Shively (Kentucky)
Shively is a small town in the US state of Kentucky . The Jefferson County city is a suburb of Kentucky's largest city, Louisville . Shively had a population of 15,592 in 2013.
history
Community-free settlement
The first European settlers came to what is now Shively in 1780. The names William Pope, Abner Field and Jacob Shively have survived. A Christian Shively built a mill and an inn on the site in 1810. The rest house became a major stop on the Louisville to Salt River road and later on the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike . Since 1831 there was a regular service with stagecoaches, which was replaced by the Elizabethtown and Paduca Railroad in the 1870s .
In the second half of the 19th century the population of the then unincorporated area began to grow. Above all, immigrants from Germany came to build farms there. Residents of German descent from the area also built the Catholic Church of St. Helens in 1897, and many residents began to refer to the settlement as St. Helens. In 1902 a post office opened. Since the name St. Helens was already occupied by a town in nearby Lee County , the post office decided on the name Shively.
In 1926, the first automobile circuit was built on the Dixie Highway in the Shively area. The grandstand held 6,500 spectators and races were held four times a year on the track.
City foundation and whiskey distilleries
After the end of Prohibition, Louisville experienced a boom in whiskey distilleries. Many of them settled just outside the city area, in what was to become Shively. Between 1933 and 1940 the Stitzel-Weller -Distillery, Glencoe, a distillery of Seagram , Hill and Hill, Old Kentucky (later Early Times Distillery ), Four Roses and Taylor and Williams (later: Glenmore ) were established there.
In 1938 Shively was founded as a town with 1,054 residents, mainly due to the whiskey distilleries located in the area, who did not want to pay the Louisville tax rates and feared incorporation into the big city. Due to the then very profitable distilleries, Shively had a high tax income and was a wealthy suburb of Louisville with strong growth. From 1950 to 1960 the population of Shively grew from 2,400 to 15,000
Defenders of apartheid
Until the mid-1950s, Shively was an all-white suburb with no African-Americans. In the wake of the White flight , Louisville residents moved to Shively to keep to themselves. In the 1950s, strict segregation began to disappear in the southern states. The Brown v. Board of Education cases before the United States Court of Justice banned school segregation, and African-Americans were the first to venture into areas previously reserved for whites only.
In 1954, the Afro-American couple Andrew and Charlotte Wade tried to move to Shively. The two were expecting a second child and found their dream home in Shively. Since they found it impossible to find a seller for a house, they asked friends and politicians in Carl and Anne Braden from Louisville. They bought a house in Shively and immediately sold it to the Wades. Just five days after the Wades moved in, on May 15, 1954, stones flew through the Wades' window while the Bradens received numerous threats, including that their home would be "blown up". On May 16, shots were fired at the Wades house while a burning cross, the symbol of the Ku Klux Klan , was being erected on the neighboring property . On the 21st, the insurance company canceled all of Wade's contracts without giving any reason, and at the end of the month the bank immediately demanded the loan back for the house. On June 27, 1954, a bomb exploded under the Wades house.
The community acted from waiting to sympathizing with the attackers. Priests from the local churches spent significantly more time reprimanding the Bradens for their behavior during a radio show than the bombers. In its articles, the local newspaper the Louisville Courier-Journal defended the rights of whites to protest against the settlement of African Americans and attacked the Bradens for their behavior. The Shively Newsweek accused the Braden to be hypocritical and provoke by their behavior heimlichtuerisches chaos and bloodshed, and introduce communism through the back door wanting. A lawsuit brought by the Wades over the bombing concluded that it was an action by the Wades themselves to fuel communist rioting. A court of first instance sentenced Carl Braden to 15 years in prison for provoking racial unrest.
In late 1957, the Wades moved out of the house because of concerns about their safety.
In 1971 the first organized groups against busing began to be founded in Shively. Busing was supposed to take African American students to white schools by bus in order to break the de facto ongoing segregation in schools. In 1971 the Save Our Community Schools organization was founded. The organization wanted to fight the introduction of busing in Kentucky, held demonstrations and petitions to the Kentucky Parliament.
Crisis from 1970 to 2000
At the end of the 1970s, whiskey manufacturers hit a serious sales crisis. In Shively, businesses or companies merged distilleries and moved them out of Shively. At the end of the 1980s only Stitzel-Weller and the Early Times Distillery were still active in Shively, Stitzel-Weller stopped distilling whiskey in the 1990s and is now only used as a warehouse for the maturation of the whiskey. The population fell from almost 20,000 in 1970 to 15,000 in 1990. Even the attempt to turn around by incorporating the suburb of Pleasure Ridge Parks failed, as the residents of Pleasure Ridge successfully defended themselves against the incorporation. That same year, a scandal surrounding a corrupt police chief who had promoted prostitution in the town resulted in the town being nicknamed "Lively Shively".
Only with a new renaissance of bourbon whiskey since the turn of the millennium did the trend reverse slightly. The remaining distilleries built up new capacities, and in some cases new operations were established or visitor centers were set up.
population
At the 2010 census, Shively had 15,264 residents, by 2013 the number had risen to 15,592. The proportion of African Americans was 48.6% in 2010, well above the average for all of Kentucky, which was 7.8%. Median earnings, college graduate numbers, and homeowner rates were in some cases significantly lower than their Kentucky counterparts.
traffic
Shively is at the intersection of US 31 and Interstate 264.
Remarks
- ↑ a b United States Census Bureau: Shively ( Memento of the original from December 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Retrieved December 21, 2014
- ↑ a b c d e Shively in: John E. Kleber (ed.): The Kentucky Encyclopedia University Press of Kentucky ISBN 0-8131-2883-8
- ^ Louisville Motor Speedway in: John E. Kleber (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Louisville University Press of Kentucky, 2001 ISBN 0-8131-2890-0
- ^ A b Michael R. Veach: Distilling in: John E. Kleber (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Louisville University Press of Kentucky, 2001 ISBN 0-8131-2890-0
- ↑ Harry L. Watson, Larry J. Griffin (eds.): Southern Cultures Volume 15 Omnibus E-book UNC Press Books, 2013 ISBN 1-4696-1568-1
- ^ Louisville - an Historical Overview in: John E. Kleber (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Louisville University Press of Kentucky, 2001 ISBN 0-8131-2890-0
- ^ A b c d Tracy K'Meyer: Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South: Louisville, Kentucky, 1945-1980 pp. 33ff.
- ↑ Tracy K'Meyer: Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South Louisville, Kentucky, 1945-1980 S. 33ff.
- ↑ Nicholas Howard: "Lively Shively," Kentucky , Louisville History Examiner September 20, 2013
