Louisville, Kentucky

===Early history and founding===

[[File:George Rogers Clark.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.65|alt=Painting of the head and shoulders of an older, gray-haired, balding man in a colonial-era military uniform (blue jacket with white lapels and gold epaullettes)|[[George Rogers Clark]] founded Louisville in the midst of the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]].]]

Since the Falls created a barrier to river travel, settlements grew at this [[portage]] point. The first European settlement in the vicinity of modern-day Louisville was on [[Corn Island (Kentucky)|Corn Island]] in 1778 by Col. George Rogers Clark, credited as the founder of Louisville. Several landmarks in the community are named after him.<ref>{{cite web|title=George Rogers Clark: Kentucky Frontiersman, Hero, and Founder of Louisville|publisher=Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives|url=http://www.kdla.ky.gov/resources/kygrclark.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070425213827/http://www.kdla.ky.gov/resources/KYGRClark.htm|archive-date=April 25, 2007|access-date=July 19, 2007}}</ref>

Two years later, in 1780, the [[Virginia General Assembly]] approved the town charter of Louisville. The city was named in honor of [[Louis XVI of France|King Louis XVI of France]], whose soldiers were then [[France in the American Revolutionary War|aiding Americans in the Revolutionary War]]. Early residents lived in [[Fort Nelson (Kentucky)|forts]] to protect themselves from raids from the local indigenous population, but they moved out by the late 1780s.<ref>{{cite book |title=Two Hundred Years at the Fall of the Ohio: A History of Louisville and Jefferson County |last=Yater |first=George H. |year=1987 |publisher=[[The Filson Historical Society|Filson Club, Incorporated]] |location=Louisville, Kentucky |edition=2nd |pages=9–10 |isbn = 978-0-9601072-3-0}}</ref> In 1803, explorers [[Meriwether Lewis]] and [[William Clark]] organized their [[Lewis and Clark Expedition|expedition across America]] in the town of [[Clarksville, Indiana]] at the present-day Falls of the Ohio opposite Louisville, Kentucky.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition|url=http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/read/?_xmlsrc=introduction.general.xml&_xslsrc=LCstyles.xsl|access-date=July 30, 2009|archive-date=May 17, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110517182106/http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/read/?_xmlsrc=introduction.general.xml&_xslsrc=LCstyles.xsl|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Lewis and Clark—Falls of the Ohio|url=http://www.in.gov/dnr/lewis-clark/falls/|access-date=July 30, 2009|archive-date=February 17, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090217165128/http://www.in.gov/dnr/lewis-clark/falls/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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