Biohazard Cleanup Near Union Circle Mayfield, KY

Mayfield is a home rule-class city and the county seat of Graves County, Kentucky, in the Jackson Purchase region of far western Kentucky.

According to local tradition, the town took its name from Mayfield Creek, which was itself named for a gambler named Mayfield who was kidnapped near Hickman around 1817 and carved his name into a tree by the creek before drowning in an escape attempt.

John Anderson, believed to be the area's first settler, arrived in 1819, and Mayfield was designated the Graves County seat in 1821; the town was established in 1824 and incorporated in 1846.

The 2020 census counted 10,017 residents in Mayfield, making it by far the largest city in Graves County.

The 2020 census counted 4,025 households in Mayfield, including 2,138 family households.

The completion of a railroad through Mayfield in 1858 and the founding of the Mayfield Woolen Mills in 1860 made clothing manufacturing the city's main industry for the next hundred years, and Mayfield was also a major loose-leaf tobacco market in the Black Patch region.

On May 29, 1861, Southern sympathizers from Kentucky and Tennessee met at the Graves County Courthouse for the Mayfield Convention, an early step on the road to Kentucky's provisional Confederate government.

In 1956, ten Black students from the segregated Dunbar High School, remembered as the "Mayfield Ten," were allowed to register at all-white Mayfield High School as the city's schools integrated without violence.

On the evening of December 10, 2021, a destructive long-track tornado struck Mayfield, leveling most of downtown and collapsing the roof of the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, where eight workers died.

The historic Graves County Courthouse was so severely damaged by the 2021 tornado that it was demolished in 2022.