Louisville, KY news and local guide

Louisville had 7,000 people when it was incorporated as a city in 1828. Enslaved African Americans worked in its river trades, and the city was a crossing point for people escaping to free Indiana. On August 6, 1855, called Bloody Monday, Protestant mobs attacked German and Irish Catholic neighborhoods on election day, killing 22. In the Civil War Louisville was a Union stronghold that helped keep Kentucky in the Union, and it was never attacked. Returning Confederate veterans took over city politics after the war, which led to the saying that Louisville joined the Confederacy after the war was over. The first Kentucky Derby was run on May 17, 1875, at the Louisville Jockey Club track, later Churchill Downs. It was organized by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., a grandson of William Clark, and 10,000 people watched Aristides win. On March 27, 1890, a tornado now estimated at F4 nearly destroyed downtown and killed between 74 and 120 people. Sources Wikipedia: Louisville, Kentucky