Town file
Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah, Kentucky (McCracken County, Kentucky) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 430, "Naked Aggression & Vicious Violence" (7 October 2023).
- Town
- Paducah
- County
- McCracken County
- State
- Kentucky
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 430
- Approximate location
- 37.071, -88.644
Episode 430 / 7 October 2023 / 70 min / express
Naked Aggression & Vicious Violence
"We're going to Paducah, Kentucky... It's in McCracken County." about 0:03:05
The case: Murder of Connie Morgan (August 3, 2002). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2023
- Population
- 26,248
- Median household income
- $42,024
- Median home value
- $163,200
History, in brief
- Paducah was settled as Pekin around 1821. about 0:04:27
- Pekin was laid out by William Clark of Lewis and Clark, and was later renamed Paducah. about 0:04:44
- Local lore connected the name to the Chickasaw chief Paduke and called his people the Paducas, but authorities on the Chickasaw say there was never a chief with that name or anything close to it. about 0:04:51
- The Chickasaw language has no related words, so it is believed Clark named the town for the Comanche people of the Western Plains, from a Spanish transliteration of the Choctaw word 'padoca'. about 0:05:11
- In 1937 the Ohio River flooded, rising fifty feet above flood stage and cresting at sixty feet eight inches. about 0:05:31
- For nearly three weeks, 27,000 residents were forced to flee or stay with friends and relatives on higher ground. about 0:05:46
- At one point eighteen inches of rain fell in sixteen days, along with sheets of swiftly moving ice. about 0:05:59
- The 1937 Ohio River flood was the worst natural disaster in Paducah's history and elsewhere in the Ohio Valley. about 0:06:07
- The earthen levee was ineffective, so Congress authorised the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build a flood wall. about 0:06:17
The reviews read out
5 stars
"Lived there all their life; the biggest attraction is quilting, with the national quilt museum, and a beautiful riverfront, though there is not much to do; they love it."about 0:06:35
3 stars
"A nice town that is larger than you would think, with great fishing in the Ohio River, which separates Kentucky from the north."about 0:06:59
3 stars
"People here are not very welcoming."about 0:07:27
1 star
"Most food places are bad, the mall sucks with few options, there are thousands of Dollar Trees and Dollar Generals, schools are not bad, everyone is racist and rude, there are drug problems, and downtown is sketchy and creepy at night."about 0:08:00
1 star
"The reviewer and their mother Claudine lived there about twenty-five years and call it ghastly; their house was haunted, built on an old burial ground, with doors and windows opening themselves, figures, crying and screaming; a car with 666 on the plate passed the day they miscarried; they warn people not to visit or move there."about 0:08:44
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Benton, Kentucky22 miles
- Tiline, Kentucky23 miles
- Cadiz, Kentucky48 miles
- Eldorado, Illinois52 miles
- Cape Girardeau, Missouri53 miles
- Madisonville, Kentucky66 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.