Danville/Boyle County Fact Sheet

Historical Footnotes

1782-83: Settled by John Crow; named for Walker Daniel.

1792: Constitutional convention in Danville results in Kentucky statehood.

1819: Centre College founded.

1823: Kentucky School for the Deaf founded, first publicly funded U.S. high school for the deaf.

1862: Town deals with Union and Confederate wounded from Battle of Perryville

1921: Centre football team defeats Harvard in Boston, people dance in the street in Danville.

1956: Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift come to town to film Raintree County.

2000: Danville becomes smallest town ever to host a national election debate.


Quick Facts

Population: 27,358 (Boyle County, 1999). Nonwhite 10.3%. Median age 37.7.

Employment*: Unemployment rate 3.2%. Largest employers: Matsushita Home Appliance Corp. (2,000) and R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. (1,100). Seven Fortune 500 companies have facilities here. (*1998 figures.)

Law and order: Crime rate less than one-fourth the national average (1,078.7 crimes per 100,000 persons each year, compared with national average of 4,922.7).

Fame and fortune: Poet Theodore O'Hara (Bivouac of the Dead, b1820-d1867) was born here. Isaac Tigrett (founder of Hard Rock Cafe) attended Centre College and launched a mini-nightclub in his dorm room. John Travolta had his acting debut at Pioneer Playhouse. Radio personality Rick Dees bought a Boyle County farm and now does many of his broadcasts from Central Kentucky.


What makes Danville different?

American Sign Language is Danville's second language, thanks to the Kentucky School for the Deaf (originally governed by Centre College).

Kentucky bourbon may be famous, but you can't buy it here. Kentucky is a local option state, and Danville residents have not legalized the sale of alcohol since Prohibition days.

What you can do in Danville is get good investment advice. The town has 12 licensed stock brokers and five investment counselors. That's one investment advisor for each 1,000 people.

And people here aren't just shrewd investors -- they're charitably inclined, too. The local United Way raised more than one million dollars last year, more than double the national average for towns of comparable size.


On-line resources

  • Danville/Boyle County: www.danville-ky.com
  • Centre College: www.centre.edu

Media contacts in the Centre Communications Office

Centre College, 600 W. Walnut Street, Danville, KY 40422