Livermore, Kentucky

Livermore is a home rule-class city located at the confluence of the Green and Rough rivers in McLean County in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The population was 1,482 at the time of the year 2000 U.S. census. It is included in the Owensboro metropolitan area.GeographyLivermore is located at . According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.0sqmi, all land.HistoryEarly yearsWilliam Brown founded the city in 1837 as Brown's Landing, but the post office established the next year took the name Livermore. The origin is disputed: some historians trace it to an otherwise-unknown shopkeeper named James Livermore, others to civil engineer Alonzo Livermore who helped construct a dam across the Green River at Rumsey. The city was formally incorporated by the state assembly in 1850.Opera house lynchingLivermore achieved national and international notoriety in the second decade of the 20th Century for a bizarre lynching. On April 20, 1911, a black man named Will Porter (or Potter) shot and wounded Frank Mitchell, a white man, after a barroom argument. Sheriff V.P. Stabler then arrested Porter. After this, accounts vary. The New York Times account holds that a local mob of fifty overwhelmed the sheriff, who had hid Porter in the opera house basement to protect him. They then bound Porter's hands and feet, took him to the center stage, and shot him there. Another version reported by several Kentucky papers omitted the sheriff's concern and had Porter taken from the jail to the opera house, where admission was charged to witness the hanging. Those in the gallery were permitted a single shot at Porter; those in the orchestra seats were allowed to empty their guns.