LOUISVILLE

Louisville was founded in 1778 at the Falls of the Ohio River. The falls (actually a series of usually navigable rapids extending for about two and one-half miles) are the only serious obstacle to navigation on the almost one-thousand-mile length of the Ohio. Virginia surveyors working in Kentucky had identified the site as an ideal location for a town as early as 1773. On 27 May 1778, Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers Clark landed on an island at the falls with a force of approximately 175 Virginia militiamen and 50 settlers. Crude cabins and a fortification were constructed, a corn crop planted, and the militia trained on what was named Corn Island. In late June, Clark launched his Illinois Campaign, the successful completion of which helped secure the Old Northwest Territory for the United States at the conclusion of the American Revolution. The settlers remained behind, moving to the south bank that autumn, where they built cabins and a fort. In 1779 the settlement was named Louisville in honor of King Louis XVI of France and the Franco-American alliance against Britain. It received its town charter in 1780.

Louisville's early growth was slow. As the most westerly American settlement, it was exposed to Indian attack and the threat did not end until the conclusion of the area's Indian wars in the mid-1790s. Because of its strategic location at the falls, Louisville's future success depended on the burgeoning river traffic and trade. It became a major jumping-off place for those going farther west (and often north and south). Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met in Louisville in October 1803 to form their historic partnership, and the first permanent members of their Corps of Discovery were enlisted at the falls, thus forming the all-important foundation of the historic trek to the Pacific. The acquisition of New Orleans and the securing of free navigation of the Mississippi River in 1803 provided a significant boost to Louisville's fortunes. By the early 1800s thousands of flatboats and other river craft were landing at Louisville loaded with immigrants and goods. In 1811 the New Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the western waters, landed at Louisville. In 1815 the Enterprize, moving upstream, arrived from New Orleans. With significant upriver steamboat traffic now added to the well-established downriver trade, Louisville boomed. In 1830 the Louisville and Portland Canal opened, thus bypassing the obstacle of the falls and assuring an easier and more reliable transit time for river craft.

This economic activity reflected the growth of Louisville's population. From recorded totals of 200 in 1790 and 359 in 1800, Louisville's population almost quadrupled in the next decade to 1,357. By 1820 its population had almost tripled to 4,012, and in 1830 it was 10,341, making Louisville the largest city in Kentucky and the fourteenth largest in the nation. The ethnic composition of Louisville in its early years was primarily English, Scots-Irish, and German, with a small but prominent French community. By 1830 an increasing number of native-born Germans and Irish began arriving. Also among Louisville's earliest settlers were African Americans, the vast majority of them enslaved. Their numbers increased as Louisville's population grew. In 1800 there were 77 African Americans, only one of whom was reported as being free. In 1810 there were a reported 495 African Americans (36 percent of the population) living in Louisville, only 11 of whom were free. The 1820 federal census reported 1,124 African Americans (28 percent of the population, of whom only 93 were free) living in Louisville. By 1830 there were 2,638 African Americans (232 of whom were free) living in Louisville, 25 percent of the population. Although never the major slave market that Lexington was, Louisville was an active slave-trading center. It also was increasingly a magnet throughout the antebellum period for runaway slaves hoping to lose themselves in the city and eventually make their way across the Ohio River to freedom.

Louisville's bustling river trade was supplemented by surrounding farms that raised livestock and a variety of crops. Stores, taverns, inns, warehouses, factories, mills, shipyards, distilleries, and other businesses all proliferated. The growth of population and of business activity encouraged the establishment of newspapers, churches, schools, a library, and a theater. The numerous ponds in and around Louisville that were a breeding ground for mosquitoes and disease were largely filled in during the 1820s, thus improving the health of the area and removing a factor prohibitive to future growth. In 1828 Louisville was granted city status, the first community to be granted that designation, with its greater level of independence, by the Kentucky legislature. As the fourth decade of the nineteenth century began, Louisville was a major western city poised for even greater growth.

See alsoKentucky; Lexington; Mississippi River; Slavery: Slave Trade, Domestic .

bibliography

Kleber, John E., ed. The Encyclopedia of Louisville. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.

Thomas, Samuel W., ed. Views of Louisville since 1766. Louisville: Courier-Journal Lithographing Co., 1971.

Yater, George H. Two Hundred Years at the Falls of the Ohio: A History of Louisville and Jefferson County. Louisville, Ky.: The Heritage Corporation, 1979.

James J. Holmberg