After Kentucky became a state, five commissioners were appointed on June 20, 1792, to choose a location for the capital. They had several communities jostling for the honor and presumably a list of criteria but most importantly the commissioners were looking for free land and free buildings. General James Wilkinson who had purchased this land on the north side of the Kentucky River in 1786 offered the use of one of his buildings for seven years, 10 boxes of window glass, 1,500 pounds of nails, a passel of locks and hinges plus the use of a sawmill, quarry, wagon and two good horses. And threw in $3,000 of gold. Frankfort, named for Stephen Frank who was killed in 1780 by Indians while making salt in a ford of the Kentucky River, became the capital of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
All was amicable enough in the early going but with a covetous and increasingly powerful town on either side, the capital never rested easily in Frankfort. Twice the state Capitol burned, in 1815 and 1824, and each time Louisville and Lexington made ominous noises about shifting the seat of government away from Frankfort. Even after a grand government temple was constructed to serve as Kentucky state capitol in 1830 the town continued with an eye out for the day when its capital status would be lost. The population grew by scarcely 200 people over the next ten years from 1,682 to 1,917. South Frankfort was annexed int he 1840s but 100 years later, in 1950, there were still fewer than 12,000 people in the capital city.
Economic growth was derailed by the coming of the railroads that shifted dreams from the Kentucky River to the ports of the Ohio River. At that Frankfort settled into the life of a prosperous town of manufacturing concerns of mostly local importance. There were distilleries, leather-makers, tobacco markets, pork processing, lumbering and hemp production. Today the streets of the business district, named by Wilkinson for family members and friends who were Colonial-era military leaders, are filled with souvenirs of the 19th century, as befits a town that was never in a rush to modernize and our walking tour will begin at the stateliest of those heritage structures...
By 1820, before steamboats tamed the Ohio River and drew industry to its banks, Lexington was one of the largest and wealthiest towns west of the Allegheny Mountains. If you wanted to engage in commerce you came to Lexington. If you wanted an education you came to Lexington. If you wanted to keep up with the latest news or borrow a book you came to Lexington.
Early on the growing of hemp used in ropes on sailing ships drove the economy. The tobacco became a cash crop for more than a century. There were local distilleries and in recent years education and technology have been the economic engine. But hovering above it all in Lexington since its founding in 1775 has been horse breeding.
The men from Maryland and Virginia who settled the town rode their best horses over the mountains or floated them on flatboats down the Kentucky River. The first census in 1790 showed more horses in Lexington than people. Kentucky’s first races had begun informally three years earlier. An early law in the county was passed that was designed to keep the blood of race horses pure. Stallions were imported from England and Arabia and the breeding of thoroughbreds, trotters and saddle horses came to infuse every aspect of life in Lexington. Today nearly 50,000 horses are bred each year on the Bluegrass Country farms around Lexington.
Lexington has sometimes been called “the city in a park” for all the surrounding horse farms but our walking tour of the historic town will uncover nary a reference to race horses. Even the golden stallion weathervane that once lorded over the city from the top of the Fayette County Courthouse is no longer seen (although it is inside the building) and that is where we will begin our tour...
In its entire 981-mile run in Colonial times there was only one barrier to navigation on the Ohio River, a series of dangerous rapids known as the Falls of the Ohio. Since travelers in either direction were forced to stop here it was pretty certain that a town would be settled beside the Falls eventually. The reality came in 1780 when George Rogers Clark was campaigning in the then Northwest during the American Revolution. As a token of appreciation for his assistance in the struggle for independence Clark’s settlement was named after King Louis XVI of France.
Early growth was spurred by the loading and unloading of boats but Lexington outpaced Louisville as Kentucky’s first town after statehood came in 1792. That changed forever in 1811 when the steamboat New Orleans chugged into port, the first successful steamer on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Soon travel time from New Orleans to Louisville was cut to 12 days, less than half the time it took keel-boats to float down the river. In 1830 the two-mile Louisville and Portland Canal became the first artificial passage to be completed in America on a major river and the town boomed. By 1850 Louisville was one of America’s ten most populous cities.
Louisville officially became a major league city in 1876 when the Louisville Grays became of charter member of baseball’s National League. The Grays finished fifth in professional baseball’s debut season. A year earlier Aristides outran 14 other horses to claim the winner’s purse of $2,850 in the first contesting of a little race called the Kentucky Derby.
The town hugged the Ohio River for the better part of its first 100 years, spreading out from east to west first along Main Street and then one block further south on Market Street. In the 20th century development sprinted south along Fourth Street giving Louisville a T-shaped footprint. Our walking tour will mimic the historical development of the town and we will begin at the banks of the Ohio River where the historical waterway is its widest...