Olive Hill is a home rule-class city along Tygarts Creek in Carter 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 ...

, in the United States. The population was 1,599 during the year 2010 U.S. Census.

History

Olive Hill began as a rural

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically a trading post allows people from one geogr ...

established by the Henderson brothers in the first part of the 19th century. Although Olive Hill was allegedly named by Elias P. Davis for his friend Thomas Oliver, there is no evidence to support this popular contention. In 1881, the town was moved from a hillside location to the current location in the Tygarts Creek valley, where the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad had laid tracks. The hillside location become known as Old Olive Hill and now serves as the city's residential area. On March 24, 1884, Olive Hill incorporated as a city and served as the county seat of the short-lived Beckham County from February 9 to April 29, 1904. Retrieved on 2010-11-05 The

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis Potter Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Rich ...

served Olive Hill and many other places on the railroad's Lexington Subdivision (running from Ashland to Lexington). The C&O merged into the Chessie System, which CSX Transportation later bought out, and after that CSX pulled up the railroad in the mid-1980s. Olive Hill retained and restored a passenger depot as well as a caboose ("John Hop Brown" Memorial Park). According to George C. Wright in his A History of Blacks in Kentucky, volume 2, "In the small community of Olive Hill in 1917, several hundred white laborers at the brick-making General Refractories Company threatened to strike unless recently employed blacks were dismissed. After first refusing to meet with the leaders of the disgruntled workers, the company managers acceded to their demand and fired all the black workers,"(p. 14). File:John "Hop" Brown Memorial Park.jpg, John "Hop" Brown Memorial park File:Olive Hill Depot.JPG, Preserved Passenger Depot File:Olive Hill High School.jpg, alt=Aerial view of the Olive Hill High School campus, Nov. 2022., Aerial view of the Olive Hill High School campus, Nov. 2022.

Geography

Olive Hill is located in western Carter County primarily on the north side of Tygarts Creek, a tributary of the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

. U.S. Route 60 passes through the city, leading east to Grayson, the Carter County seat, and west to Morehead.

Interstate 64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at Interstate 70, I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and U.S. Route 61, US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern ter ...

passes north of Olive Hill, leading east to

Huntington, West Virginia Huntington is a city in Cabell County, West Virginia, Cabell and Wayne County, West Virginia, Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The County seat, seat of Cabell County, the city is located at the confluence of the Ohio River, O ...

, and west to Lexington. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, Olive Hill has a total area of , of which , or 1.51%, is water.

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 1,813 people, 791 households, and 488 families residing in the city. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 886 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 98.73%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.17%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.50% Native American, 0.11% from other races, and 0.50% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 0.61% of the population. There were 791 households, out of which 26.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.5% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 14.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.2% were non-families. 34.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 18.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.28 and the average family size was 2.93. In the city, the population was spread out, with 24.5% under the age of 18, 8.3% from 18 to 24, 24.4% from 25 to 44, 24.4% from 45 to 64, and 18.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 78.0 males. The median income for a household in the city was $22,958, and the median income for a family was $31,071. Males had a median income of $24,063 versus $19,191 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the city was $12,628. About 16.7% of families and 24.8% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 35.1% of those under age 18 and 23.5% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Public education in Olive Hill is administered by Carter County School District, which operates Olive Hill Elementary School, West Carter Middle School, and

West Carter High School West Carter High School is a high school located in Olive Hill, Kentucky and is part of the Carter County Schools (Kentucky), Carter County Schools System. Its mascot is the Comet, and the colors are Maroon (color), maroon, blue, and white. The ...

. Olive Hill has a

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

, a branch of the Carter County Public Library, housed on the third floor of the former Olive Hill High School.

Notable people

Olive Hill is the birthplace of

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

singer and writer

Tom T. Hall Thomas Hall (May 25, 1936 – August 20, 2021), known professionally as Tom T. Hall and informally nicknamed "The Storyteller," was an American country music singer-songwriter and short-story author. He wrote 12 number-one hit songs, with 26 more ...

(The Story Teller), a fact that is noted on the "Welcome to Olive Hill" signs on the edges of town.

References

External links

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Olive Hill Trail TownOlive Hill Chamber of Commerce
{{Authority control Cities in Carter County, Kentucky Populated places established in 1884 Cities in Kentucky 1884 establishments in Kentucky