Cloverport is a home rule-class city in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, United States, on the banks of the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

. The population was 1,152 at the 2010 census.

History

The town was once known as Joesville after its founder, Joe Huston. Established around 1798Rennick, Robert M.
Kentucky Place Names
'. The University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 1988. . (or possibly 1808) on the east side of where Clover Creek meets the Ohio River. The town was the site of the

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

where, in 1816, Jacob Weatherholt piloted the family of

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

, then seven, across the

on its way to a newly acquired farm in

Spencer County, Indiana Spencer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,810. The county seat is Rockport. Despite not being in the Owensboro Metropolitan Area, the entire riverfront of the city of Owen ...

. Around 1820 a building was constructed that became the town's first school and was shared by the

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

and

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

congregations as a church on Sundays. The town's first graveyard, known as the Scott Cemetery, was beside this building which was located south of present Murray Avenue and east of Cherry Street. The town was renamed Cloverport in 1828 after nearby Clover Creek. Seven years before, in 1821, the

Kentucky Legislature The Kentucky General Assembly, also called the Kentucky Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It comprises the Kentucky Senate and the Kentucky House of Representatives. The General Assembly meets annually in the ...

had built a toll road between the town and

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

. 1828 also saw the town open a post office with George LaHeist as post master. In 1829, the Baptist congregation built their own church. In 1831, a new graveyard, known as the Murray Graveyard, was established on the north side of Main Street near the Cherry Street intersection. The Methodist congregation built their own church in 1840 on east Huston Street. The old building then became a church for the town's black residents. The Methodist moved again in 1871 to a site on Elm Street. The town was the site of a button factory, which made use of

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...

shells from the Ohio. In the nineteenth century, the Victoria Coal Mines (named in honor of the British queen) produced

coal oil Coal oil is a shale oil obtained from the destructive distillation of cannel coal, mineral wax, or bituminous shale, once used widely for illumination. Chemically similar to the more refined, petroleum-derived kerosene, it consists mainly of s ...

from

cannel coal Cannel coal or candle coal is a type of bituminous coal, also classified as terrestrial type oil shale. Hutton(1987) Dyni (2006), pp. 3–4 Speight (2012), pp. 6–7 Due to its physical morphology and low mineral content cannel coal is considered ...

that was used to light

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a royal official residence, residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and r ...

. In 1857, the first

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church, St. Malachi, was built on Chestnut Street south of Huston Street. In 1887, a new church was built and named

St. Rose of Lima Rose of Lima, TOSD (born Isabel Flores de Oliva; 20 April 1586 24 August 1617) (, ), was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Lima, Peru, Spanish Empire, who became known for both her life of severe penance and her care of the pover ...

across the railroad tracks from the old St. Malachi church. The church and rectory were both burned in 1894 and rebuilt at their present locations. The town was formally incorporated by an act of the state assembly in 1860 and expanded to take in the growing number of homes on the west side of Clover Creek. Land was also donated that year for a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

church at the corner of Main Street and Lynn Street. A church was never built there but in 1889 the property was exchanged for land on east Main Street where a church was built. The town had its own newspaper beginning on July 17, 1878. The ''Breckenridge News'' was started by John D. Babbage and run by his family until 1950 when it was sold to George and Edith Wilson. The Wilsons merged the paper with their other newspaper, the ''Irvington Herald'', and formed the ''Breckinridge County Herald-News'' in 1956. In 1892 Cloverport became the home of the maintenance shops for the Louisville, Henderson, and St. Louis Railroad. The town raised $20,000 to bring the shops and donated ten acres for the location. The shops employed two hundred men at one time. The shop burned down on March 13, 1916, but was rebuilt. The shops stayed open until 1929 when the Louisville, Henderson and St. Louis was bought out by the

Louisville and Nashville Railroad The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of ...

. The city and railroad company went to federal court in

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

with the city trying to force the shops to stay open or for the railroad to pay the city back the original $20,000 that was raised for the shops plus $30,000 in interest. The dispute was settled out of court with the railroad paying back the original $20,000 plus returning the ten acres of land to the city. The city turned the land into an athletic park and a waste treatment facility. Former

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

Justice

Wiley Blount Rutledge Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr. (July 20, 1894 – September 10, 1949) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1943 to 1949. The ninth and final justice appointed by President Franklin ...

was born at nearby Tar Springs on July 20, 1894. Rutledge was the son of the pastor of Cloverport's Baptist church. On March 13, 1901, a fire swept through the city leaving about half of the residents homeless and destroying almost all of the business buildings, including two full

American Tobacco Company The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter, Goodwin & Company, and Kinney Brothers. The company was one of the or ...

warehouses. The Lucille Memorial Presbyterian Church, whose congregation had just paid off the mortgage, was burned down as was the Methodist church. Damage was estimated to be over $500,000 in the city. In 1903, The Murray Roofing Tile Company started a tile plant in the city. In 1959 the company merged with other companies to form the Ceramic Tile Division of National Gypsum. This division then became known as American Olean Tile Company. Another fire struck Cloverport on March 14, 1910, and destroyed many homes on the east side of town. At the time, the closest fire truck was in Owensboro and men from the Louisville, Henderson, and St. Louis Railroad repair yard were credited with saving many homes. The Methodist church on Elm Street burned down in 1943. Two years later the congregation moved into a renovated building at the intersection of Main Street and Elm Street and was named Grant Memorial Church for their minister, Rev. W. A. Grant. In 1971, Grant Memorial's congregation merged with Lucille Memorial Presbyterian church and the

Evangelical United Brethren Church The Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB) was a North American Protestant denomination from 1946 to 1968 with Arminian theology, roots in the Mennonite and German Reformed communities, and close ties to Methodism. It was formed by the merg ...

to form Cloverport United Methodist Church. This combined congregation purchased land for their new building in 1972 at their current site on south Elm Street. Every August the town sponsors a festival named for Sacajawea who is purported to have stopped in the town during her journeys. In 2003, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

transferred the Cloverport Access Site to the city so that a community riverfront park could be developed. The property included the boat ramp on Clover Creek and 15.7 acres of property.

Flooding

Being a river town, Cloverport has been subjected to several floods since its founding. The Ohio River Flood of 1884 had been what all other floods which have struck the city were compared to until 1937. A flood in January 1907 crested at two feet below the 1884 high water mark. The city was also struck by the

Great Flood of 1913 The Great Flood of 1913 occurred between March 23 and March 26, after major rivers in the central and eastern United States flooded from runoff and several days of heavy rain. Related deaths and damage in the United States were widespread and ...

. The Phelps' Button factory flooded leaving many out of work and many other families were forced to leave their homes. It was reported that the flood waters were seven feet over the Tar Fork bridge and neck deep on a horse at Hites Run. All of the homes across the river in Tobinsport, Indiana were under water. The

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

saw seventy percent of the town's residents hit by the flood waters. The crest of the flood at the downstream Cannelton Locks and Dam was measured at 60.8 feet. This is over six feet higher than the next highest flood, which was the 1945 flood that crested at 54.4 feet. Cloverport was also hit by large floods in

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, and

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

Historic sites

* Cloverport Historic District, comprises most of the old downtown business district * Oglesby-Conrad House, on U.S. 60 * Fisher Homestead on U.S. 60 * Skillman House on Tile Plant Road

Geography

According to the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , or 3.74%, is water.

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 1,256 people, 536 households, and 351 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 620 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 96.42%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 2.47%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.08% Asian, 0.08% from other races, and 0.96% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 0.88% of the population. There were 536 households, out of which 23.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.6% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 14.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.5% were non-families. 32.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.27 and the average family size was 2.83. In the city, the population was spread out, with 20.8% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 23.6% from 25 to 44, 27.4% from 45 to 64, and 19.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.5 males. The median income for a household in the city was $23,750, and the median income for a family was $30,917. Males had a median income of $30,156 versus $18,750 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the city was $14,990. About 14.1% of families and 20.2% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 27.9% of those under age 18 and 13.3% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Students in Cloverport attend Cloverport Independent Schools. Cloverport High---1930 Class A 2nd-Region Boys Champs and 1932 6th-Region Boys Champs. Cloverport has a

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

, a branch of the Breckinridge County Public Library. In 1871 and 1872 there was a school in town for black students supported by the

Freedmen's Aid Society The Freedmen's Aid Society was founded in 1859 during the American Civil War by the American Missionary Association (AMA), a group supported chiefly by the Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist churches in the North. It organized a supply of ...

. Beginning in 1900, St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church operated a parochial school in the city. The original school only lasted a couple of months but it was re-opened in 1916 with teaching duties being taken over my the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph. A high school and an elementary school were operated by the church until the early 1950s when the high school was closed. The elementary school was closed in the late 1960s.

Notable people

* Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr., poet, writer, playwright, and community leader * Dora Dean, vaudeville dancer *

James W. Flanagan James Winright Flanagan (September 5, 1805September 28, 1887) was an American merchant, lawyer, and farmer from Henderson, Texas. Although never officially inaugurated, he briefly served as the lieutenant governor of Texas in 1870, before leavin ...

Lieutenant Governor of Texas The lieutenant governor of Texas is the second-highest executive officer, executive office in the government of Texas, a state in the United States, U.S. It is the second most powerful post in Texas government because its occupant controls the wor ...

* Webster Flanagan, member of the

Texas State Senate The Texas Senate is the upper house of the Texas Legislature, with the Texas House of Representatives functioning as the lower house. Together, they form the state legislature of the state of Texas. The Senate is made up of 31 members, where eac ...

* Rice E. Graves, Confederate artillery officer * Virginia Cary Hudson, ''New York Times'' best selling author *

Joseph Holt Joseph Holt (January 6, 1807 – August 1, 1894) was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician. As a leading member of the James Buchanan#Administration and Cabinet, Buchanan administration, he succeeded in convincing Buchanan to oppose the ...

, Commissioner of Patents, Postmaster General and Secretary of War in President Buchanan's administration, 1857-1861 *

Benjamin Franklin Mudge Benjamin Franklin Mudge (August 11, 1817 – November 21, 1879) was an American lawyer, geologist and teacher. Briefly the mayor of Lynn, Massachusetts, he later moved to Kansas where he was appointed the first State Geologist. He led the fi ...

, first State Geologist of

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

* Eli Houston Murray, Governor of the

Utah Territory The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah, the 45th st ...

, former

jurist

References

External links

* {{authority control Populated places established in 1808 Cities in Breckinridge County, Kentucky Cities in Kentucky Kentucky populated places on the Ohio River