11/12/2025
From the Frazier History Museum:
Did you know only one county in America required no men to be drafted during World War I?
Breathitt County in Eastern Kentucky actually filled its quota of servicemen by volunteers alone—preempting the need for a draft.
As we celebrate Veterans Day, we want to spotlight one Kentuckian who earned a Medal of Honor for acts of bravery in WWI.
Born in Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky, Willie Sandlin joined the US Army in the 1910s. He became a sergeant in the Thirty-Third Infantry Division. On September 26, 1918, he wiped out three German machine gun nests. For these and similar actions, he became the only Kentuckian to receive the Medal of Honor during WWI. He was hit with poison gas that October, but fought until Armistice Day.
In 1919, he returned to Kentucky, where he helped educator Cora Wilson Stewart in her literacy campaign. He traveled Kentucky describing how his own struggle with illiteracy had hurt his military career. He encouraged people to support and attend Stewart's Moonlight Schools.
He settled in Leslie County but continued to have health problems as a result of being gassed. He died in 1949.
Find this inspiring story and hundreds of others from across the Commonwealth in the Frazier’s 120: Cool KY Counties exhibit.
Visit the Frazier History Museum, where the world meets Kentucky.
Picturing: Sergeant Willie Sandlin, c. 1918. Credit: Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
