Germantown is a neighborhood three miles southeast of downtown
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 ...
, USA. Germantown is also a general term for an area of Louisville from the
Original Highlands
The Original Highlands is a historic neighborhood in the Highlands area of Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
History
The neighborhood was built on land surveyed in 1774 and granted to Colonial William Preston, surveyor of Fincastle County, V ...
to
St Joseph
Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers of ...
and
Bradley
Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English.
Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular.
It is also an Anglicisation of t ...
neighborhoods that were predominantly settled by Germans. The actual neighborhood is bounded by Barrett Ave,
Eastern Parkway
Eastern Parkway is a major road that runs through a portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it was the world's first parkway, having been built between 1870 and 1874. At the time of ...
, and the South Fork of
Beargrass Creek.
History
The area was settled as small farms and butcher shops by
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
immigrants in the 1870s. At this time the area was nicknamed 'Frogtown' because the adjacent Beargrass Creek frequently flooded the area, causing numerous epidemics of malaria. The flooding problem was solved when Beargrass Creek was routed into a much deeper concrete canal. The area was subdivided and developed heavily during the 1890s, when the largest collection of
shotgun house
A shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than about wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from t ...
s in the city of Louisville was built.
In 1907, a bridge was built across the South Fork of Beargrass Creek which allowed French settlers north of the creek, in an area called Paristown, to attend the one
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
church in the area.
The German-Paristown Neighborhood Association was founded in 1973, making it one of Louisville's very first neighborhood associations.
Today the area is undergoing a transition to a younger, more educated demographic. Many homes in the neighborhood are being renovated and urban homesteading (complete with gardens, bee hives, and backyard chickens) is common.
Demographics
As of 2000, the population of Germantown was 3,867, of which 93.9% are white, 4.2% are black, 1.6% are listed as other, and 0.7% are Hispanic. College graduates are of the 17.9% population, people without a high school degree are 29.3%. Females outnumber males 52.9% to 47.1%.
See also
*
Butchertown, Louisville
Butchertown is a neighborhood just east of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, United States, bounded by I-65, Main Street, I-71, Beargrass Creek and Mellwood Avenue.
History
The first homes in the area were laid out in the 1820s along the newly ...
*
History of the Germans in Louisville
The history of Germans in Louisville began in 1817. In that year, a man named August David Ehrich, a master shoe maker born in Königsberg, arrived in Louisville. Ehrich was the first native-born German in Louisville, but as early as 1787, Penns ...
References
External links
Images of Germantown (Louisville, Ky.) in the University of Louisville Libraries Digital Collections
{{Louisville
German-American culture in Louisville, Kentucky
Neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky