Shippingport, Kentucky is an industrial site and one of the six formerly independent settlements at the

Falls of the Ohio The Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area is a national, bi-state area on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky in the United States, administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Federal status was awarded in 1981. The fa ...

in what is now

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. It was located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Ohio River, and incorporated without a name on October 10, 1785. It was later named Campbell Town after Revolutionary War soldier and settler John Campbell. He had been granted the land for his earlier service in the

French & Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the s ...

. In 1803 the settlement was sold to a Philadelphia-based partnership and renamed Shippingport. Two Tarascon brothers became leaders of the French business community at the Falls, building a large warehouse, a 1200-foot rope walk, and a six-story water-powered flour mill at the site by 1819. Numerous French families settled in the area, making it a center of French culture for a time. Some of the French settlers came from Kaskaskia, Illinois, and other areas of French settlement along the Mississippi River after the United States completed the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...

in 1803. Others were fleeing the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

and its violence and political chaos, or social unrest in French colonies in the Caribbean. In 1804 former slaves succeeded in gaining independence for

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

(formerly the French colony of Saint-Domingue) after years of warfare and violence."French"
''Encyclopedia of Louisville'', ed. John E. Kleber, p. 322 Among the early streets was Tarascon, named for the two French brothers who built up early development; and Bengal, perhaps named for a French settler and schoolteacher who came from Bengal via

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and had first settled in

Paris, Kentucky Paris is a home rule-class city in Bourbon County, Kentucky. It lies northeast of Lexington on the Stoner Fork of the Licking River. Paris is the seat of its county and forms part of the Lexington–Fayette Metropolitan Statistical Area. As ...

.William Henry Perrin, J. H. Battle, G. C. Kniffin, ''Kentucky: A History of the State
Embracing a Concise Account of the Origin and Development of the Virginia Colony, Its Expansion Westward, and the Settlement of the Frontier Beyond the Alleghanies : the Erection of Kentucky as an Independent State, and Its Subsequent Development'', Adair County (Ky.): F. A. Battey, 1887, pp. 287, 294 From 1810 to 1820 the population increased 500%, from 98 to over 500, and this seriously challenged Louisville as Kentucky's most important port. Other early features included Elm Tree Garden, where there was horse-racing, and the Napoleon Distillery. The Tarascons' six-story flour mill built in 1817 became a symbol of Shippingport's success. Though the town frequently flooded, Shippingport reached its peak in the 1820s with a population of 600. In 1825, construction of the

Louisville and Portland Canal The Louisville and Portland Canal was a canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. The Falls form the only barrier to navigation between the origin of the Ohio at Pittsburgh and the port of New Orleans on the Gulf of Me ...

across the peninsula left the settlement on an island. Using the canal, ships could bypass the Falls and, by extension, Shippingport. Shippingport was hard hit by the loss of its traditional business. In 1828, Louisville incorporated as a city and included Shippingport in its boundaries. But a bad flood in 1832 was the reason most of the French community moved to

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, now also part of Louisville (it was then northwest of the larger city). The introduction to the Louisville Directory of 1844 expressed lingering negative public sentiment toward the canal: "The Louisville and Portland Canal, as constructed and maintained, is precisely one of those improvements for private interests, at the expense of the public good, which is obnoxious to the good of the whole community". The remnants of the settlement dwindled over the next century as the canal was gradually widened and a hydroelectric plant was built on the island. Most of the remaining families were forced to leave after the devastating

Ohio River flood of 1937 The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, 385 people died, one million people were left homeless and property losses reached $500 million ($10.2 billion ...

, which swamped this area. About 20 years later, the federal government condemned the remaining private property in 1958 to widen the canal, evicting the last families, some of whom had roots there for more than a century.Burnett (1976), "Louisville's French Past", p. 18

References

External links

Historic Maps of Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky
from the University of Louisville Libraries. Includes street maps of Shippingport prior to razing.

{{authority control Former populated places in Kentucky Geography of Louisville, Kentucky History of Louisville, Kentucky 1785 establishments in Virginia

See also

References

External links