Whiskey Row refers to the stretch of Main Street that once built its reputation from the unique whiskey and bourbon it produced. Most of the buildings were built in the Revivalist and Chicago School style buildings with cast-iron storefronts between 1852 and 1905. Main Street was only a block from the waterfront, and distillers such as the Brown-Forman Company and John T. Barbee and Company maintained offices on this street. After a decline in production, bourbon distilleries moved to other locations and many of the buildings were demolished. In recent years, Main Street revitalization projects led to the restoration of some of the remaining buildings. Brown-Forman once again intends to distil whiskey at this location while a host of other bourbon producers and retailers are returning to Whiskey Row.
The Actor's Theatre of Louisville is a non-profit theater that is located within the 1837 Old Bank of Lousiville and the Myers-Thompson Display Building. Both buildings were designed by James H. Dakin, a notable Greek Revival architect. The company was founded in 1964 and ran its first show "Under Milk Wood," written by the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, soon after. In 1974 the Theatre was dubbed the "State Theatre of Kentucky". The Actor's Theatre Gallery holds rotating exhibits that inform visitors about outstanding actors from the area.
The Old Bank of Louisville was chartered in 1832 by the Kentucky General Assembly. Designed by New Orleans architect, James H. Dakin, the narrow building (not reaching 40 feet wide) was completed in 1837 and features a combination of brick and limestone in a Greek Revival Style. With regards to small-scale, commercial architecture, many consider the Old Bank to among the most sophisticated. In short, the building is a Greek Revival distyle-in-antis doorway that the designers increased to the scale of an entire building. Once standing as the Headquarters of the Louisville Credit Mens Association, the Old Bank of Louisville currently serves as the headquarters for the renowned Actors Theatre of Louisville.
The Kentucky Center was completed in 1983 and is home to several performance venues and organizatiosn such as the Kentucky Opera, Louisville Orchestra, and Louisville Ballet. The venue includes the 2400-seat Rebert S. Whtney Hall, the Mortiz von Bomhard Theatre, and the Boyd Martin Theatre. The Center's education department works to produce events for children and adults throughout the state. Some of these programs include ArtsReach, the Governor's School for the Arts, Gheens Great Expectations Project, and many other programs and services.
The 21c Museum Hotel is located within five formerly-separate warehouses that were built in the 19th century and placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The name "21c" is a reference to the hotel's leading attraction, the 21c Museum. This Louisville gem is dedicated to exhibiting art from the 21st century. The museum blends permanent exhibits and rotating displays from their own collection with special new exhibits of contemporary art from around the region and the world.
The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (also referred to as KMAC [kay-mac]) is located in Louisville, Kentucky's "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown. Founded in 1981, the museum seeks to continue, promote, and educate the public on the rich Kentucky heritage of art and crafts.
Nothing feels more American than baseball, and The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory explores this piece of America through exploring the famous Louisville Slugger baseball bats still created by Hillerich & Bradsby. The museum showcases the story of Louisville Sluggers, from the original Hillerich woodworking business in 1864 to the famous baseball players that later used the bats produced by the business. Any baseball lover will enjoy this museum.
An affiliate of the Smithsonian, the Frazier History Museum offers exhibits that interpret both local and world history. The museum's collection spans over a thousand years of world history, with exhibits and that include armor and weapons from around the world, one of the largest collections of toy soldiers in America, exhibits that interpret the history of bourbon production, interactive family exhibitions that allow guests to experience the Lewis and Clark expedition, and local artifacts related to Kentucky history such as Daniel Boone's family Bible.
The Kentucky Science Center, formerly called the Louisville Museum of Natural History & Science and then Louisville Science Center, is the state science museum of Kentucky. Founded in 1871 as a mere cabinet within the Public Library System of Kentucky, the museum has grown to be the largest hands-on science museum in Kentucky, with three floors of exhibits to explore, a four-story theater, and its own teaching laboratories.
This small urban park offers a pavilion and monument dedicated by the Colonial Dames in 1912 recognizing the site as the very first European settlement of modern-day Kentucky. The fort was built in 1781, when Kentucky was still a part of Virginia, the park was named after then-governor Thomas Nelson, Jr. The fort replaced a previous fortification that had been destroyed and served in defense against both Native American and British attacks. This land was later home to a bourbon warehouse and became an urban park sometime in the 1960s. The park was redesigned in the early 1990s to include cast iron light poles to recognize the former cast-iron building facades that graced the downtown area.
The Muhammad Ali Center is a non-profit museum that is dedicated to the great Muhammad Ali. It is located in Louisville Kentucky. It was made in Louisville Kentucky because this is where Cassius Clay was born and where he grew up for most of his childhood. Louisville is where Muhammad Ali lived with his mother, Odessa Grady Clay, his Father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr, and his younger brother, Rudolph Valentino Clay who soon changed his name when Muhammad Ali changed his too Rahman Ali. In Louisville is also where Muhammad Ali met his trainer that introduced him to boxing, his name was Joe Elsby Martin Sr. The museum opened up on November 19, 2005, it cost $80 million to construct. Its founder is Lonnie Ali who is the widow of the late Muhammad Ali. The Muhammad Ali Center took around 9 months to construct. Just recently in 2020 it was added to the United States civil rights trail, which shows that Muhammad Ali was not only a boxer but a trail blazer in the Civil Rights Movement back in the 1960s. The United States Civil Rights Trail is a trail of different historical sites in the United States that were important to the civil rights movement. These important civil rights locations include sites like, Selma Alabama, School integration, Bloody Sunday, and the Supreme Court of The United States. The Muhammad Ali Center is apart of this historical list of civil rights sites. This shows the impact that Muhammad Ali had on the civil rights movement during his time. These impacts are displayed by exhibits in the Muhammad Ali Center from his advocation against the War in Vietnam which, caused him to serve jail time for standing up for what he believed in, to his civil rights speech at Berkley California.
The Belle of Louisville was built by James Rees & Sons Company for the West Memphis Packet Company in 1914. Originally named the Idlewild, she was first put into service on the Allegheny River. Constructed with an all-steel superstructure and asphalt main deck, the steamboat is said to hold the record for miles traveled and years in operation for a steamboat of this size and displacement. On April 30, 1963, the Belle of Louisville made her first cruise in a race against the steamboat Delta Queen. That race was the beginning of an unparalleled river tradition. To this day, the Belle of Louisville and another competing steamboat, previously the Delta Queen, still square off every year on the Wednesday before the Kentucky Derby in the Kentucky Derby Festival event The Great Steamboat Race. Since 1914, the Belle of Louisville has taken over 7 million people for a cruise on America's inland waterways. The Belle is America's last true Mississippi river steamboat still in operation, and she celebrated her 100th birthday in October 2014.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This short walking tour includes stops at several historic buildings and markers between Main Street and the Ohio River. The tour also includes many of the city's leading museums and cultural institutions such as the Muhammad Ali Center and the Frazier History Museum.
