This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the April 5, 2012 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

Magoffin County receives many, many visitors the year around. It is still considered “home” to the myriad of citizens who have moved away to find better jobs but who always return to visit these mountains whenever an opportunity arrives. This year they will find a great change in the surroundings due to the March 2^nd tornado that they have become familiar with down through the years but we feel the hospitality will be the same. 

            We see such a great outpouring of help and caring from so many people as we try to clean up and start rebuilding.  We hope there is someone who is recording the names and faces of the many people who have volunteered to be of whatever service they can to us.  It has been such an overwhelming and emotionally overpowering event to happen that we fear we are remiss in recording the “history” of it. We are grateful to those who have come to help and those who have sent what they could to help us rebuild our lives.

            One occasion for “homecoming” is the Magoffin County Founder’s Day Festival held each year the week before Labor Day.  Most states in the US are represented at this event and we have even had some visitors from foreign countries. The activities revolve around a giant reunion for an early founding family surname and include window displays in town, parades, reunion dinner, pageants, school events, music, etc. 

            Founders Days are considered to be a “celebration” time for us to remember our heritage and to go back in our minds to revisit the old days.  This year will be a poignant one as we review and honor the history and heritage of the Marshall family amidst the many changes our county has seen this year.

            The month of April has much meaning to those of us in the Magoffin County Historical Society as it was the spring of 1978 that we began to talk among ourselves that we needed to band together to learn more of our family and area history.  We officially met the third Sunday of April in that year and formed a loose-knit organization that we thought would be a sort of gathering time to compare notes, share books, etc.  Little did we know that the ensuing years would bring stacks and stacks of all kinds of printed material into being that would record our people and their surroundings.  We began in 1979 to print a small booklet that we called a “Journal” because the post office, library and some court house employees began to refer mail to us that had come to them requesting genealogy information.  We tried to answer these letters by hand and soon found that we were sending the same information to many people so we decided to print it in “Journal” format so it could be in the hands of more people. 

            We had already begun copying the county cemeteries by request of the Kentucky Historical Society through their mapping project.  Connie and Stanley also began copying the Magoffin Marriage records and soon we had some volumes of cemetery records and marriage records in print. 

            The year 1979 also marked the first Magoffin County Founders Day in Magoffin as we took on the long-time wished for project of Independent editor Albert K. Moore of honoring county/town founder William “Uncle Billy” Adams.  The resounding success of this “first” for our county prompted then Independent editor Tim Bostic to suggest that we continue and make it a yearly event, honoring other early settlers in our area.  He thought we should have surnames to support the event for 10 or 12 years and here we are in 2012 planning the 34^th such event, this year honoring the Marshall family.  There have been so many surnames suggested for the future that who knows where it might end.

Besides conducting Founders Days and attempting to get our history and genealogy into print we also receive countless numbers of people all through the year who are searching for their roots, people whose ancestors lived here since Revolutionary War times. Throughout our years as an organization the Magoffin County Historical Society has welcomed and helped people who are looking for genealogical and historical information about the area.  We maintain a genealogy library and are constantly adding to the material it contains. 

            As we celebrate the beginning of our 35^th year we are ever mindful of all those who have aided us in helping us reach our goals. A few volunteers have given much of their time and energy to help our organization succeed.  Many, many of you have volunteered your help in varying degrees. Most of you who have aided us have had your names, pictures, etc. recorded in these Historical Comments articles, our many books and all the other publications that we have done.  We greatly appreciate the help we have received down through the years.  Sometimes this has been physical labor; sometimes it has been material contributed for printing, sometimes monetary donations, or maybe a kind encouraging word.  You helped build the Magoffin County Historical Society and we hope our work has made a difference.