Clarkson: Railroad Stop and Beekeeping Capital

Clarkson is a small Grayson County community that grew up around a railroad station in the eighteen seventies. The first post office opened around eighteen seventy as Grayson Springs Station, named for a nearby resort, and was renamed Clarkson in eighteen eighty-two for the owner of that resort. The town incorporated in nineteen oh eight.

Clarkson's most distinctive contribution to American commerce is apiculture: Walter T. Kelley established his Bee Hive Factory here in nineteen twenty-four, manufacturing beekeeping equipment. The company grew into one of the largest manufacturers of beekeeping supplies in the United States, and the Walter T. Kelley Company still operates in Clarkson today , shipping hive bodies, frames, smokers, and protective gear to beekeepers across the country. It is an unexpected distinction for a town of fewer than a thousand people in the Kentucky hills.