Shively, KY
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Shively is a home rule-class city in Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States, and a suburb of Louisville within the Louisville Metro government. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 15,264, reflecting an increase of 107 (+0.7%) from 15,157 in
2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
.


History

After Louisville was founded at the Falls of the Ohio in 1778, farms spread out into the nearby countryside. Early landowners included
Col. Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...
William Pope William, Willie, Will or Bill Pope may refer to: * William Pope, 1st Earl of Downe (1573–1631) * William Pope (naturalist) (1811–1903), English-born naturalist and painter * William Burt Pope (1822–1903), English Christian theologian * Willi ...
,
Maj. Maj may refer to: * Major, a rank of commissioned officer in many military forces * ''Máj'', a romantic Czech poem by Karel Hynek Mácha * ''Máj'' (literary almanac), a Czech literary almanac published in 1858 * Marshall Islands International Ai ...
Abner Field In the Hebrew Bible, Abner ( he, אַבְנֵר ) was the cousin of King Saul and the commander-in-chief of his army. His name also appears as "Abiner son of Ner", where the longer form Abiner means "my father is Ner". Biblical narrative Ab ...
, and the Shivelys, Christian William and Jacob. Christian opened a mill and tavern on his tract near Mill Creek and the road connecting Louisville to the Salt River. (The road would later be incorporated as the
Louisville and Nashville Turnpike The Louisville and Nashville Turnpike was a toll road that ran from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee during the 19th century. From Louisville, one route now designated US 31W ran through Elizabethtown, Munfordville, Glasgow ...
.''The Encyclopedia of Louisville
p. 819
"Shively". University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 2001. Accessed 10 October 2013.
) The buildings became the focus of a settlement known as the "Shively precinct". In 1816, he donated the land for a church that is today known as Parkview Methodist. A stagecoach stop was opened in 1831. The
Elizabethtown and Paducah Railroad The Elizabethtown and Paducah Railroad was a 19th-century railway company in western Kentucky in the United States. It operated from 1867 to 1874, when it was purchased by the Louisville, Paducah and Southwestern Railroad. It later made up part of ...
arrived in the 1870s. Shortly before the Civil War, the area became popular among German immigrants, mostly from Bavaria. In 1897, they erected St. Helen's Catholic Church. The community was commonly known as "St. Helen's" for the next few years, but the post office (est. 1902) could not adopt it because there was another community with the name in Lee County. A streetcar line was extended to the area in 1904. Eight whiskey distilleries opened nearby after the end of Prohibition. When Louisville tried to annex and tax them during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the distillers talked the residents of Shively into incorporating separately (finalized May 23, 1938) and annexing their district instead. Their $20-million revenue stream left the small city well funded. During the 1950s, it became the state's fastest-growing city as white flight and suburbanization reached Louisville. The area was long '' de facto'' segregated as a whites-only neighborhood. In 1954, black Korean War veteran and electrician Andrew Wade IV and his wife Charlotte, who had found themselves unable to buy a home in a suburban neighborhood due to
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
housing discrimination, got help from activists
Carl Carl may refer to: *Carl, Georgia, city in USA *Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community * Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name *Carl², a TV series * "Carl", an episode of te ...
and
Anne Braden Anne McCarty Braden (July 28, 1924 – March 6, 2006) was an American civil rights activist, journalist, and educator dedicated to the cause of racial equality. She and her husband bought a suburban house for an African American couple during Ji ...
. The Wades selected a house in Shively that they wanted to buy, and the Bradens bought it on their behalf and deeded it over to them. Soon afterwards, the Wades' home was repeatedly attacked—including
cross burning In modern times, cross burning or cross lighting is a practice which is associated with the Ku Klux Klan. However, it was practiced long before the Klan's inception. Since the early 20th century, the Klan burned crosses on hillsides as a way to i ...
on an adjacent lot, rocks through their windows, rifle shots into the house, and ultimately a dynamite bomb that exploded under their daughter's bedroom while they were in the home (no one was injured). The news made national headlines. Anne Braden wrote a 1958 memoir, ''The Wall Between''. No one was ever convicted of the crime. But the Bradens were charged with
sedition Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...
for their actions. Carl Braden was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison; he spent seven months in jail before state-level sedition convictions were overturned by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a related case in 1956. After the bombing, the Wades left and very few other blacks attempted to move in, and the community remained a largely white " sundown town" well into the 1960s. Since the 1970s, the black population has grown to about 30 percent, a greater percentage than in the
Louisville metropolitan area The Louisville metropolitan area is the 43rd largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States. It had a population of 1,395,855 in 2020 according to the latest official census, and its principal city is Louisville, Kentucky. Th ...
as a whole, and more than double the percentage in the U.S. population as a whole. Increased taxes and changing tastes closed most of Shively's distilleries in the late 1960s. Shively's population has gradually declined since reaching 19,223 in 1970. Budget surpluses became shortfalls, and Shively tried but failed to annex more suburban territory in
Pleasure Ridge Park Pleasure Ridge Park (often referred to simply as PRP) is a former census-designated place (CDP) in southwest Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 26,212 at the 2010 census. In 2003, the area was annexed to the city of L ...
in 1984. The same year, the town was hit with a scandal when police chief Michael Donio admitted to taking bribes to allow
prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
in the area. Such events led to the community's reputation as "Lively Shively" (as the name of the town is pronounced with a "long i", this is a rhyme). The area's fortunes have since improved somewhat, with various public works projects occurring and some businesses moving to the area. However, the area along Seventh Street north of Dixie is still known for its seedy
adult entertainment The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related ...
businesses. Into the 2000s, the area lagged behind eastern and southern Jefferson County, with one of its few remaining large retail centers, the
Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an upscale American department store chain with approximately 282 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The ...
on Dixie Highway (est. 1956), closing in 2007 due to slow sales at the location despite the chain's general profitability in the Louisville area. Shively remains the site of one major operating distillery: Brown-Forman's Early Times distillery. Its products include
Early Times Early Times is a brand of Kentucky whiskey produced by the Sazerac Company, one of the two largest spirits companies in the United States, which purchased the brand in mid-2020. Before the brand purchase, it was distilled in Shively, Kentucky, by ...
, which was first produced in 1860, became one of the few brands that was allowed to be produced during the Prohibition era, and was the best-selling whiskey in the country in the mid-1950s. Another is
Old Forester Old Forester is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey produced by the Brown–Forman Corporation. It has been on the market continuously for longer than any other bourbon (approximately 150 years as of 2020), and was the first bourbon so ...
; first produced in 1870, it was the first bourbon sold exclusively in sealed bottles and is today the oldest continually produced brand. The former Stitzel-Weller distillery has been converted into a tourist attraction for the Bulleit Bourbon brand, and was included as a stop on the
Kentucky Bourbon Trail The Kentucky Bourbon Trail (sometimes informally shortened to "the Bourbon Trail") is the name of a program sponsored by the Kentucky Distillers' Association (KDA) to promote the Bourbon whiskey industry in Kentucky. The KDA has registered the ...
in 2014. As of October 2014, the Michter's bourbon brand was working on opening a new distillery in Shively. The Bernheim Distillery site, used by Heaven Hill Distilleries, opened in nearby Louisville around 2000. On November 5, 2018, Democrat Beverly Chester-Burton became the first African-American to be elected mayor of Shively.


Geography

Shively is centered on the junction of US 60 and the Dixie Highway (
US 31W U.S. Route 31W (US 31W) is the westernmost of two parallel routes for U.S. Route 31 from Nashville, Tennessee to Louisville, Kentucky. At one time, it split with U.S. Route 31E at Sellersburg, Indiana, crossing into nearby Louisville via the Ke ...
) near . Its modern boundaries are roughly Millers and Bernheim Lane to the north (Louisville's Algonquin neighborhood); Louisville's Seventh Street to the east; I-264 and St. Dennis to the west; and Rockford Lane and
Pleasure Ridge Park Pleasure Ridge Park (often referred to simply as PRP) is a former census-designated place (CDP) in southwest Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 26,212 at the 2010 census. In 2003, the area was annexed to the city of L ...
to the south. Shively is southwest of downtown Louisville. According to the United States Census Bureau, Shively has a total area of , of which , or 1.73%, are water.


Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 15,157 people, 6,667 households, and 4,080 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 6,929 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 67.26% White, 30.32% African American, 0.26% Native American, 0.42%
Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 0.78% from other races, and 0.96% from two or more races. Hispanic or
Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...
of any race were 1.39% of the population. There were 6,667 households, out of which 25.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.1% were
married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...
living together, 17.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.8% were non-families. 34.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.84. In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.7% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, and 20.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 85.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 79.9 males. The median income for a household in the city was $31,422, and the median income for a family was $38,652. Males had a median income of $31,368 versus $25,190 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,574. About 12.2% of families and 14.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.7% of those under age 18 and 10.2% of those age 65 or over.


Education

Shively has a lending library, a branch of the Louisville Free Public Library.


References


External links


City of Shively official website

Shively Police Department
*

, an article on the town from '' The Courier-Journal'' {{authority control Cities in Jefferson County, Kentucky Cities in Kentucky Louisville metropolitan area Enclaves in the United States Sundown towns in Kentucky Racially motivated violence against African Americans