Lone Oak: Named for a Tree That Burned in 1903
Near Metropolis, Kentucky
The town of Lone Oak, Kentucky took its name from a single large tree. The tree was cut down in nineteen oh three and used for a Christmas night bonfire. The town, however, kept the name, and kept growing.
First known as Pepper's Mill, it was renamed Lone Oak in nineteen hundred when residents wanted a post office. For over a century it was a community along Route Forty-Five near Paducah, and for nearly three decades an incorporated city. Then in two thousand eight, Lone Oak dissolved its municipal charter.
Parts of the old city have since been annexed by Paducah, which borders it. The famous tree is gone. So is the city.
