Editing Harlan, Kentucky (section)

==History==
[[File:Harlan County Kentucky Courthouse.jpg|thumb|left|The fifth and present courthouse of Harlan, Kentucky, built from 1918 to 1922]]
Harlan was first settled by Samuel and Chloe Howard in 1796. Upon the founding of Harlan County (named for Kentucky pioneer [[Silas Harlan]]) in 1819, the Howards donated {{convert|12|acre|m2}} of land to serve as the county seat.<ref name=kenky>Greene, James III. ''The Kentucky Encyclopedia'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=8eFSK4o--M0C&pg=PA408 p. 408]. "Harlan". University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 1992. Accessed July 30, 2013.</ref> The community there was already known as "Mount Pleasant", apparently owing to a nearby [[Mound Builders#Mound building cultures|Indian mound]]. A post office was established on September 19, 1828, but called "Harlan Court House" due to [[Mount Pleasant, Kentucky (disambiguation)|another Mt. Pleasant]] preempting that name.<ref name=ren>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Lac2FUSj_oC&pg=PA131 | title=Kentucky Place Names | publisher=University Press of Kentucky | year=1987 | access-date= April 28, 2013 | author=Rennick, Robert M. | pages=131}}</ref> During the [[Kentucky in the American Civil War|Civil War]], [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] raiders under [[General officers in the Confederate States Army|Gen]]. [[Humphrey Marshall (general)|Humphrey Marshall]] occupied the town; the local postmaster renamed the community "Spurlock" after himself;<ref name=ren/> and, in October 1863, the courthouse was burnt down in reprisal for the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] destruction of the courthouse in [[Lee County, Virginia]].<ref name=kenky/> In 1865, the post office was renamed "Harlan" and, although the community was formally incorporated by the [[Kentucky General Assembly|state assembly]] as "Mount Pleasant" on April 15, 1884,<ref name=sos>Commonwealth of Kentucky. Office of the Secretary of State. Land Office. "[http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/cities/citydetail.asp?id=175 Harlan, Kentucky] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202222824/http://apps.sos.ky.gov/land/cities/citydetail.asp?id=175 |date=2013-12-02 }}". Accessed July 29, 2013.</ref> the town was already usually called "Harlan Court House" or "Harlan Town" by its inhabitants.<ref name=ren/> The city's terms of incorporation were amended to change the name to "Harlan" on March 13, 1912. One year before, the [[Louisville and Nashville Railroad]] had arrived in Harlan and prompted massive growth. The city had initially expanded east along the [[Clover Fork (Cumberland River)|Clover Fork]]; after World War II, it also expanded south along [[Martin's Fork (Cumberland River)|Martin's Fork]].<ref name=kenky/>

Harlan is the site of a criminal case in which a man, Condy Dabney, was convicted in 1924 of murdering a person who was later found alive.<ref>{{cite book |title=Convicting the Innocent; Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice |last=Borchard |first=Edwin M. |isbn=1-4086-7960-4 |pages=55 |year=1932 }}</ref>

A flood in 1977 prompted federal aid that diverted the Clover Fork into man-made tunnels under Ivy Hill in 1989.<ref name=kenky/> In the 1990s, a [[flood wall]] was completed on the city's west side along the four-lane bypass [[U.S. Route 421]].