The Point (defunct Louisville neighborhood)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Point was a thriving 19th century neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, east of Downtown Louisville and opposite Towhead Island along the Ohio River. It was also located north of the present day Butchertown area.
Starting in the 1840s it was home to many upper income residents who had moved from New Orleans, giving the area on Fulton Street the nickname "the Frenchmen's Row". They built many mansion houses in the area, the best known of which was the Heigold House (completed in 1853), which featured a very detailed facade with the faces of early American leaders engraved on it. It was built by immigrant stonemason Christopher Heigold.
In 1854 many houses where demolished when Beargrass Creek was rerouted from Downtown Louisville through the area. Many more houses where torn down after the great Ohio River flood of 1937. Comtemporary Louisville leaders wanted the entire area depopulated and replaced with a park called Point Park Project, which was done to the extreme northern part of the area, now called Thruston Park, although those plans never came to fruition for the rest of the area. However, many residents gradually did leave and by the 1970s the entire area was vacant.
Today the only remaining structures are the decorated front facade of the Heigold house and the adjacent Padgett house, both of which were moved to their present location from the area of Frankfort Ave and I-71. There are currently plans to build 400 unit high rise condominum complex called River Park Place at the site [1], where the facade would be moved to the project's Frankfort Ave entrance, while the fate of the historic Padgett house remains uncertain. There have also been talks of converting Bandman Park into a wetlands bird sanctuary, pending the movement of the soccer fields there.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Powell, Robert Louisville/ Jefferson County Sketch Book, Kentucky Images: Lexington KY: 1985, p 22
