Located across the Ohio River from Louisville in southern Indiana are two original settlements at the Falls of the Ohio, a third settlement New Albany is down river from the falls.

Jeffersonville Main Street, Inc.
Howard Steamboat Museum
Falls of the Ohio State Park
Indiana Historical Society

First surveyed by John Floyd in 1774 and settled by Maj. William Linn, who erected Linn’s Station along the Beargrass Creek in 1779. Stations were small fortifications built for the protection of settlers from attacks by Indians and British soldiers.

The station would have been located near what is now Hurstbourne Pkwy and Shelbyville Rd. on Weicher Creek that begins near there and joins the Sinking Fork, that begins near Anchorage, to form the Middle Fork of Beargrass Creek. It was along a part of the road between the Falls of the Ohio and Fort Harrod.

Linn’s heirs abandoned the site in the 1790s. In 1789, Col. Richard Clough Anderson Sr. purchased 500 acres of land in the area and established the estate he named Soldier’s Retreat. His house suffered damage in the 1811 earthquake, and was struck by lightning and demolished in the 1840s. In the 1970s the ruins of the Anderson house were discovered and it was excavated, moved and rebuilt in 1983.

By 1818 the center section of Lyndon Hall had been built, it is now part of the Hurstbourne Country Club’s clubhouse. In 1915 the property was renamed Hurstbourne, and in 1928 the house underwent the major enlargement and remodeling that we see today.

Hurstbourne Parkway was created in 1935 when an old lane was widened. By 1965 commercial and residential development of the area had begun and it was incorporated as a city in 1982. By 1990 almost all of the land had been developed.

The streams, creek beds, and other natural features, as well as the site of Lynn’s Station, its springhouse, the Anderson house and graveyard, and several old stone out-buildings in the area have been preserved.

The Hurstbourne Foundation
www.hurstbourne.org

Before the area was settled by Europeans it was home to Indian tribes hunting for animals drawn to Beargrass Creek. Arrowheads, pottery, and artifacts have been found in the area.

Later part of Farmington, the 1810 estate of John Speed. The Speeds sold sections of their estate in the mid-1800s to Jacob Wetstein who built a home in 1846, located at 2501 Denham Road. His granddaughter’s husband became financially “wiped out” in 1929 and shot himself in the upstairs front bedroom of the house.

Built in the mid-1800s, Cardinal Hill remains, along with its original spring house, at 2539 Trevilian Way. When the house was built and by whom is not certain.

Another early settler, Paul Discher, bought land adjacent to Wetstein’s on what is now Meadow Road. The house no longer stands but members of his family lived in the area until the middle 1900s. Discher Land Co. and Wetstein Land Co. were the co-developers of Seneca Gardens in 1922.

Most of the houses were built during the prosperous years of the 1920s with the final tract developed in 1937.

Several of the houses were built by a prominent local architect, Stratton Hammond. Examples of his work include 2313 Meadow Rd., 2504 Seneca Valley Rd., and 2543 Dell Rd.

Situated between Woodbourne Ave., Carolina Ave., Taylorsville Rd., Bowman Field and Seneca Park.

City of Seneca Gardens

Acollection of small, unconnected subdivisions & large estates along Lexington & Alta Vista Rds., N.E. of Cherokee Park.

The land remained untouched well into the 1850s because of its remote location between Frankfort Ave. & Bardstown Rd., two major routes into the city. In 1851, an alternative to Frankfort Ave. was built for travelers wanting to avoid the railroad crossings in Clifton. The road was named Shelbyville Branch, today it is known as Lexington Rd.

Many successful businessmen built their estates in the area from the 1920s to the 1950s, several were designed by noted Louisville residential architect Stratton Hammon.

Gardencourt originally was one of the more magnificent estates in the area, built in 1906, and designed by a Boston firm for the daughters of a successful financier. Gardencourt is a classic three-story Beaux Arts mansion, owned today by Louisville Seminary.

Another spectacular estate is Rostrevor, although the surrounding land has been subdivided, the residence has architectural details unique to Louisville.

Bounded by Lexington Rd. to the north, Briar Hill Rd. & Pee Wee Reese Rd. to the east, I-64 to the south and Cherokee Park to the west.

Garden Court

Started with a mill and tavern near Mill Creek on the stagecoach route known as the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike which connected Louisville to the Salt River to the south. The stagecoach stop began in 1831. The Elizabethtown and Paducah Railroad arrived in the 1870s.

Before the Civil War, the area was popular with German immigrants who built St. Helen’s Catholic Church in 1897. The community was originally known as St. Helen’s. The streetcar line was extended to the area in 1904.

Eight whiskey distilleries where in operation in the area after the end of Prohibition. Louisville tried to annex and tax the distilleries during the Great Depression, but Shively, which incorporated as a city in 1938, annexed the district instead. The influx of revenue left the small city well-funded, and it became the state’s fastest growing city during the 1950s as white flight and suburbanization reached Louisville. Several of those distilleries still operate in the area today and the age of modern distillery construction can still be seen.

Tobacco warehousing and sales were a huge industry along Seventh St. before the tobacco companies took control and changed the business. Most of those structures are still standing today and have been repurposed.

Adult-entertainment businesses remain from the World War II era when a large Army base was located along Seventh St. Crime and vice throughout the decades have left the community with the nickname of Lively Shively.

Boundaries are roughly Millers and Bernheim Lanes to the north (Algonquin neighborhood), Seventh St. to the east, I-264 (St. Dennis neighborhood) to the west, and Rockford Ln. (Pleasure Ridge Park) to the south.

City of Shively