Hardin County, Illinois

File:Hicks Dome IL shaded relief v1.svg

Topology of Hicks Dome in Hardin and Pope counties

Hardin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 3,649,<ref name="QF">Template:Cite web</ref> making it the least populous county in Illinois. Its county seat is Elizabethtown.<ref name="GR6">Template:Cite web</ref> Hardin County is located in the part of the state known as Little Egypt. Hardin County was named for Hardin County, Kentucky, which was named in honor of Colonel John Hardin, an officer in the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War.

History

Hardin County was formed in 1839 from Pope County. Additional area was later added from Gallatin County. Hardin County was named for Hardin County, Kentucky, which was named in honor of Colonel John Hardin, an officer in the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. Hardin was murdered by Shawnee Indians while he was on a peace mission in 1792 for President George Washington, in what is now Shelby County, Ohio. In the 1790s and early 1800s, the Hardin County area, especially Cave-In-Rock, was notorious as a stronghold used by outlaws, bandits, river pirates, and counterfeiters.

• Hardin County between 1839 and 1847
  Hardin County between 1839 and 1847
• Hardin in 1847, when it was enlarged to its current size
  Hardin in 1847, when it was enlarged to its current size

Geography

File:Fluorite-48284.jpg

Fluorite mineral specimen from Hardin County

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert is land and Template:Convert (2.2%) is water.<ref name="census-density" /> It is the second-smallest county in Illinois by area.

Hicks Dome (Template:Coord) is a geological feature in Hardin County. The Hicks Dome is underlain by ultramafic igneous rocks and igneous diatremes or breccia pipes. Most geologists accept the theory that the older rocks at the center of the uplift are a result of this deep-seated igneous activity. This activity may also have provided the fluorine in the fluorspar deposits in the region. Fluorspar, or calcium fluoride, was mined in Hardin County until the early 1990s.

Climate and weather

Template:Climate chart In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Elizabethtown have ranged from a low of Template:Convert in January to a high of Template:Convert in July, although a record low of Template:Convert was recorded in January 1994 and a record high of Template:Convert was recorded in August 2007. Average monthly precipitation ranged from Template:Convert in October to Template:Convert in May.<ref name="weather" />

Adjacent counties

• Gallatin County - north
• Union County, Kentucky - east
• Crittenden County, Kentucky - south
• Livingston County, Kentucky - southwest
• Pope County - west
• Saline County - northwest

Transit

• Rides Mass Transit District

Major highways

• File:Illinois 1.svg Illinois Route 1
• File:Illinois 34.svg Illinois Route 34
• File:Illinois 146.svg Illinois Route 146

National protected area

• Shawnee National Forest (part)

Demographics

As of the 2010 census, there were 4,320 people, 1,915 households, and 1,234 families residing in the county.<ref name="census-dp1">Template:Cite web</ref> The population density was Template:Convert. There were 2,488 housing units at an average density of Template:Convert.<ref name="census-density">Template:Cite web</ref> The racial makeup of the county was 97.3% white, 0.6% American Indian, 0.5% Asian, 0.3% black or African American, 0.1% Pacific islander, 0.3% from other races, and 0.8% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 1.3% of the population.<ref name="census-dp1" /> In terms of ancestry, 26.5% were Irish, 23.8% were German, 10.4% were English, and 4.3% were American.<ref name="census-dp2">Template:Cite web</ref>

Of the 1,915 households, 26.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.9% were married couples living together, 9.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 35.6% were non-families, and 31.7% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.78. The median age was 46.3 years.<ref name="census-dp1" />

The median income for a household in the county was $27,578 and the median income for a family was $38,576. Males had a median income of $42,955 versus $26,683 for females. The per capita income for the county was $18,515. About 17.4% of families and 22.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 37.4% of those under age 18 and 14.6% of those age 65 or over.<ref name="census-dp3">Template:Cite web</ref>

Communities

City

• Rosiclare

Villages

• Cave-In-Rock
• Elizabethtown

Unincorporated communities

• Cadiz
• Eichorn
• Finneyville
• Gross
• Hicks
• Karbers Ridge
• Lamb
• Loves Corner
• Peters Creek
• Rock Creek
• Saline Landing
• Shetlerville
• Sparks Hill

Precincts

• Cave-In-Rock Precinct
• East Rosiclare Precinct
• McFarlan Precinct
• Monroe Precinct
• Rock Precinct
• Rosiclare Precinct
• Stone Church Precinct
• West Rosiclare Precinct

Ghost towns

• Battery Rock<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Chambers Creek<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Fairview Landing<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Grosville<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Hall Ridge<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Hester<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Illinois Furnace<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Lambtown<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Martha Furnace<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• McFarlan<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Parkinson's Landing<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Robin's Ferry<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Sellers<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Sellers Landing<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Twitchell's Mills<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />
• Wolrab Mills<ref name="Hardin Country, Illinois Genealogy Website" />

Notable people

• James Ford (1775-1833), civic leader and secret criminal leader of a gang of Ohio River pirates and highwaymen
• James Karber (1914–1976), Illinois lawyer, businessman, and politician
• Isaiah L. Potts (1784?-after 1843), tavern keeper of the notorious Potts Tavern who, allegedly, ran a gang of pirates and highwaymen
• Jennifer Rhodes (1947-), television and film actress from Rosiclare
• Sturdivant Gang, 19th century counterfeiters in Rosiclare

Politics

Template:PresHead Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresRow Template:PresFoot In its early history, Hardin County was opposed to the “Yankee” Republican Party and its Civil War against the South – with whom it was closely allied both culturally and economically. It did not vote for a Republican presidential candidate until Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 landslide.

Since 1904, however, Hardin County has turned powerfully Republican. Like the nearby counties of Johnson, Massac and Pope, it managed to remain loyal to William Howard Taft during the 1912 election when the Republican Party was mortally divided. Hardin County would next be carried by a Democratic presidential candidate in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1932 landslide victory, and not after that until Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The county did trend Democratic in the following three decades, actually voting more Democratic than the nation at-large between 1972 and 1996. Nonetheless, since 2000 Hardin County has followed the same political trajectory as Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and Appalachian regions of adjacent states, whereby the Democratic Party's liberal views on social issues have produced dramatic swings to the Republican Party amongst its almost entirely Southern white population.<ref>Cohn, Nate; ‘Demographic Shift: Southern Whites’ Loyalty to G.O.P. Nearing That of Blacks to Democrats’, New York Times, April 24, 2014</ref> The past six Presidential elections have observed a swing totalling 79 percentage points to the GOP, with Hillary Clinton in 2016 receiving barely half the proportion of the worst-performing Democrat from before 2010.

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Hardin County, Illinois.
• 38th parallel structures, of which Hicks Dome is the easternmost member.

References

• History of Hardin County

<references />

External links

• Hardin County tourism page
• Harden County History