Knox County, the forty-first in order of formation, is in southeastern Kentucky; it has an area of 388 square miles. It was created on December 19, 1799, from Lincoln County and was named after Gen. Henry Knox of Massachusetts, the nation's first Secretary of War. We have two cities; Barbourville, the County Seat and Corbin. Knox County originally embraced all the upper Cumberland Valley and several counties were later created from its territory.

The area known as Knox County was the home of prehistoric Native Americans, and remains of villages and mounds have been located. The first English explorers who came to the region were Dr. Thomas Walker and companions. In the 1760s parties of the Long Hunters roamed the region for months at a time and often followed the Warriors' Path to the Flat Lick-Stinking Creek area. In 1775 Daniel Boone blazed the trail later known as the Wilderness Road through Knox County. The county's frontier heritage is celebrated each October with the Daniel Boone Festival, established in 1948. Daniel Boone Trail Memorial Park is located at Flat Lick, and the Knox Historical Museum in Barbourville contains many items relating to the frontier era.

Knox County's notable citizens include Joseph Eve, the nation's only charged d'affaires to the Republic of Texas; Caleb Powers, involved in the assassination of Gov. William Goebel (1900); and U.S. Congressmen James Love, Green Adams, George M. Adams, John H. Wilson, John M. Robison and John M. Robison, Jr . Knox County has provided the state with two Kentucky governors, James Black (1919) and Flem Sampson (1927-31).