According to local tradition, the Crittenden County Courthouse in Marion was burned by Brigadier General Hylan B. Lyon, CSA, on January 25, 1865, during a raid into Kentucky in which his troops burned a number of western Kentucky county courthouses. The courthouse had been built in 1844 when the county seat was transferred to Marion, and the present courthouse is the third, dedicated in 1961. During the Civil War there was relatively little action in Crittenden County, although the county had several iron furnaces and a large fluorspar mine. One other incident at the courthouse occurred on May 13, 1862, when Col. S. Noble, Federal commander at Paducah, sent a cavalry company under Capt. Stacy to Marion; Stacy interrupted the circuit court and demanded that the presiding judge, Wiley P. Fowler, and others take the oath of allegiance to the Federal government. The judge and the others protested that they had taken all the oaths required under state law, but four men were arrested for refusing and were ordered to appear in the Paducah Circuit Court. Hylan Benton Lyon was born in Caldwell, now Lyon, County on February 22, 1836. His grandfather, Matthew, served in the state legislature and U.S. House of Representatives, as did his father, Chittenden, for whom Lyon County was named. Orphaned at an early age, he inherited a sizeable estate and was raised in Eddyville by F.H. Skinner. He attended Masonic University in LaGrange, was appointed to West Point in 1852, graduated with the class of 1856, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant. He served in Florida and, after promotion to First Lieutenant, in California and the Washington Territory. He resigned his commission and joined the Confederate Army as a first lieutenant in Cobb’s Battery in April 1861, was soon promoted to Lt. Colonel with the 8th Kentucky Infantry, and was captured after the fall of Fort Donelson. He was held at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, before his exchange in September 1862. He returned to active service and participated in the defense of Vicksburg and fought in the battles of Chattanooga and Brice’s Crossroads before his promotion to Brigadier General in June 1864. He served in the Franklin and Nashville campaigns and was active in western Kentucky attacking Federal supply lines, gathering supplies, and burning courthouses, which he justified because Union forces frequently used them. At the end of the war he went to Mexico for one year, then returned to Lyon County and farmed for the rest of his life. He served on the state Penitentiary Commission, and the state maximum security prison in Eddyville was built on his land. He served in the state legislature in 1899-1900, died on April 25, 1907, and was buried in the Eddyville Cemetery.