[1] By the treaty of San Ildefonso, signed the 1st of October 1800.
This was never ratified by Charles IV. of Spain, but the treaty of
Madrid of the 21st of March 1801, which confirmed it, was signed by
him on the 15th of October 1802.
LOUISVILLE, the largest city of Kentucky, U.S.A., and the county-seat of
Jefferson county, on the Ohio river, 110 m. by rail and 130 m. by water
S.W. of Cincinnati. Pop. (1890) 161,129; (1900) 204,731, of whom 21,427
were foreign-born (including 12,383 Germans and 4198 Irish) and 39,139
were negroes; (1910 census) 223,928.
Louisville occupies 40 sq. m. of a plain, about 70 sq. m. in extent,
about 60 ft. above the low-water mark of the river, and nearly enclosed
by hills. The city extends for 8 m. along the river (spanned here by
three bridges), which falls 26 ft. in 2 m., but for 6 m. above the
rapids spreads out into a beautiful sheet of quiet water about 1 m.
wide. The streets intersect at right angles, are from 60 to 120 ft.
wide, and are, for the most part, well-shaded. The wholesale district,
with its great tobacco warehouses, is largely along Main Street, which
runs E. and W. not far from the river; and the heart of the shopping
district is along Fourth Street in the dozen blocks S. of Main Street.
Adjoining the shopping district on the S. is the old residence section;
the newer residences are on "The Highlands" at the E. end and also at
the W. end. The city is served by the Baltimore & Ohio South-Western,
the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis,
the Louisville, Henderson & St Louis, the Illinois Central, the Chicago,
Indiana & Louisville, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the
Southern and the Louisville & Nashville railways; by steamboat lines to
Memphis, Cairo, Evansville, Cincinnati and Pittsburg; by an extensive
system of inter-urban electric lines; and by ferries to Jeffersonville
and New Albany, Indiana, two attractive residential suburbs.
Many of the business houses are old-fashioned and low. The principal
public buildings are the United States government building, the
Jefferson county court house and the city hall. In front of the court
house stands a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson, designed by Moses
Ezekiel (b. 1844), and inside of the court house a marble statue of
Henry Clay by Joel T. Hart (1810-1870). There are few or no large
congested tenement-house districts; most of the wage-earners own their
own homes or rent cottages. Louisville has an extensive park system,
most of which was acquired after 1889 and is on the outskirts. From the
heart of the city South Parkway, 150 ft. wide, extends S. 6 m. to the
entrance to Iroquois Park (670 acres) on a wooded hill. At the E. end of
Broadway is Cherokee Park (nearly 330 acres), near which is the
beautiful Cave Hill Cemetery, containing the grave of George Rogers
Clark, the founder of the city, and the graves of several members of the
family of George Keats, the poet's brother, who lived in Louisville for
a time; and at the W. end of Broadway, Shawnee Park (about 170 acres),
with a long sandy river beach frequented by bathers. Central Park
occupies the space of two city squares in the old fashionable residence
districts. Through the efforts of a Recreation League organized in 1901
a few playgrounds are set apart for children. Louisville is a noted
racing centre and has some fine tracks; the Kentucky Derby is held here
annually in May.
The United States government has a marine hospital, and a life-saving
station at the rapids of the river. The state has a school for the
blind, in connexion with which is the American Printing House for the
Blind. There are state hospitals and many other charitable institutions.
The principal educational institutions are the university of Louisville,
which has a College of Liberal Arts (1907), a law department (1847), and
a medical department (1837)--with which in 1907 were consolidated the
Hospital College of Medicine (1873), the Medical Department of Kentucky
University (1898), the Louisville Medical College (1869), and the
Kentucky School of Medicine (1850); the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary (1859); the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Kentucky,
which was formed in 1901 by the consolidation of the Theological
Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Danville (1853) and the
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (1893); the Louisville
College of Pharmacy (1871), and the Louisville College of Dentistry
(1887), a department of Central University. There are many musical
clubs, and a spring festival for which a local chorus furnishes the
nucleus, is held annually. The Louisville Public Library was established
in 1902, and 1904 acquired the library, the small museum (containing the
Troost collection of minerals) and the art gallery of the Polytechnic
Society of Louisville (1878), which for many years had maintained the
only public library in the city. The principal newspapers are the
_Courier Journal_ (Democratic, morning), the _Herald_ (Republican,
morning), the _Evening Post_ (Independent Democratic), and the _Times_
(Democratic, evening). The _Courier Journal_ is one of the most
influential newspapers in the South. Henry Watterson became editor in
1868, when the _Courier_ (1843), established and owned by Walter N.
Haldeman, was consolidated with the _Journal_ (1830), of which Watterson
had become editor in 1867, and with the _Democrat_ (1844).
The richness of the surrounding country in agricultural produce,
timber, coal and iron, and its transport facilities have made
Louisville a large commercial and manufacturing centre. The
leaf-tobacco market is the largest in the world, most of the
leaf-tobacco produced in Kentucky, which in 1900 was 34.9% of the
entire crop of the United States, being handled in Louisville; the
city's trade in whisky, mules and cement[1] is notably large, and that
in pork, wheat, Indian corn, coal and lumber is extensive. The total
value of the manufactured products increased from $54,515,226 in 1890
to $78,746,390 in 1900 or 44.4%, and between 1900 and 1905 the value
of the factory-made product increased from $66,110,474 to $83,204,125,
an increase of 25.9%. Large quantities of fine bourbon whisky are
distilled here; in 1905 the value of the factory product of the city
was $3,878,004. The most valuable manufacture in the same year was
smoking and chewing tobacco (especially plug tobacco) and snuff valued
at $11,635,367--which product with that of cigars and cigarettes
($1,225,347) constituted 15.5% of the value of the factory products of
the city. Other important manufactures in 1905 were: packed meats,
particularly pork; men's clothing, especially "Kentucky jeans"; flour
and grist mill products; cotton-seed oil and cake; leather, especially
sole leather; foundry and machine shop products; steam-railway cars;
cooperage; malt liquors; carriages and wagons, especially farm wagons;
and carriage and wagon materials; agricultural implements, especially
ploughs; and plumbers' supplies, including cast-iron gas and water
pipes. Besides, there were many other manufactures.
The city's water-supply is taken from the Ohio river a few miles above
the city limits, and purified by large filtering plants. Nearly all
the capital stock of the water-works company is owned by the
municipality.
Louisville is governed under a charter of 1893, which is in the form
of an act of the state legislature for the government of cities of the
first class (Louisville is the only city of the first class in the
state). The mayor is elected for four years, and appoints, subject to
the approval of the board of aldermen, the controller and the members
of the two principal executive boards--the board of public works and
the board of public safety. The legislative power is vested in a
general council composed of 12 aldermen and 24 councilmen. Both
aldermen and councilmen serve without pay, and are elected on a
general ticket for a term of two years; not more than two councilmen
may be residents of the same ward, but there is no such limitation in
regard to aldermen. The treasurer, tax-receiver, auditor, judge of the
police court, clerk of the police court, members of the board of
school trustees (1 from each legislative district) and members of the
park commission are elected by popular vote; the assessor, by the
general council. The duration of franchises given by the city is
limited to 20 years.
_History._--The site of the city was probably visited by La Salle in
1669 or 1670. In July 1773, Captain Thomas Bullitt,[2] acting under a
commission from the College of William and Mary, surveyed a tract of
2000 acres, lying opposite the Falls of the Ohio, and laid out a town
site upon this tract. Colonel William Preston, county surveyor of
Fincastle county, within which the 2000-acre tract lay, refused to
approve Captain Bullitt's survey, and had the lands resurveyed in the
following year, nevertheless the tract was conveyed in December 1773 by
Lord Dunmore to his friend Dr John Connolly, a native of Lancaster
county, Pennsylvania, who had served in the British army, as commander
of Fort Pitt (under Dunmore's appointment), was an instigator of Indian
troubles which culminated in the Battle of Point Pleasant, and was
imprisoned from 1775 until nearly the close of the War of American
Independence for attempting under Dunmore's instructions to organize the
"Loyal Foresters," who were to be sent against the rebellious colonists
in the West. The city of Louisville was laid out on the upper half of
this Connolly tract. It is possible that there was a settlement on what
was afterward called Corn Island (which has now practically
disappeared), at the Falls of the Ohio, as early as 1775; in May 1778,
General George Rogers Clark, while proceeding, by way of the Ohio river,
against the British posts in the Illinois territory, landed on this
island and built block-houses for his stores and cabins for about twenty
families of emigrants who had come with him. These emigrants (or the
greater part of them) removed to the mainland in the winter of
1778-1779, and established themselves in a fort built within the present
limits of Louisville. A town government was organized by them in April
1779, the settlement at this time being known as "the Falls of the
Ohio." On the 14th of May 1780, the legislature of Virginia, in response
to a petition of the inhabitants, declared that Connolly had forfeited
his title, and incorporated the settlement under the name of Louisville,
in recognition of the assistance given to the colonies in the War of
Independence by Louis XVI. of France. In 1828 Louisville was chartered
as a city; in 1851 it received a second city charter; in 1870, a third;
and in 1893, a fourth. The city's growth was greatly promoted by the
introduction of successful steam navigation on the Ohio in 1811 and
still further by the opening of the canal around the rapids (generally
called the "Falls of the Ohio"). This canal, which is 2½ m. in length
and is known as the Louisville and Portland canal, was authorized by the
legislature in 1825 and was opened in December 1830; between 1855 and
1872 Congress made appropriations for enlarging it, and in 1874 it
passed entirely under Federal control. The first railway to serve the
city, the Louisville & Frankfort, was completed in 1851. The 6th of
August is locally known as "Bloody Monday"; on this day in 1855 some
members of the Know Nothing Party incited a riot that resulted in the
loss of several lives and of considerable property. In March 1890 a
tornado caused great loss in life and property in the city. General
Clark made his home in Louisville and the vicinity after his return from
the Illinois country in 1779. Louisville was also the early home of the
actress Mary Anderson; John James Audubon lived here in 1808-1812; and 5
m. E. of the city are the old home and the grave (with a monument) of
Zachary Taylor.
See Reuben T. Durrett, _The Centenary of Louisville_ (Louisville,
1893), being No. 8 of the Filson Club Publications; J. S. Johnston
(ed.), _Memorial History of Louisville_ (Chicago, 1896); and L. V.
Rule, "Louisville, the Gateway City to the South," in L. P. Powell's
_Historic Towns of the Southern States_ (New York, 1900).