Paducah, a city and the county-seat of McCracken county, Kentucky, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Tennessee river with the Ohio, about 12 M. below the mouth of the Cumberland, and about 50 m. V. by N. of Cairo, Illinois. Pop. (1890), 12,7c7; (1900), 19,446, of whom 5814 were negroes and 516 were foreitr_born; (1910 census) 22,760. It is served by three branches of the Illinois Central railroad by a branch of the Nashville Chattanooga & St Louis railway (of which it is the terminus), and by steamboat lines to Pittsburg, Louisville, St Louis, New Orleans, Nashville, Chattanooga, and other river ports. Paducah is in a rich agricultural region, and its wholesale trade is probably greater than that of any other city of the state except Louisville. Its trade is largely in groceries, whisky, tobacco, hardware, grain and live stock, vegetables and lumber. It is a large looseleaf tobacco market, and is a headquarters for tow boats carrying coal down the Mississippi. The Illinois Central and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis railways have repair shops here; and there are numerous manufactures, the value of the factory products increasing from $2,976,931 in 1900 to $4,443,223 in 1905, or 49.3%. Paducah (said to have been named in honour of an Indian chief who lived in the vicinity and of whom there is a statue in the city) was settled in 1821, was laid out in 1827, was incorporated as a town in 1830, and was chartered as a city in 1856. The city was occupied by General U. S. Grant the 5th of September 1861; on the 25th of March 1864 it was entered by a Confederate force under General Nathan B. Forrest, who, however, was unable to capture the fortifications and immediately withdrew.
Paducah
