100 Fun Facts About Louisville

Louisville was named in honor of which French king?

The name thanked France for backing the American Revolution while the settlement was still a frontier outpost.

Which Revolutionary War officer is credited as the founder of Louisville in 1778?

He led the settlers to a spot on the Ohio River rapids while campaigning against British posts in the Illinois country.

Where did the settlers who founded Louisville first land in 1778?

The Virginia General Assembly approved a town charter two years later, and by 1828 the town had 7,000 residents and became an incorporated city.

In what year did Louisville and Jefferson County merge into a single consolidated government?

The merged city-county still contains dozens of smaller incorporated cities, which is why 'balance' population figures are reported separately.

What was the population of Louisville's consolidated city-county area at the 2020 census?

Excluding the other incorporated cities inside the merged county, the 'balance' population was 633,045.

Which Louisville pair received a hero's homecoming at Locust Grove in November 1806?

Locust Grove is the only surviving residence west of the Appalachians to have sheltered the two explorers.

The Louisville and Portland Canal, opened in 1830, was dug to bypass what obstacle?

The rapids were the only barrier to navigation between Pittsburgh and New Orleans, which is why a city grew up beside them in the first place.

After extensive modernization in 1962, the Louisville and Portland Canal was renamed what?

It began life in 1830 as a private company before the federal government took it over.

The Great Flood of 1937 sent the Ohio River at Louisville to a record crest of how many feet?

The water submerged 60 to 70 percent of the city, knocked out power for four days and forced the evacuation of well over 100,000 residents.

In the 1917 case Buchanan v. Warley, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down what Louisville law?

The same year, the city was chosen as the site of a large Army training camp as the U.S. entered World War I.

In 1905, Louisville established the first free public library in the U.S. that was what?

Its head, Thomas Fountain Blue, went on to create the first library training program for African Americans in the country.

On March 27, 1890, Louisville's downtown was nearly destroyed by what?

Modern estimates rate it an F4; between 74 and 120 people died and about 200 were injured.

Which U.S. president is buried in a national cemetery on Brownsboro Road in Louisville?

He grew up near the city and lies there beside his wife, Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor.

Churchill Downs takes its name from what?

The Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park Association was formed in 1875 to run the new track.

Which horse won the very first Kentucky Derby in 1875?

About ten thousand spectators watched that first race at what was then called the Louisville Jockey Club track.

Which event, with a day-long air show and huge fireworks display, opens the Kentucky Derby Festival?

The festival was first held from 1935 to 1937 and revived in 1956; its miniMarathon has run since 1974.

The Belle of Louisville steamboat was originally launched in 1914 under what name?

Built in Pittsburgh for the West Memphis Packet Company, it is now the oldest river steamboat still in operation.

What does the winning boat receive in the Great Steamboat Race held the Wednesday before the Derby?

The prize is mounted above the forecastle of the winner, and bragging rights are the only other reward.

For which slumping Louisville Eclipse star was the first Louisville Slugger bat hand-crafted in 1884?

He got three hits with the new bat the first day he used it, and the family woodworking shop found a new line of business.

Which player's 1905 Louisville Slugger deal is likely the first athlete endorsement of sports equipment?

The Louisville Slugger name had already been registered with the U.S. Patent Office in 1894.

Which Louisville company manufactures the Louisville Slugger bat?

The bats are still made in the downtown factory, though the brand itself now operates under Wilson Sporting Goods.

How tall is the giant baseball bat that leans against the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory downtown?

It weighs 68,000 pounds; the museum itself opened in July 1996 with a gala of Hall of Famers.

What souvenir does every visitor receive at the end of the Louisville Slugger factory tour?

The museum sits on the downtown stretch locals call Museum Row.

What everyday misfortune first steered 12-year-old Cassius Clay toward boxing in Louisville?

Police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin met the fuming boy and suggested he learn to box before hunting the thief.

The Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville's West Main District opened in 2005 at what cost?

The six-story, 96,750-square-foot museum is built around his six core principles.

Which of these is one of the six core principles the Muhammad Ali Center is built around?

The full list is confidence, conviction, dedication, giving, respect and the sixth one here.

Louisville's airport code is SDF, a holdover from what former name?

The airport was renamed for Muhammad Ali in 2019, but the code never changed.

Louisville's airport is among the busiest US cargo airports because it hosts which company's worldwide hub?

In 2023 only Anchorage and Memphis handled more cargo; the hub is known as Worldport.

Which 296-acre Louisville burial ground and arboretum holds both Colonel Sanders and the city's founder?

It was chartered in 1848 and is Louisville's largest burial ground; the Colonel was buried there in his white suit and black string tie.

A Hot Brown, Louisville's signature open-faced sandwich, is smothered in which sauce?

Fred K. Schmidt created it in 1926 as an alternative to ham-and-egg late-night dinners, and it soon became the choice of 95% of the hotel's diners.

The Hot Brown is described as a variation of which traditional dish?

When it debuted, sliced roast turkey was a novelty on menus because turkey was usually reserved for holiday feasts.

Which chef created the Hot Brown in 1926?

The sandwich was one of two signature creations at the hotel, which had opened only three years earlier.

KFC's longtime headquarters at 1441 Gardiner Lane in Louisville is known colloquially by what nickname?

The three-story colonial-style building sits in a city that is also home to parent company Yum! Brands.

Which Kentucky governor commissioned Harland Sanders as a Kentucky Colonel in 1935?

Sanders died in Louisville in 1980 and was buried in his trademark white suit and black western string tie.

On July 6, 2015, what partially destroyed three of the historic buildings on Louisville's Whiskey Row?

The same block had been slated for demolition in 2011 until the city, developers and preservationists struck a deal to save it.

Louisville's Whiskey Row lies along which downtown thoroughfare?

The blocks near the river once housed the bourbon industry's warehouses and sales offices.

The Army post just south of Louisville that shares its name with the gold vault honors which man?

The post is also home to the General George Patton Museum of Leadership.

Roughly how much of the United States' gold reserves are held in the Bullion Depository beside Fort Knox?

The fortified vault building is a separate facility adjacent to the Army post that shares its name.

The Big Four Bridge, a pedestrian span since 2013, took its name from what?

After its approach spans were removed in the 1970s it was known as the 'Bridge That Goes Nowhere' until reopening for walkers and cyclists in 2013.

The Big Four Bridge links Louisville with which Indiana city?

The six-span truss bridge was completed in September 1895 and closed to rail traffic in 1968.

Cherokee Park, opened in 1891, was designed by which landscape architect?

He designed 18 of Louisville's 123 parks; Cherokee's Hogan's Fountain features the Greek god Pan sculpted by Enid Yandell.

Old Louisville is the largest US preservation district of buildings from which era?

The neighborhood covers about forty-eight city blocks and is the third-largest historic district in the country.

The Southern Exposition, held in Old Louisville from 1883, featured the first public display of what?

The 4,600-lamp show was billed as the largest artificial lighting display in history at a time when electric light was a novelty.

In which month does Old Louisville host the annual St. James Court Art Show?

The neighborhood's Central Park, originally Dupont Square, hosts the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival each summer.

The Louisville Zoo, founded in 1969, carries what official title?

The 134-acre zoo in the Poplar Level neighborhood exhibits more than 1,200 animals.

The Louisville Mega Cavern, which stretches beneath the zoo and the Watterson Expressway, was originally what?

Because of its support structures it is classified as a building, making it the largest building in Kentucky.

Established in 1927, which Louisville art institution is the oldest and largest of its kind in Kentucky?

It sits on South Third Street next to the University of Louisville campus and was founded in memory of James Breckinridge Speed.

Louisville's Waverly Hills Sanatorium, later a haunted attraction, was built to treat what?

It opened in 1910 for 40 to 50 patients; a supply tunnel down the hill was also used to move corpses out of patients' sight.

In what year did Waverly Hills Sanatorium finally close?

The antibiotic streptomycin, introduced in 1943, had steadily emptied its wards.

Which architect designed Louisville's postmodern Humana Building, completed in 1985?

The 26-story tower is headquarters of the health insurer that began life as a nursing-home company.

What decorates the vaulted ceiling of the Louisville Palace theatre?

The 1928 Spanish Baroque house opened as Loew's Theatre and was designed by John Eberson.

The Louisville Bats of Triple-A baseball are the top affiliate of which MLB club?

They play at Louisville Slugger Field, which opened in 2000 and seats 13,131.

Louisville City FC became the first club to win back-to-back USL Cup titles in which seasons?

The club, founded in 2014, moved into Lynn Family Stadium in 2020.

The University of Louisville was chartered in 1798 under what name?

It went on to become one of the first city-funded public colleges in the United States.

In which two years did Louisville men's basketball win its officially recognized NCAA championships?

A third title was vacated by the NCAA; both official banners came under the same head coach.

Which Louisville coach became the first ever to reach the Final Four in his first season as a head coach?

He coached the Cardinals from 1971 to 2001 and has a campus residence hall named after him.

Louisville native Darrell Griffith, the 1980 Player of the Year, earned what nickname?

He led the Cardinals to their first national title before a long career with the Utah Jazz.

Which Louisville Cardinals quarterback won the 2016 Heisman Trophy?

The Cardinals' costumed mascot is Louie the Cardinal, and the school has played in the ACC since 2014–15.

In 1999, University of Louisville surgeons performed the first successful U.S. transplant of what?

Two years later the same medical school performed the first fully self-contained artificial heart transplant.

The Cardinals' 22,000-seat downtown arena, completed in 2010, is named for which fast-food brand?

The Yum! Center hosts both the men's and women's basketball teams.

Which Oscar-winning actress was born in Louisville on August 15, 1990?

At 22 she became the second-youngest Best Actress winner for Silver Linings Playbook.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote 'The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved' for which magazine?

The piece, illustrated by Ralph Steadman, is often cited as the birth of gonzo journalism.

Hunter S. Thompson's mother, Virginia, held what job in Louisville?

His father was a public insurance adjuster and World War I veteran; Hunter was the first of three sons.

Which Louisville native, born in 1856, became the first Jewish justice of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Woodrow Wilson nominated him in 1916 and the Senate confirmed him 47 to 22.

Which Louisville-born Notre Dame star is the only Heisman winner ever to come from a losing team?

Notre Dame went 2–8 in 1956; he went on to win four NFL titles and the first Super Bowl with Green Bay.

Which Louisville-born rapper's 'Whats Poppin' remix reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in 2020?

His later single 'First Class' became his second number-one on the chart.

Diane Sawyer's first television job, at Louisville's WLKY, was in what role?

She grew up in Louisville, where her father was a prominent Republican politician, and later anchored ABC World News.

'Happy Birthday to You' began as 'Good Morning to All', written by two Louisville sisters with what surname?

Patty was a kindergarten principal in the city and Mildred a pianist; the tune appeared in their 1893 songbook.

Roughly what share of all bourbon whiskey is produced in Louisville?

Brown-Forman is headquartered there and Heaven Hill's Bernheim distillery sits nearby; tourists can follow the city's own Urban Bourbon Trail.

Which conductor founded the Louisville Orchestra in 1937?

The orchestra shares the Kentucky Center with the Louisville Ballet and the Kentucky Opera, the twelfth-oldest opera company in the US.

Kaelin's Restaurant in Louisville claims to have invented which American diner staple back in 1934?

Cheeseburger bragging rights are contested: a Pasadena fry cook is said to have tried one in the 1920s, and a Denver drive-in won a trademark on the name in 1935.

A Louisville company claims it made 90 percent of which dance-floor fixture during America's 1970s nightclub craze?

Disco balls from Omega Mirror Products hung over dance floors across the country, and the firm kept on making them long after the fad had faded.

Louisville basketball teammates Wiley Brown and Derek Smith are among those credited with inventing which gesture?

High five lore has Brown reaching to slap hands down low at a 1978–79 practice, only for Smith to tell him to go up high. Two Los Angeles Dodgers claim an earlier one, from 1977.

In which F. Scott Fitzgerald novel does Daisy's groom hire a whole floor of a hotel modeled on Louisville's Seelbach?

The Great Gatsby drew on the author's own spring of 1918, when he frequented the Seelbach while training nearby for World War I.

The winning horse of the Kentucky Derby at Louisville's Churchill Downs is draped in a blanket of which flower?

Red roses became the Kentucky Derby's official flower in 1904. The first garland, given to 1896 winner Ben Brush, was made of white and pink roses.

The University of Louisville's football stadium carried which pizza chain's name from its 1998 opening until 2018?

Papa John's founder John Schnatter, raised just across the river, gave $5 million for the naming rights; the name came down after he used a racial slur on a conference call.

At which city's 1960 Summer Olympics did Louisville teenager Cassius Clay win light heavyweight boxing gold?

Rome made the 18-year-old a star, though he later wrote that he threw the medal into the river back home after being refused service at a whites-only restaurant.

Which steakhouse chain, opened in 1993 at a mall in Clarksville, Indiana, is headquartered in nearby Louisville?

Texas Roadhouse was started by Kent Taylor, who came home to Louisville in 1990 after years of working in Colorado restaurants and nightclubs.

Which bourbon cocktail, served in a frosted silver cup, has Churchill Downs tied to the Kentucky Derby since 1938?

Mint julep orders at the Louisville racecourse ran to about 120,000 across Derby weekend as of 2009, nearly all of them poured into collectible souvenir glasses.

Which French royal emblem sits at the center of Louisville's flag, in honor of the city's namesake king?

Fleur-de-lis designs filled the previous flag too: three of them, arranged as on the House of Bourbon's arms, beside 13 stars for the original states.

Louisville is Kentucky's largest city, but which far smaller city on the Kentucky River is the state capital?

Frankfort was chosen by a state commission in 1792, the year of statehood, and with only 28,602 residents at the 2020 census it is one of the smallest capitals in the nation.

Which composer wrote My Old Kentucky Home, the ballad a University of Louisville band plays before the Kentucky Derby?

Stephen Foster never lived in the South: the Pittsburgh songwriter's only known trip to the Deep South was a steamboat voyage to New Orleans with his wife.

Which legendary Baltimore Colts quarterback wore number 16 for the Louisville Cardinals from 1951 to 1954?

Johnny Unitas was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers before his rookie season and played semi-pro ball for $6 a game until Baltimore gave him a tryout in 1956.

Which future president spent three weeks in 1841 at Farmington, a friend's family hemp plantation in Louisville?

Abraham Lincoln saw plantation slavery up close on the visit, and wrote in 1855 that the sight of enslaved people chained together on a steamboat had continued to torment him.

A double-size golden replica of which Renaissance sculpture stands outside Louisville's 21c Museum Hotel downtown?

Michelangelo's David was remade in gold by Turkish artist Serkan Özkaya, and the copy guards a hotel whose galleries fill a row of converted 19th-century warehouses.

Which Tennessee whiskey brand has belonged to the Louisville distiller Brown-Forman since a 1956 purchase?

Jack Daniel's is distilled in Lynchburg, Tennessee, but until 2014 its barrels were made by the parent company's own coopers in Louisville.

Which coach won a 1996 national title at archrival Kentucky before leading Louisville men's basketball from 2001?

Rick Pitino also won the 2013 national championship with Louisville, but the NCAA later vacated it and the university fired him for cause in 2017.

Which NBA All-Star guard nicknamed Spida played two college seasons at Louisville before the 2017 draft?

Donovan Mitchell started only a handful of games as a Louisville freshman, then went 13th overall to Denver and was traded straight to the Utah Jazz.

Which whiskey cocktail, by legend invented at the Pendennis Club, did Louisville name its official cocktail in 2015?

Old Fashioned lore credits a Pendennis bartender, but a Chicago newspaper was already discussing drinks by that name in 1880, a year before the club was founded.

Louisville's dominant railroad, chartered in 1850, took nine years to reach which Tennessee city in its name?

Nashville lay some 180 miles to the south, and the line, known as the L&N, kept running under that name until a larger railroad absorbed it by 1982.

An 1860 landmark near Louisville's riverfront is billed as the world's oldest ornamental what?

Water tower history usually points to Chicago's famous one, but Louisville's came first, and ten zinc statues ring its base above Corinthian columns.

Benedictine, a spread invented by Louisville caterer Jennie Benedict, blends cream cheese with which vegetable?

Cucumber went into the original only as juice, with a little green food coloring for its pale tint, and the spread is rarely seen on menus outside Kentucky.

Derby-Pie, a trademarked chocolate dessert created near Louisville by the Kern family, is made with which nut?

Walnuts go into a secret recipe known only to a few Kern relatives and a single employee, and by 2008 the family firm had sued about 25 times to protect the name.

Which Louisville arena housed Cardinals men's basketball from 1956 until a new downtown venue opened in 2010?

Freedom Hall, named through a statewide essay contest, also hosted six Final Fours between 1958 and 1969 and the Kentucky Colonels' run to the 1975 ABA championship.

Which Louisville golf club, designed by Jack Nicklaus, hosted the 2008 Ryder Cup and a Tiger Woods major win in 2000?

Valhalla saw Woods edge Bob May by one stroke in a three-hole playoff, four years after Mark Brooks won his only major there, also in a playoff.

Which nativist party sparked Louisville's Bloody Monday riots against Irish and German Catholics on election day 1855?

Know Nothings armed themselves to guard the polls, and it took the mayor, himself a member, to stop the mob from destroying the Cathedral of the Assumption.

The Modjeska, a Louisville candy named in the 1880s for a visiting actress, is a marshmallow dipped in what?

Caramel was confectioner Anton Busath's tribute to Helena Modjeska, in town for the American debut of Ibsen's A Doll's House; she sent him a signed portrait for his shop.

Which Protestant denomination opened its national headquarters in Louisville in 1988, replacing New York and Atlanta?

Presbyterian Church (USA) was born of a 1983 merger that reunited a mostly Southern branch with a nationwide one, which is why it had two old head offices to replace.

Which Louisville amusement park beside the state fairgrounds ran under the Six Flags banner from 1998 until 2009?

Kentucky Kingdom went bankrupt after its first season in 1987, was revived three years later by businessman Ed Hart, and was reopened by him again in 2014.

In 1954, General Electric's Louisville plant became the first private American business to install which computer?

UNIVAC I ran on more than 5,000 vacuum tubes and cost the company over a million dollars, all to handle the appliance factory's payroll and production scheduling.