Louisville Unearthed: Our city began as a settlement on a now-submerged island

A depiction of the settlement on Corn Island. (Photos courtesy of Wikimapia.org)

Louisville is well known today as a strong river city, but started in the 1770s as a small island on the Ohio River.

First surveyed in 1773, it was originally named Dunmore Island, so named for John Murray, Crown 4th Earl of Dunmore, the Crown Governor of Virginia (keep in mind, this was pre-Revolution). The small island was mapped at about 4,000 feet long and 1,000 feet wide, good for about 70 acres. In its original form, it was said to be covered with sycamore and cottonwood trees, along with other vegetation.

But the island quickly changed. George Rogers Clark came to the area in 1778 and decided to settle the island as a military post, building a blockhouse and multiple cabins to house his troops and dozens of civilians that traveled with the battalion from Pennsylvania on a secret mission to capture a French-held fort in Illinois.

The island, situated just northwest of downtown, extended from what today is Fifth Street west to about 14th Street, and it wasn’t far off shore at roughly 150 yards. At certain times when the Ohio River was low, there were spots where it was possible to wade from the island to the mainland – and when Clark’s soldiers learned of the secret mission that would end in battle, many of them escaped. Some were recaptured, while others disappeared into what then was the wilderness that would later become Louisville.

When Clark felt he had fortified and trained his troops adequately to press on toward the west, he left behind about 60 civilians, comprising some 13 families, who started a farm community on the island. Of course, corn is one of Kentucky’s key crops today, which probably tells us why the island would eventually be renamed Corn Island.

Those 60 people would be the beginnings of what is now Louisville, a city of more than 600,000. In fact, according to historical documents known as the Draper Manuscripts, the first documented non-Native American Kentuckians were born on Corn Island in the wake of that early settlement.

As a result, Louisville historian George Yater has called Corn Island the touchstone of Louisville's history.

About a year after Corn Island was established, its resident farmers began migrating to the mainland, and the settlement that would become Louisville was well under way. By 1779, the island was completely abandoned as a residential location.

An undated photo shows remains of Corn Island peeking out of the water near K&I Bridge.

However, it remained a popular destination for family outings and small events and also would be home to various types of industry over the next few decades, from farming to a powder mill, which would ultimately be demolished in an explosion in 1830.

But with the deforestation to make way for farming and settlement also came erosion, and later mining of limestone further weakened the island. Thus, Corn Island’s footprint began to gradually shrink. By the late 1860s, there was nothing left of the island but a bedrock base and, reportedly, one last dead sycamore stump as the lone reminder of what the island once was.

The Army Corps of Engineers would later excavate that base via explosives and drilling to help improve river navigation and finally, by around 1891, the island was completely submerged, where it remains, just east of Shippingport Island and the McAlpine Lock and Dams.

There’s still an annual event called the Corn Island Storytelling Festival, which is named for the oft-forgotten Louisville historical landmark. A historical marker can be found in Fort Nelson Park, near 705 W. Main St. There’s also a cultural resources survey organization named Corn Island Archaeology, which features a wealth of knowledge about the island (and also is where much of the information for this story was sourced).

Interestingly, as Corn Island is still considered part of Louisville, it is still subject to property taxation. According to Wikipedia, Corn Island taxes have been paid annually through the years by the James family of Louisville. Hard to imagine the property value is high for a submerged piece of rock, but if true, it’s further proof that anything that can be taxed, will be taxed.

Every Friday, Louisville Unearthed will bring you an unusual fact, historical nugget, place, person, etc., that you may not know about our city.