Editing Livermore, Kentucky (section)

==History==

===Early years===
William Brown founded the city in 1837 as "Brown's Landing", but the post office established the next year took the name Livermore. The origin is disputed: some historians trace it to an otherwise-unknown shopkeeper named James Livermore, others to civil engineer Alonzo Livermore who helped construct a dam across the Green River at [[Rumsey, Kentucky|Rumsey]].<ref name=ren>Rennick, Robert. ''Kentucky Place Names'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=3Lac2FUSj_oC&pg=PA176 p. 176]. University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 1987. Accessed 1 August 2013.</ref> The city was formally incorporated by the [[Kentucky Assembly|state assembly]] in 1850.<ref>{{cite book|last=Collins|first=Lewis|title=History of Kentucky|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5FQAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA597|year=1877|page=597|isbn=9780722249208 }}</ref><ref name=sos>Commonwealth of Kentucky. Office of the Secretary of State. Land Office. "Livermore, Kentucky". Accessed 1 August 2013.</ref>

===Opera house lynching===
Livermore achieved national and international notoriety in the second decade of the 20th century for a bizarre [[lynching]]. On April 20, 1911, a black man named Will Porter (or Potter) shot and wounded Clarence Mitchell, a white man, after a barroom argument. Sheriff V.P. Stabler then arrested Porter. After this, accounts vary. The ''New York Times'' account holds that a local mob of fifty overwhelmed the sheriff, who had hid Porter in the opera house basement to protect him. They then bound Porter's hands and feet, took him to the center stage, and shot him there.<ref>''New York Times'', reprinted in the ''Bangor Daily Commercial''. 27 April 1911. Op. cit. Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. ''Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South'', p. 251. U.N.C. Press (Chapel Hill), 1997. Op. cit. Goldsby, Jacqueline. ''A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature'', p. 227. Uni. of Chicago Press (Chicago), 2006.</ref> Another version reported by several Kentucky papers omitted the sheriff's concern and had Porter taken from the jail to the opera house, where admission was charged to witness the hanging. Those in the gallery were permitted a single shot at Porter; those in the orchestra seats were allowed to empty their guns.<ref name=kenky>{{cite book |title=''Encyclopedia of Kentucky'' |chapter=Livermore |publisher=Somerset Publishers |location=[[New York, New York]] |year=1987 |isbn=0-403-09981-1}}</ref>

The [[NAACP]] quickly condemned the lynching and sent letters to [[President Taft]], the Congress, and [[Augustus E. Willson|Governor Willson]] of Kentucky. At Willson's insistence, Kentucky issued warrants for 18 of the lynchers; three leaders – including Mitchell's brother Lawrence – were separately indicted and tried for murder, but quickly acquitted.<ref name=kenky/> At the time of the indictments, it was locally reported that Clarence Mitchell, "the young white man" whose shooting had enraged the Livermore mob, "has since fully recovered, and has married."<ref>''Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer'', 11 July 1911, p.8.</ref> Following acquittal of the three ringleaders in fall 1911, indictments of the remaining 15 were "filed away" and appear to have never been brought to trial.<ref>''Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer'', 19 January 1912, p.8</ref> In 1915, both presiding Judge T. F. Birkhead and Commonwealth Attorney Ben D. Ringo were defeated for reelection, Birkhead receiving not one vote from McLean County.<ref>''Owensboro Daily Messenger'', 3 November 1915, p. 1</ref>