Archaeologists recently uncovered Louisville’s oldest pottery business near the corner of Jackson and Main Streets where the old D & W Silks building was demolished for a proposed office tower. Researches found the business on a map of Louisville dating to 1831 and are recovering pottery fragments from a seven-foot-deep trench.
Lewis Pottery (sp?) opened in 1815 and is the oldest pottery shop in Louisville and one of the oldest in the country. Proprietor Jacob Lewis was run out of Louisville after going into debt which would have, at the time, landed him in jail. (Another famous debtor to be run out of Louisville in the early 19th century was John James Audubon.) Artifacts from the dig will later be on display at the University of Kentucky.
Founder and Editor at Broken Sidewalk
Branden founded Broken Sidewalk in 2008 while practicing architecture in Louisville. He continued the site for seven years while living in New York City, returning to Louisville in 2016. Branden is a graduate of the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and has covered architecture, design, and urbanism for The Architect's Newspaper, Designers & Books, Inhabitat, and the American Institute of Architects.
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Great article! The only bad thing is the artifacts will be displayed in Lexington rather than Louisville. We really need a city history museum.
-Eric