Shoulderblade 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 ...

located in

Breathitt County Breathitt County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the Eastern Kentucky, eastern portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 13,718. Its county seat is Jackson, K ...

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. It is reportedly named after a creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork of the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River in Kentucky, United States. The river and its tributaries drain much of eastern and central Kentucky, passing through the Eastern Coalfield, the Cumberland Mountains, and the Bluegrass re ...

. The creek was in turn named for a bone of very large animal once discovered on its banks.Blevins, Don
Peculiar, Uncertain & Two Egg: the unusual origins of more than 3,000 American place names
p. 134 (2000) The community is also referred to as Juan, named after the

Battle of San Juan Hill The Battle of San Juan Hill (), also known as the Battle for the San Juan Heights, was a major battle of the Spanish–American War fought between an American force under the command of William Rufus Shafter and Joseph Wheeler against a Span ...

.Rennick, Robert M
Kentucky Place Names
p. 155 (1984)

References

Unincorporated communities in Breathitt County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky {{BreathittCountyKY-geo-stub