Rivals is a small unincorporated rural community on the banks of

Brashear's Creek Brashear's Creek is a USGSbr>classified streamflowing through Shelby and Spencer Counties in Kentucky. It begins at the confluence of Bullskin and Clear Creeks in Shelby County, approximately 2 miles east-northeast of Finchville, Kentucky. It f ...

(near the confluence of Buck Creek and Brashears) in Spencer County,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. At one time it had a general store started by Matthias Carland's family who settled the land beginning in 1796. Also a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

and a

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

, started by Peter Van Dyke and his sons, which began operating in 1789. These businesses have been gone for many years, though the building that served as the store and post office still stands as a storage building for a home. It is located approximately 5 miles north-northeast of Taylorsville. Rivals received its name in an unusual fashion. The story goes that when the application to open a post office there was filled out, a second name choice was required in case the first choice had already been taken. The store owner, needing this second choice, looked upon his shelves and saw a box of ammunition with the brand name Rivals. The first choice was already in use elsewhere, so Rivals became the official post office name, and consequentially the community name. The Van Dykes were early settlers of the area, owning at least one grist mill and also farming the area. The road into Rivals from Highway 55 is still known as Van Dyke Mill Road. Early newspaper reports refer to the area as "Van Dyke Mills". A letter to the editor of one of these early papers refers to more than one mill, a wool carding factory, and several other business interests. The area is still largely farmland, producing

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

s, sod,

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

, and goats. Over the past 25 years, however, a number of farms have been subdivided into residential areas and "mini-farms"—properties with zoning to allow a small number of animals and/or growing of crops, but not large enough to actually be considered a for-profit farm. In spite of the changes and growth of recent decades, Rivals and other nearby communities such as

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

are still home to a number of families who have lived there for multiple generations, such as the Allgeier, Harp, Jeffiers, Jeffries, Prewitt, Travis, Yates and Wills families.

References

Unincorporated communities in Spencer County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky Louisville metropolitan area {{SpencerCountyKY-geo-stub