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Top Attractions in Louisville

Blackacre Nature Preserve and Historic Homestead

Blackacre State Nature Preserve is a 271-acre nature preserve and historic homestead in Louisville, Kentucky. The preserve features rolling fields, streams, forests, and a homestead dating back to the 18th century. For visitors, the preserve features several farm animals including horses, goats, and cows, hiking trails, and a visitors center in the 1844-built Presley Tyler home. The farmhouse is open to the public on Sundays, 1:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m., from March through November. The preserve and homestead are open every day weekdays from 3 p.m. to dusk, and on weekends from dawn to dusk. Since 1981, it has been used by the Jefferson County Public Schools as the site of a continuing environmental education program. About 10,000 students visit the outdoor classroom each year. The preserve was created in 1979 when the land was given to the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission by Judge Macauley and Mrs. Emilie Smith creating the first nature preserve in the Commonwealths system. The Blackacre Conservancy, founded in 1983, operates the historic homestead and conducts cultural and historical programs while the Commission retains ownership of the preserve and manages its natural resources. Blackacre is part of the old Moses Tyler farm, several original farm buildings remain, including the 1844 Presley Tyler home, an Appalachian-style barn and a reconstructed stone spring house. The entire 600-acre settlement has been named a national historic rural settlement. The name Blackacre is used as a generic name in legal contexts, particularly in law school and on bar exams, to refer to a parcel of land. The Smith family gave the land the name Blackacre; previously it was known as Land OSkye.

Frazier History Museum

The Frazier History Museum, formerly the Frazier Historical Arms Museum and more recently the Frazier International History Museum, is a museum in Louisville, Kentuckys "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown. It is named for the museums founder Owsley Brown Frazier. There are traveling exhibitions on display that are on loan from various sources. In addition, a number of costumed interpreters are employed, who perform daily historical interpretations as well as live demonstrations. Educational, cultural and entertainment activities are hosted at the museum throughout the day and evening. The museum is an affiliate in the Smithsonian Affiliations program.The museum has a Rooftop Garden and Loft event space that are often rented for weddings or corporate events. The facilities include 75,000 square feet of exhibition space over three floors, as well as two areas for interpretations, a 120-seat auditorium, and various displays . The Frazier Museum Store is on the first floor in the front of the museum, that offers local Kentucky gifts. The museum formerly displayed British Royal Armouries artifacts, making them the only place in the world outside Great Britain to permanently house and display such artifacts.

Churchill Downs

Churchill Downs, located on Central Avenue in south Louisville, Kentucky, United States, is a Thoroughbred racetrack most famous for hosting the Kentucky Derby annually. It officially opened in 1875, and held the first Kentucky Derby and the first Kentucky Oaks in the same year. Churchill Downs has also hosted the renowned Breeders Cup on eight occasions, most recently in 2011. Churchill Downs Incorporated owns and operates the racetrack. The capacity of Churchill Downs is 120,000. In 2009, the Horseplayers Association of North America introduced a rating system for 65 Thoroughbred racetracks in North America. Churchill Downs was ranked number 5 on this list. In 2014, prior to the start of their spring meet, Churchill Downs announced an increase in parimutuel takeout rates. As a result of the takeout increase, Churchill Downs was ranked number 22 in the 2014 Horseplayers Association of North America Track Ratings.

Louisville and Portland Canal

The Louisville and Portland Canal was a 2-mile canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. The Falls form the only barrier to navigation between the origin of the Ohio at Pittsburgh and the port of New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico; circumventing them was long a goal for Pennsylvanian and Cincinnatian merchants. The canal opened in 1830 as the private Louisville and Portland Canal Company but was gradually bought out during the 19th century by the federal government, which had invested heavily in its construction, maintenance, and improvement. The Louisville and Portland Canal became the McAlpine Locks and Dam in 1962 after extensive modernization. The canal was the first major improvement to be completed on a major river of the United States.

Central Park

Central Park is a 17-acre municipal park maintained by the city of Louisville, Kentucky. Located in the Old Louisville neighborhood, it was first developed for public use in the 1870s and referred to as "DuPont Square" since it was at that time part of the Du Pont family estate. During the Southern Exposition in 1883, 13 of the park's 17 acres were temporarily "roofed in" and used to showcase Thomas Edison's light bulb, one of the first large-scale public displays of the light bulb in the world. In 1885 the park was unroofed, and was instead used as an outdoor exposition, with an Edison designed electric trolley line transporting visitors around the park to see such sites as a roller coaster, bicycle trails, and an art museum surrounded by a lake. By 1904 the entire Du Pont family had moved to Wilmington, Delaware, so they sold the park to the city of Louisville for $297,500. The city enlisted famed architect Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who designed New York City's Central Park and had already designed an entire park and parkway system for the city of Louisville, to plot the new park. Olmsted had a large open air shelter with a colonnade built on top of the hill where the art museum had once stood, along with a wading pool and athletic fields on the side. The original walking trails were kept in place. In the 1970s the open air shelter was enclosed and used to house a police station and a neighborhood information center. In 1976 an amphitheater and wooden playhouse were built. The new playhouse was used to host the free annual summer performances of William Shakespeare's works, which had been held in the park since 1960. Since 1988 the annual event has been called the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, and is still free to the public. In 2004 the park celebrated its centennial.

Kentucky Science Center

The Kentucky Science Center, previously known as the Louisville Museum of Natural History Science and then Louisville Science Center, is Kentuckys largest hands-on science museum. Located in Louisville, Kentuckys "Museum Row" in the West Main District of downtown, the museum operates as a non-profit organization. It was founded in 1871 as a natural history collection, and now more than half a million people visit the museum annually. More students in Kentucky take field trips to the Kentucky Science Center than to any other destination. There are about 550,000 visitors annually. A special hands-on area for children younger than seven was renovated and renamed KidZone in 1998, featuring six educational activity areas. The building itself is located at 727 West Main Street, and takes up 150,000 sq ft . This includes a four-story digital theater, built in 1988 with a renovation in early 2014, in which three million people have seen at least one of the 45 different films shown there. The distinctive cast-iron facade limestone building was originally built in 1878 as a dry goods warehouse. The city purchased the building in 1975 and the museum moved into the premises in 1977, subsequently winning several design awards for its preservation of an older building. On January 11, 2007 it was announced that the Kentucky Science Center would acquire the Alexander Building which was built in 1880 and is adjacent to the current buildings. In 2009 the center opened a Science Education Wing on the buildings first floor. The wing includes four science-workshop labs equipped for "hands-on participation". The five-story Alexander Building totals nearly 37,000 square feet .

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Actors Theatre of Louisville is a non-profit performing arts theater located in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Actors Theatre was founded in 1964 following the merging of two local companies, Actors', Inc and Theatre Louisville, operated by Louisville natives Ewel Cornett and Richard Block. Designated as the "State Theater of Kentucky" in 1974, the theater has emerged as one of America's most consistently innovative professional theater companies, with an annual attendance of 150,000. The theater presents almost 400 performances annually and delivers a broad range of programming, including classics and contemporary work through the Brown-Forman Series, holiday plays, a series of free theatrical events produced by the Apprentice/Intern Company, and the Humana Festival of New American Plays—the premier new play festival in the nation, which has introduced nearly 450 plays into the American theatre repertoire over the past 39 years. In addition, the theater provides more than 17,000 arts experiences each year to students across the region through its education department, and boasts one of the nation's most prestigious continuing pre-professional resident training companies, the Apprentice/Intern Company, now approaching its 44th year. The theater has been the recipient of some of the most prestigious awards bestowed on a regional theatre, including a Tony® Award for Distinguished Achievement, the James N. Vaughan Memorial Award for Exceptional Achievement and Contribution to the Development of Professional Theatre, and the Margo Jones Award for the Encouragement of New Plays. The theater has toured to 29 cities and 15 countries worldwide, totaling more than 1,400 appearances internationally. Currently, there are more than 50 published books of plays and criticism from the theater in circulation—including anthologies of Humana Festival plays, volumes of ten-minute plays and monologues, and essays, scripts and lectures from the Brown-Forman Classics in Context Festival. Numerous plays first produced at the theater have also been published as individual acting editions, and have been printed in many other anthologies, magazines and journals—making an enduring contribution to American dramatic.

Speed Art Museum

The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest, largest, and foremost museum of art in Kentucky. It is located in Louisville, Kentucky on Third Street next to the University of Louisville Belknap campus. The museum offers visitors a variety of "art experiences" outside of its collection and international exhibitions, including the Speed Concert Series, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery, and the popular late-night event, Art After Dark. The Speed houses ancient, classical, and modern art from around the world. The focus of the collection is Western art, from antiquity to the present day. Holdings of paintings from the Netherlands, French and Italian works, and contemporary art are particularly strong, with sculpture prominent throughout. With a $50 million expansion and renovation project planned through 2016, The Speed Art Museum is currently closed for construction. The new 62,500-square-foot North Building will double the overall square footage and nearly triple the gallery space from the existing wing. The expansion will create a space for larger special exhibitions, new contemporary art galleries, a family education welcome center, 150-seat theater, indoor/outdoor café, museum shop, and a multifunctional pavilion for performances, lectures and entertaining. Additionally, the new Elizabeth P. and Frederick K. Cressman Art Park and public Piazza will be created for the display of sculpture. During the closure, the Museum has opened Local Speed, a satellite space in Louisvilles East Market District for rotating exhibitions, programs and events. Local Speed is located at 822 East Market Street.

Riverside, The Farnsley-Moremen Landing

Riverside, The Farnsley-Moremen Landing is a historic 300-acre farm and house in Southwest Louisville, Kentucky along the banks of the Ohio River. The house, a red brick I-house with a two-story Greek Revival portico, was built in 1837 by Gabriel Farnsley. Farnsley died in 1849 without a will, and after a dozen years of legal wrangling over his estate, the ownership of the house transferred to the Moremen family in 1862. Alanson and Rachel Stith Moremen increased the size of the farm to 1,500 acres, making it into one of the largest farms in Jefferson County before it was divided up amongst heirs in the 1880s. From around 1820 to 1890, the property served as a river transportation hub. A riverboat landing on the property allowed people traveling by river to stop to trade goods, pick up boiler wood for fuel, or rest. The Moremen family nicknamed the landing "Soap Landing", as they sold lye soap and other household and agricultural products there. In addition, a ferry carried people and goods back and forth between the landing and Indiana. Like many other structures along the Ohio River, the house was damaged by the Ohio River flood of 1937. The house was left unrepaired for decades. The Moremen family held on to the property until 1988, when they sold it to Jefferson County Fiscal Court for purposes of restoration and preservation. On October 10, 1993, the restored house was debuted to the public. A visitors center situated on the property houses an auditorium, museum exhibits and a store.

The Kentucky Center

The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, located in Louisville, is a major performing arts center in Kentucky. Tenants include Broadway Across America, Kentucky Opera, Louisville Ballet and Louisville Orchestra. The Kentucky Center also hosts artworks by Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, John Chamberlain, Jean Dubuffet and others. The Center was dedicated on November 19, 1983. Attendees included Charlton Heston, Diane Sawyer and Lily Tomlin. In 1984 the center hosted one of the U.S. presidential election debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Other artists and celebrities to have used the Center's stages in the past include: Ray Charles, Jessye Norman, Tony Bennett, the Joffrey Ballet, Kathleen Battle, Jim Carrey, Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Gregory Peck, James Taylor, President Bill Clinton, Elie Wiesel, Philip Glass, Marilyn Horne, Jerry Lewis, the Bolshoi Ballet, Wynton Marsalis, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Bill Cosby, President George W. Bush, Lily Tomlin, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Leontine Price, William F. Buckley, and Itzhak Perlman.

Squire Earick House

The Squire Earick House is the oldest known wood-frame house in Louisville, Kentucky, USA,built in 1819 in the Portland neighborhood. It has had many owners and a complicated history. David Shields and his brother-in-law purchased the house in 1827. Shields was a trader and pilot on the Ohio River, taking flatboats loaded with pork, flour, and whiskey to New Orleans from Portland. In 1831 he ran into financial difficulties that eventually bankrupted him in 1843. He and his family continued to live in the Earick House until about 1843 when a brother-in-law, Squire Jacob Wilstach Earick, purchased the house. Earick remodeled parts of the house with Victorian upgrades and lived there with his large family until his death. The Portland Museum owns two charcoal portraits and two oil portraits by naturalist John James Audubon. The charcoal drawings represent Mary Ann Bell who became Mrs. Jacob Earick and her mother Jane McLean Bell. The oil paintings represent Jacob Earick and Mary Ann Bell Earick. The Portland Development Organization donated the Earick House to the Portland Museum in 1994. It is currently undergoing renovation. With limited funding available, it may not be completed until 2018.

Beargrass Creek State Nature Preserve

Beargrass Creek State Nature Preserve is a 41-acre nature preserve in Louisville, Kentuckys Poplar Level neighborhood, in roughly the central portion of the city. It is named for Beargrass Creek, the south fork of which passes along the northern side of the preserve. The preserve is adjacent to Louisvilles Joe Creason Park and the Louisville Nature Center. It is owned by the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission and the LNC assists with management. The preserve includes 2 miles of walking trails, which cross wetlands and a ridge top. There are also 180 species of trees, shrubs and wildflowers. It is managed by the Louisville Nature Center, which is located on the west side of the preserve in a building which opened in 1997. The center claims it is "one of the largest inner-city nature preserves" in the United States. The preserve and nature center run on about a $90,000 annual budget, and in May 2007 reported about $100,000 in operational debt. In 1982, the State Nature Preserves Commission purchased a 41-acre wooded tract that became the preserve. It was a part of the Collings estate that had been acquired by the Archdiocese of Louisville in 1960.

Patriots Peace Memorial

Patriots Peace Memorial is a monument in eastern Louisville, Kentucky near the banks of the Ohio River. In 2000, County Judge-Executive Rebecca Jackson appointed a committee of local retired and former military personnel, as well as family members of local United States military personnel, to visualize, conceive, fund and erect a suitable memorial honoring fallen patriots from all the military services. With the generous financial support of David and Betty Jones, as well as numerous local foundations, corporations, veterans organizations, families, friends and patriotic citizens, the dream became a reality on Veterans Day, November 11, 2002. The monument includes an elevated, 4-sided structure with brick walls. Each time a new fallen patriot is inscribed, a brick is removed from the wall and replaced with a personalized etched glass identifying each patriot, signifying our loss. This void in an otherwise solid wall becomes a portal of light transforming the interior by day and radiating outward at night through each name as a reminder to celebrate daily the joy of freedom purchased and safeguarded by these brave men and women. Ever mindful that military readiness is a dangerous endeavor, as of 2007, this community has now enshrined 421 patriots in this memorial. The memorial honors fallen patriots from all services of the armed forces who died during honorable service in the line of duty, under conditions other than those of declared hostile action. The emphasis has been to find and honor veterans with local ties, who have died in service after the Vietnam War. There is a memorial service at the site for honorees annually at noon on Memorial Day. Official documentation is required from the members service to certify that a potential honoree was serving honorably at the time of his or her death and that it was not a result of misconduct or through some circumstance caused by the service member. The death may have occurred during regular off-duty time or official leave. In the case of Reservists and National Guard personnel, the death may have occurred while traveling to or from official duty or during any period of time while the service member was in a paid status. Despite its unique design incorporating an etched relief of an American flag on its north wall, the memorial lacked an actual American flag flying in silent tribute to those enshrined therein. On Memorial Day, May 29, 2006, during the annual memorial service, an American flag was solemnly raised in an enduring tribute to those honored by the memorial.

John B. Castleman Monument

The John B. Castleman Monument, within the Cherokee Triangle of Louisville, Kentucky, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS. It honors John Breckinridge Castleman, who was a Confederate officer during the American Civil War, and later an U.S. Army officer in charge of the Louisville Legion, and fought in the Spanish-American War. Only this monument and the John Hunt Morgan Memorial in Lexington, Kentucky are Civil War monuments in Kentucky with equestrians. As he founded the American Saddlebred Horse Association, he is seen here in civilian clothing rather than military garb. The horse which Castleman rides on the statue was based on his beloved mare, Carolina. The statue is made of bronze, and rests on a granite pedestal. It stands 15-feet high, with a base of 12x20 feet.

Kentucky International Convention Center

The Kentucky International Convention Center, formerly called the Commonwealth Convention Center, is a large multi-use facility in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It, along with the Kentucky Exposition Center, hosts conventions for the Louisville area. It was built on the site of the Tyler Block and opened in 1977. While the convention center does not have a permanent arena, it still has hosted various sporting events, including the 2002 Ohio Valley Conference Mens Basketball tournament and the NCAA Mens Division II Basketball Championship from 1995 to 2000. It also hosted select University of Louisville womens basketball games from the 1989–90 season through 1992–93, and again in the 1994–95, 2000–01, and 2008–09 seasons. One of the exhibit halls was temporarily turned into an arena, with seats for about 7,000. Not to be confused with the Louisville Gardens which was called the Convention Center or the Louisville Convention Center in the 1960s and 1970s until the Kentucky International Convention Center was being built in 1975 when the Louisville Gardens received its current name.
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