Kentucky. Governor (1879-1883 : Blackburn)

Luke Pryor Blackburn became Kentucky's twenty-eighth governor in 1879. The only physician to have been elected governor, his only previous political experience had been one term in the General Assembly nearly forty years earlier.

Blackburn was born near Lexington, Kentucky on June 16, 1816 and attended the common schools of Woodford County. In 1834 he received his medical degree from Transylvania University and began practice in Lexington. He went on to win national acclaim for his skillful and dedicated work with the victims of cholera and yellow fever epidemics, in Kentucky and throughout the Lower South.

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