Smoketown is a neighborhood one mile (1.6 km) southeast of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

. A historically

black neighborhood African-American neighborhoods or black neighborhoods are types of ethnic enclaves found in many cities in the United States. Generally, an African American Neighbourhood, neighborhood is one where the majority of the people who live there are A ...

since the

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, it is the only neighborhood in the city that has had such a continuous presence. Smoketown is bounded by Broadway,

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railroad tracks, Kentucky Street, and

I-65 Interstate 65 (I-65) is a major north–south interstate highway in the central United States. As with most primary interstates ending in 5, it is a major crosscountry, north–south route, connecting between the Great Lakes and the Gulf ...

History

The neighborhood's name apparently comes from the large number of (smoke-producing)

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

s in the area during its early brick-making days. An 1823 newspaper advertises a brickyard in the area as part of the farm and residence of "the late Mark Lampton", after whom Lampton Street is probably named. 9 of 20 brickyards in the city had Smoketown addresses according to an 1871 Caron's directory, although none remained by 1880, as apparently the supply of clay from under the neighborhood had run out. The abandoned, water-filled clay pits may have given rise to the name "Frogtown" for the neighborhood, which appeared in print in 1880. Some residential development by whites of

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ancestry began in the 1850s, but due to the arrival of thousands of freed slaves who moved there from various parts of rural Kentucky after the Civil War, it was solidly African American by 1870. A streetcar line was extended down Preston Street to Kentucky in 1865, spurring growth. With its

shotgun houses 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 ...

and narrow streets, Smoketown was a densely populated area with a population of over 15,000 by 1880. African American property ownership was rare, with most living in properties rented from whites. By the 1960s the area had high crime and unemployment rates, causing massive population loss. Many of the old shotgun houses have been razed and

housing project Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

s built in their place. Since the 1950s, Smoketown has been massively depopulated. As of 2000, the population of Smoketown was 2,116, a decrease of over 38% from 1990.

Revitalization

In May 2011, Louisville received a $22 million federal Hope VI award that will allow the demolition of the deteriorating Sheppard Square housing project, replacing it with new,

mixed-income housing The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to ...

. In Mayor Fischer's Budget Address of May 26, 2011, he said:

You all heard the exciting news this week about Sheppard Square. The project will have a value of $157 million over the next decade. Our budget includes $1.6 million to help integrate that new development into the surrounding neighborhood. That will not only make the area a better place to live, but will set the table for the private businesses that settle into any healthy neighborhood.

On July 12, 2012, Construction of nine new homes has recently begun near the site of the former Sheppard Square housing development. The nine homes consist of eight in the 500 block of East Breckinridge and one on South Shelby Street. On December 10, 2012, construction began between Hancock, Jacob, Finzer and Jackson Streets, on a $100 million redevelopment of a new, and revitalized mixed-income Sheppard Square housing neighborhood, with a completion date of December 2015. On December 1, 2020, Mayor Greg Fischer entered an agreement with community development organization REBOUND to establish a

community land trust A community land trust or (CLT) is a nonprofit corporation that holds land on behalf of a place-based community, while serving as the long-term steward for affordable housing, community gardens, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other communi ...

(CLT) in the Russell and Smoketown neighborhoods. $2.1 million in federal

Community Development Block Grant The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), one of the longest-running programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, funds local community development activities with the stated goal of providing affordable housing, anti- ...

funds were allocated to invest in

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

-resistant

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median, as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on ...

in the areas. REBOUND entered into a partnership with Bates CDC and River City Housing, with REBOUND focusing on the Russell neighborhood and the latter two focusing on the Smoketown neighborhood.

Demographics

As of 2000, the population of Smoketown was 2,232, of which 13.1% is white, 81.2% is black, 1.8% is listed as other, and 3.8% is Hispanic. College graduates make up 6.0% of the population, and people without a high school degree make up 42.7%. Females outnumber males 53.4% to 46.6%.

Notable locations

* Albert E. Meyzeek Middle School is located in the neighborhood at 828 S Jackson St. * Bates Memorial Missionary Baptist Church is located in Smoketown at 620 E Lampton St. * The Presbyterian Community Center at 701 S Hancock St. was a feature of the Smoketown neighborhood for over 115 years when it closed in 2013. In 2015, Jefferson County Public Schools took over the building to offer

Early Head Start Early Head Start is a federally funded community-based program for low-income families with pregnant women, infants, and toddlers up to age 3. It is a program that came out of Head Start (program), Head Start.

programming and renamed the center the Ernest 'Camp' Edwards Education Complex.

References

External links