Pettit, Kentucky

Pettit, Kentucky
Type	Former depot community
County	Daviess County
State	Kentucky
Named for	Thomas S. Pettit, newspaper editor
Railroad	Owensboro and Russellville
Settled	1872, by woodcutters
Location	Panther Creek bottoms

Pettit was a depot community in Daviess County, Kentucky, in the Panther Creek bottoms, named for the newspaper editor whose land the railroad crossed.

Thomas S. Pettit

Thomas S. Pettit, editor of the Owensboro Monitor during much of the 1860s, was a great "booster" for the development of Daviess County. He was particularly vocal in support of the county's first railroad, the Owensboro and Russellville. He saw the line, completed as far as Livermore in 1871, as making accessible a vast stand of virgin timber on land Pettit owned along Panther Creek.

The Depot

As was the custom, he donated land upon which to build the railroad to the O. & R. company, and also land for a depot which was named Pettit in his honor. Before the coming of the railroad, the low, swampy Panther Creek bottoms had little value, but Pettit envisioned his acres cleared of the valuable timber which would be converted into lumber, barrel staves, railroad cross ties and other salable products.

Clearing the Bottoms

The land, once drained, would be some of the richest farmland anywhere, and would be one of the reasons that Daviess County would become one of six Kentucky counties included in the U.S. Cornbelt. By 1872 a small community of woodcutters developed around the depot and began realizing Pettit's vision.

However, the location was unhealthy, and the wood cutting and processing soon moved south to higher ground at Sutherland. Although the area is still prone to flooding, a perhaps advantage to the bottoms clearing was the mitigation of the anopheles mosquitoes which had long been the cause of malaria in the area and a bane to development.

Pettit Today

The name Pettit still stuck, and today it is home to a few families and a Baptist church.

Reference to article by Glenn Hodges