Monroe County, Kentucky Monroe County, Kentucky Monroe County is a county located in the Pennyroyal Plateau region of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the population was 10,963. Its county seat is Tompkinsville. The county is named for President James Monroe. It is a prohibition or dry county. Monroe County is the only county of the 2,957 in the United States named for a President where the county seat is named for his Vice-President. The county was formed in 1820; and named for James Monroe the fifth President, author of the Monroe Doctrine. The county seat was named for
James Monroe Smith penned "Training of High School Teachers in Louisiana". Smith was a golfer with interests also in bridge playing, football, and reading. Smith died at the age of sixty of a heart attack at Angola, Louisiana. A 1935 photograph Smith with Huey Long by the late Fonville Winans can be accessed online. Another photograph of Smith at Angola Penitentiary appeared in newspapers such as the "Miami News" on December 2, 1939. James Monroe Smith James Monroe Smith Sr. (October 9, 1888 – June 6, 1949), was the president of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, during the 1930s. He was