden downfall caused Big Creek, a normally small and quiet stream that runs through Gradyville, to rise by ten feet and to wash away several houses that were built on the banks of the creek. The flood resulted in the deaths of 20 Gradyville residents.

Notable people

Edgar Diddle, an American college men's basketball coach, was born near Gradyville in 1895 and was a Gradyville native.

References

Unincorporated communities in Adair County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky {{AdairCountyKY-geo-stub