Owensboro, KY news and local guide

Evidence of Native American settlement in the Owensboro area goes back 12,000 years. After a series of failed uprisings with British support, the last Shawnee were forced to leave before the end of the 18th century. The first settler of European descent was the frontiersman William Smeathers, or Smothers, who arrived in 1797 and for whom the riverfront park is named. The settlement was first called Yellow Banks for the color of the land beside the Ohio River. In 1817 it was formally established as Owensborough, named for Colonel Abraham Owen, and in 1893 the spelling was shortened to Owensboro.

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Owensboro has long been a center of bourbon distilling. The Glenmore Distillery Company, now owned by the Sazerac Company, is the major distillery still operating, and the Green River Distilling Company, founded in 1885, also remains in business. On August 14, 1936, downtown Owensboro was the site of the last public hanging in the United States, the execution of Rainey Bethea, a young African American man convicted of rape and murder, before a large crowd that included children and many reporters. Sources Wikipedia: Owensboro, Kentucky