Place:Jeffersonville, Clark, Indiana, United States

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Jeffersonville is a city in Clark County, Indiana, along the Ohio River. Locally, the city is often referred to by the abbreviated name Jeff. It is directly across the Ohio River to the north of Louisville, Kentucky along I-65. The population was 44,953 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Clark County.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Antebellum

In 1786 Fort Finney was situated where the Kennedy Bridge is today to protect the area from Indians, and a settlement grew around the fort. The fort was renamed in 1791 to Fort Steuben in honor of Baron von Steuben. In 1793 the fort was abandoned. Precisely when the settlement became known as Jeffersonville is unclear, but it was probably around 1801, the year in which President Thomas Jefferson took office. In 1802 local residents used a grid pattern designed by Thomas Jefferson for the formation of a city. On September 13, 1803, a post office was established in the city. In 1808 Indiana's second federal land sale office was established in Jeffersonville, which initiated a growth in settling in Indiana that was further spurred by the end of the War of 1812.

Shortly after formation, Jeffersonville was named to be the county seat of Clark County in 1802, replacing Springville. In 1812 Charlestown was named the county seat, but the county seat returned to Jeffersonville in 1878, where it remains.^[1]

In 1813 and 1814 Jeffersonville was briefly the de facto capital of the Indiana Territory, as then-governor Thomas Posey disliked then-capital Corydon, and wanting to be closer to his personal physician in Louisville, decided to live in Jeffersonville. However, it is debated by some that Dennis Pennington had some involvement to his location to Jeffersonville. The territorial legislature remained in Corydon and communicated with Posey by messenger.

Civil War

The American Civil War increased the importance of Jeffersonville. Jeffersonville was one of the principal gateways to the South during the Civil War, due to its being directly across from Louisville. It was served by three railroads from the north and had the waterway of the Ohio River. Naturally, this influenced its selection as one of the principal bases for supplies and troops for the Union Army. Operating in the South, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad furnished the connecting link between Louisville and the rest of the South. Camp Joe Holt was instrumental in keeping Kentucky within the Union. The third largest American Civil War hospital, Jefferson General Hospital was located in nearby Port Fulton (now within Jeffersonville) from 1864–1866,^[2] as it was close to the river and Louisville. The original land was seized by the Government from the Honorable Jesse D. Bright, United States Senator, a sympathizer of the Confederate cause.^[2] During the war it housed 16,120 patients in its 5,200 beds and was under the command of Dr. Middleton Goldsmith. A cemetery was built for fallen soldiers down the hill, but the wooden grave markers by 1927 had rotted away, causing the Jeffersonville city council to build a ball field over the cemetery, and not bothering to move the graves, located on Crestview Avenue. The Jeffersonville Quartermaster Intermediate Depot had its first beginning in the early days of the Civil War, near its present location.

Ohio Falls Car Works at Jeffersonville, Indiana, about 1872. Note transfer table between erecting shops at rear of 20 acre plant. Buildings are connected by service railway with 22 turntables facilitating movement of cars. The Ohio Falls Car & Locomotive Company was founded at Jeffersonville, Indiana, 1 June 1864. Jeffersonville is immediately across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, near what is known as the “Falls of the Ohio,” and it is apparently from this geographic that the company took its name. It was likely started because during this last full year of the Civil War inflation was rampant and the price of a boxcar that before the war had sold for $450 – 500 was up to $1,000 – 1,200. (Multiply those prices by 15 to recognize today's value.) Further, Jeffersonville was the location of an important Quartermaster supply depot and an important gateway to the South.

The company appears to have gone through bankruptcy early on, but we can't pin this down. Since the company was begun during the Civil War, in an inflationary economy, when car prices tripled and quadrupled, it is possible the abrupt return to “normal” in 1865 may have seemed like a depression to the budding company.

In 1866, 35 year old Joseph White Sprague (1831-1900) was asked by the stockholders to take over management of the bankrupt company. He had been Engineer on the enlargement of the Erie canal from 1854 to 1858, Second Assistant Engineer on the New York canals from 1858 to 1862, and then Civil Engineer on the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad.

Sprague believed in standardization at a time when railroads were going in 76 different directions with their own ideas of how cars should be built. His firm was soon offering standard box cars, flat cars and hopper cars. According to White,(64) Ohio Falls’ advertisement in the 1868 Ashcroft Railway Directory stated they had cars on hand ready for immediate delivery. They maintained 10 of each type of car ready for lettering and delivery in 24 hours. They maintained another 120 cars framed up, and could deliver these completed at a rate of from 12 to 20 per week. They had a stock of streetcars ready for lettering, and passenger car bodies ready for trucks and interior trimmings of the buyer’s choice. They guaranteed high quality and fast delivery.

The records that would tell how successful this program was apparently no longer exist, as White—backed by the resources of the Smithsonian Institution—was unable to find them. But this was a revolutionary concept, and revolutionary concepts didn’t seem to go over very well in the car building industry. Every railway seemed to have its own idea of car design, and ready-made cars would necessarily be of Ohio Falls’ design. “Standardization,” as such, was 50 years off.

The company’s shops burned to the ground in 1872, and Sprague built a new series of shops. But before the company could get going again, the financial panic of 1873 severely reduced the railroads’ buying of new cars. The shops were closed for more than two years, and the firm apparently went through a second bankruptcy.

In 1876 the company was reorganized as the Ohio Falls Car Manufacturing Company. It built most types of railroad cars, including electric street cars, and passenger cars for the up-and-coming narrow gauge railroads.

Among the first narrow gauge cars built by Ohio Falls were excursion cars for a Kentucky railroad. These tiny cars weighed less than seven tons and seated 64, but would carry as many as 125.

We don't know whether there was another reorganization between 1876 and 1887, but the name Ohio Falls Car Co.  is listed under “Car Builders” in 1877 edition, Poor’s Directory of Railway Officials.

When Joseph Sprague retired in 1888, Ohio Falls was one of the largest and most profitable of the car builders.  By 1892 it employed more than 2,300, and its sales soon reached $3 million worth of cars annually. In 1898 its net earnings reached $220,000 and holders of preferred stock received a 14 percent dividend.

Whether it was ever successful in selling ready-made cars or not, Ohio Falls continued its commitment to the idea. In 1896 it surveyed the industry, asking what a 30-ton boxcar measured or “ought” to measure. It published its results early the next year,(65) but nothing ever came of the effort, because in 1899, the Ohio Falls Car Manufacturing Company was one of the 13 independent car builders that merged to form the American Car & foundry Company.

The Jeffersonville plant specialized in freight cars, passenger cars and associated parts. An adjacent foundry produced castings and chilled iron wheels.

During the 1st World War, the Jeffersonville plant produced escort wagons, wagon wheels and nose forgings for shells for the U.S. Army. It also produced up to 20,000 shirts a day. (That's correct, shirts!) It also developed the first rolling kitchen and the Phillips packsaddle, a large, steel-framed and heavily padded structure designed to let mules carry howitzer components or other heavy loads.

A "Rolling Kitchen" on the Russian Front, 1918. These were greatly appreciated by the troops and figure in many unit histories. Production of railroad cars fell off during the 1920s, and the Jeffersonville plant was closed in 1930. It was reopened during the 2nd World War to supply various castings and shell forgings to other ACF plants, but was closed again in 1945. The former plant buildings are now occupied by a number of businesses known collectively as Water Tower Place.

1900s

By 1870 17% of Jeffersonville residents were foreign-born. Most of these were from Germany. During the 1920s, Jeffersonville was a popular gathering place for the Ku Klux Klan, as Louisville and New Albany had strong anti-KKK laws and Jeffersonville didn't.

Gambling in the 1930s and 1940s was instrumental in Jeffersonville's recovery from the Great Depression and the Flood of 1937. Casinos, betting parlors, night clubs, and even a dog track were present, giving the town the nickname "Little Las Vegas". After a New Albany businessman was gunned down, public sentiment turned against gambling. On January 2, 1948, Indiana State Police raided every casino in the city before the operators could warn each other, and the judge who had devoted the past nine years in eliminating gambling from Jeffersonville, James L. Bottorff, made sure that the equipment was confiscated and the money at the casinos given to charity. This may have played a factor in keeping Jeffersonville residents from voting to approve riverboat gambling in the 1990s. In 2006 riverboat gambling was approved, but for the return of gambling to occur the Indiana State legislature would either have to approve an additional riverboat, or one of the existing riverboats in Indiana would have to relocate to Jeffersonville; presumably, it would be one of the three currently serving the Cincinnati market.

During World War II the Quartermaster Depot in conjunction with Fort Knox, Kentucky housed German prisoners of war until 1945. Now the Depot is used as a shopping center.

Ship building

In 1819 the first shipbuilding took place in Jeffersonville, and steamboats would become key to Jeffersonville's economy.^[1] James Howard made his first steamboat in 1834 in Jeffersonville named the Hyperion.^[1] He established his ship building company in Jeffersonville in 1834 but later moved his business to Madison, Indiana in 1836 and remained there until 1844. He returned his business to the Jeffersonville area to its final location in Port Fulton, Indiana in 1849. In 1925 the United States Navy assumed control of the Howard Ship Yards until 1941, after Jeffersonville finally annexed Port Fulton. During the Second World War the ship yards built landing vessels like the LST. It was later established as the Jeffersonville Boat & Machine Company, later simply known as Jeffboat, which still supports the local economy. The history of shipbuilding in Jeffersonville is the focus of the Howard Steamboat Museum. There was an annual festival held on the second weekend in September called Steamboat Days, but lack of participation led to its demise.

Annexation

On February 5, 2008 the city of Jeffersonville officially annexed four out of six planned annex zones. Two of the zones not being annexed were put off due to law suits. The four areas annexed added about to the city and about 4,500 citizens raising the population to an estimated 33,100. The total area planned to be annexed is . The annexed areas receive planning and zoning, building permits and drainage issues services right away with new in-city sewer rates which are lower. Other services are being phased in such as police and fire and will work jointly with the pre-existing non-city services until they're available. One of the other two areas remaining to be annexed is Oak Park, Indiana an area of about 5,000 more citizens.

Just weeks after the February 5 annexation of the four plots the Clark County Courts dismissed the law suits on February 25, 2008 against the city. This dismissal of the court cases brings the remaining Oak Park area into the city. The population of the city is now expected to be nearly 50,000 citizens and is the largest annexation in Jeffersonville's history.

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