A few Louisville oldests. 

 

The oldest city house (there might be a few older farmhouses) is, unoriginally, The Old House, on 5th Street between Walnut and Liberty.  It was the one of the cities better restaurants (with celebrity diners like Rocky Marciano and Walt Disney) but has been closed and empty for years.  Yet it is still maintained.

 

 

It was built in 1829.  The Princeton Architectural Press Louisville Guide notes this has original wrought iron work in front and that the half Doric columns in the entrance indicate incipient Greek Revival influence on a Federal style structure.

 

The house has been attributed to John Rowan, lawyer, politician and the master of the Federal Hill plantation in Bardstown, made famous by cousin Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home” song.

 

Rowan kept a townhouse in Louisville as his law practice was here (the courthouse was two blocks away) as were business interests; Rowan was active in real estate, operated a quarry, and actually owned a part of the Louisville wharf.  But that’s another story.

 

But the question is if this really was his townhouse.  It may not be as a nearby one, just a few doors south, across from the cathederal, is listed as belonging to a Mrs Rowan in the 1876 real estate map.

 

The urban fabric in 1876, showing the Old House (in red) in context;  a street of townhouses and single houses around the Cathederal of the Assumption:

 

 

The house was actually raised a bit with a shallow basement.  These basements would eventually become notoriously vile tenement housing in central Louisville, noted in a slum housing report from the Progressive era.  The side wall has heavy reinforcing as the place is, apparently, having structural issues.

 

 

The Old House’s neighbor looks like one of those smaller commercial buildings, actually more akin to what one used to find in downtown Lexington, sized to fit on the small lots.

 

But from above maybe not!  Behind the street façade are some clues:  gable end perpendicular to the street, shallow pitch and L extension indicating a vernacular houseform.

 

 

Taking a closer look at the 1876 map one can see the neighboring house to the Old House having a similar form, including the L on the north side of the lot. 

 

 

So this was an old neighbor of the Old House, perhaps built around the same time, 1829 or after? 

 

The Old House here shows as being owned by a Mr Canine.  According to the Louisville Guide Canine was a dentist, who introduced some medical innovations to the city. 

 

Comparing 1876 to 1907, the Old House (and, surprisingly, much of 5th Street) remains intact.  One can see the Courthouse, in blue, at the top of the 1907 map, a short walk for Mr. Rowan.

 

 

The Old House and its context gives a hint on how dense antebellum residential Louisville was back before the advent of the horse car.  Another example is this set of rowhouses on Walnut Street between 2nd  and 1st , about 3 blocks east and a half block south of the Old House.

 

 

 

They are said to date to the 1820s but I think they are later.  Again, a good example of Federal/Neoclassical styling vs the Italianate.  Perhaps akin to what one would find in Pittsburgh (or early Cincinnati)?

 

 

It’s unclear exactly where on this block these were.  But one can see the entire block built out perhaps as small rows, in the 1876 real estate atlas

 

 

By 1907 the Sanborn shows not much change. 

 

 

…but these were gone by 1959 as they show as vacant lots in the East Downtown urban renewal report.  The entire area was mostly cleared for parking, institutional expansion,  and freeway construction, so it looks like this today (from the air).  One can see the old lot lines in yellow over the aerial:

 

 

One of the more infamous incidents in Louisville history involved a row perhaps similar to this.  Quinns Row, on Main near 11th, was built by an Irish immigrant to house fellow Irish, and was burned down during the Bloody Monday election riots of 1855  The fleeing inhabitants were either shot or beat to death,  The victims included women and children.

 

There are no surviving images of Quinns Row as far as I know.

 

Quinns Row was very close to the first Catholic parish in Louisville.  This was St Louis.  The parish was founded in 1805 and the church built in 1810, in a brick gothic style.  It must have been small as accounts refer to it as a “chapel”.  The structure was between Main and the wharf, on 10th Street, an area that would become home to Louisvilles’original Irish settlement.  Perhaps because an early priest was a Fr Quinn, brother of the builder of Quinns Row.

 

St Louis relocated to a new church on 5th, beteen Walnut and Green (AKA Liberty) in 1830. 

 

In 1841 the Bardstown diocese was moved to Louisville and St Louis became the site of the new cathederal.  The cathederal was reportedly a much larger copy of the new St Louis and was literally built around the old church, which was disassemble and taken out the front door, brick by brick, timber by timber.  The cathederal was built between 1849 and 1852 and is todays Cathederal of the Assumption, one of the oldest buildings downtown:

 

 

The early Catholic churches were associated with early immigrant communities, which initially settled to the east  (German) and west (Irish) of the city, and then moved further out.  Catholics were buried first in the church yard of Old St Louis (and apparently not disinterred because bones were found on the site during later construction).  Later there was a Catholic section in the Western Cemetery and in the Portland Cemetery.  The first Catholic cemetery was out in the country west of the city and  south of Portland.

 

 

The second Catholic parish was for the Germans, St Boniface.  The parish was founded in the 1830s and the church was built between 1837 and 1838, actually in a “suburb”, Prestons Addition.  This church was replaced by the present one in 1899.-1900  Here you see it from the Liberty Green redevelopment (this church used to surrounded by the Clarksdale housing project)

 

 

Illustrating the German movement eastward is this other surviving antebellum church, the magnificent St Martin of Tours.  It was built in 1853 and the tower was competed in the 1860s.  The interior contains the full skeletal remains of Saints Magnus and Bonorosa as holy relics.  Interior items were imported from Europe (stained glass, carvings, etc) and Cincinnati.  St Martin of Tours, dominating a Phoenix Hill streetscape:

 

 

…and a mural of an event during Bloody Monday, were St Martin of Tours was spared by the mob due to the intervention of the mayor of the city

 

 

Apparently it didn’t have the limestone façade yet.

 

The third Catholic parish was a bit unusual, but interesting as it illustrated the importance of river commerce.  Notre Dame du Port (not to be confused with the great French basilica), also called Our Lady parish, was founded in Portland for a community of French immigrants and Louisiana French traders.  Portland was the head of navigation for downriver/upriver trade to New Orleans, so apparently attracted commercial venturers from the Crescent City. 

 

The parish was founded in 1837 and the church built in 1841 and later modified, and stands today as a local landmark in this unusual neighborhood.

 

 

The final example is not the fourth oldest parish or church, but it is the first Irish parish in the city (despite the bloody early history, Louisville has a strong Irish presence).  This is St Patrick. 

 

 

The parish was founded in 1853 and this church built just before the Civil War in 1862, in the early West End, about two blocks from the site of Quinns Row.  One of Louisvilles surviving antebellum churches.

 

The Irish would go on to found additional parishes in Portland, as well as in their post-Civil War neighborhoods of Limerick and Irish Hill.

 

To recap, the places I’ve shown you, on a 1850s era map of the city

 

 

There are some old Protestant churches, too.  Maybe we’ll look at those later.

 

 

The church approach is an interesting way to look at the urban fabric.

 

Bravo yet again.

Great thread.