232 UNION COUNTY PAST AND PRESENT
l JAMES KENNY WALLER (1861-1941) , more than anyone else
brought the modern age to Union County and to Morganfield in
particular. As a promoter he was a pioneer and his name belongs
with those of Dr. P. G. Kelsey, Sylvester Pike, and Jeremiah
P Riddle. He was born in Morganfield and spent practically his
entire life in this community. He was outstanding in the business
and civic life of the county and the county seat from the time of
his graduation from Vanderbilt University until his death. He
received his early education in the public school at Morganfield,
being a graduate of the old academy here. He majored in phar-
macy at Vanderbilt and upon his graduation he opened a drug- `
store at Caseyville, then Union County’s most promising and
prospering town. While there he met and married Annie Buck-
ham. Two children, both still living, were born to this union:
Richard D., an attorney in Evansville, Indiana, and Lyle B.,
cashier of the Union Bank and Trust Company, Morganfield.
After a few years in Caseyville he returned to Morganfield
and opened a drugstore in a new building that he and his brother
built on Main Street. Increasing business interest resulted in
the sale of the drugstore and a successful venture into the
‘ grain business. In 1885, Mr. Waller, together with associates.
organized Morganfield’s first telephone company. Shortly there-
after, he took a leading part in the organization of the town’s
first electric light and power company, and its first water
system, which was soon taken over by the city. Mr. Waller and
his associates also built an electric light and power plant at
A Fulton, Kentucky, in 1897. The first operations in coal near Mor-
ganfield were started in 1902 by the formation of a coal com-
pany, known now as the Morganfield Coal and Coke Company.
Four years later Mr. Waller and his lifelong friend and business
associate. T. V. Young, Sr., organized the Morganfield & At-
lanta Railroad Company. This line extended from Morganfield
to Madisonville and was later sold to the L. & N. R. R. It has
been abandoned recently because of lack of traffic.
He also interested himself personally and financially in the
building of Morganfield’s opera house, the public school building
(1892), and the hotel known as the Capitol, which now houses
one of the town’s two banks. In 1898, Mr. Waller was elected
president of the People’s Bank and Trust Company and in 1929,
when it was consolidated with the Bank of Union County, he