Parkways of Louisville, Kentucky

This article is about parks in Louisville, Kentucky. For the park in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts, see Olmsted Park.

Olmsted Park System
Cherokee Park
LocationLouisville, Kentucky
Built1891
ArchitectFrederick Law Olmsted
NRHP reference No.82002715 [1]
Added to NRHPMay 17, 1982

The parkway system of Louisville, Kentucky, also known as the Olmsted Park System, was designed by the firm of preeminent 19th century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The 26-mile (42 km) system was built from the early 1890s through the 1930s, and initially owned by a state-level parks commission, which passed control to the city of Louisville in 1942.[2]

The system was intended to form a circuit around what was then the fringes of the city of Louisville. However, there is a disconnect of several blocks between Eastern and Southern Parkways, because of a planned parkway running from the terminus of Western (today's Northwestern) Parkway along the Ohio River and around to Eastern Parkway was never built.[3][full citation needed]

Today, the system falls under direct management of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy, and under broader supervision by Louisville's Metro Parks Department [4]

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ Kramer, Carl E. (2001). "Parkways". In Kleber, John E. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Louisville. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. p. 693. ISBN 0-8131-2100-0. OCLC 247857447. Archived from the original on March 13, 2023. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  3. ^ National Register of Historic Places Inventory, National Register of Historic Places, May 17, 1982
  4. ^ "Frederick Law Olmsted Parks". olmstedparks.org. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015. Retrieved June 13, 2015.