Baptist Health Paducah

The county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, Paducah is the largest city in the Jackson Purchase region and located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio Rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missouri, to the northwest and Nashville, Tennessee, to the southeast. The population was 25,024 at the 2010 U.S. Census. Twenty blocks of downtown Paducah have been designated as an historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In August 2000, Paducah started its Artist Relocation Program, which offers incentives for artists to relocate to its historic downtown and Lower Town areas. The program has become a national model for using the arts for economic development, and it has received the Governors Award in the Arts, the Distinguished Planning Award from the Kentucky Chapter of the American Planning Association, the American Planning Association's National Planning Award, and most recently, the Kentucky League of Cities' Enterprise Cities Award. Lower Town, home of the Artist Relocation Program, is the oldest neighborhood in Paducah. In September 2004 plans jelled to highlight Paducah's musical roots through the redevelopment of the southern side of downtown. The centerpiece of the effort is the renovation of Maggie Steed's Hotel Metropolitan. Another regional attraction is the annual OMGcon, an anime and gaming convention held in Paducah since 2006. It attracts attendees from across the United States.