In 1793, Colonel Andrew Hynes had 30 acres (12 ha) (until then known as the "Severn's Valley Settlement"[5]) surveyed and laid off into lots and streets to establish Elizabethtown.

Thomas Helm, became the president of the railroad in October 1854; he directed construction of the main stem of the rail line through Elizabethtown.

[citation needed] On December 27, 1862, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his 3,000-man cavalry attacked Elizabethtown.

Although he successfully captured Elizabethtown, Morgan's chief goal was to disrupt the railroad and northern transportation.

After the building burned in 1887 and was rebuilt, the cannonball was replaced in the side wall, as close to its original site as possible, where it remains in the present day.

The building is currently owned and houses the office of attorney Roger T. Rigney, it also features a plaquard noting the cannonball and the history behind it out front.

[citation needed] From 1871 to 1873 during the Reconstruction Era, the Seventh Cavalry and a battalion of the Fourth Infantry, led by General George Armstrong Custer, were stationed in Elizabethtown.

The military were assigned to suppress the local Ku Klux Klan under the Enforcement Acts, as their members had been attacking freedmen and other Republicans.

[citation needed] Elizabethtown is in east-central Hardin County, about 15 miles (24 km) south of Fort Knox.

The Western Kentucky Parkway starts at I-65 in Elizabethtown and leads west 138 miles (222 km) to Eddyville.

[4] The Elizabethtown–Fort Knox metropolitan area consists of Hardin, Meade, and Larue counties, and includes Radcliff, a city about three-fourths the size of Elizabethtown; the housing areas of the Fort Knox Military Installation; the unincorporated town of Rineyville; and other communities such as Vine Grove, Glendale, Sonora, West Point, and Upton.

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.

[citation needed] Elizabethtown is officially classified by the Kentucky Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) as being in a "moist county".

In 2011, the residents of Elizabethtown, Radcliff, and Vine Grove voted to allow properly licensed businesses to sell package liquor, wine, and beer.

[15] Conversely, Central Hardin High is within the city limits of Elizabethtown but has a mailing address of Cecilia.

Also, Western Kentucky University has a regional campus located on post at Fort Knox and in a building that is shared with ECTC in Elizabethtown.