Abandoned Louisville: Ghosts of the River City

Explores the city's forgotten places—from mansions to sanatoriums—revealing its rich past amid urban decay.

One of the oldest cities west of the Appalachian Mountain Range, Louisville, Kentucky, was founded in 1778 by George Rodgers Clark, who named the city after King Louis XVI. Louisville is the home of Churchill Downs, known for the Kentucky Derby. During the Civil War, the city served as a Union Military Headquarters and supply depot and was an important crossing on the Underground Railroad for those escaping slavery across the Ohio River in Indiana.

The city has seen many changes over the past 200 years. As the metropolitan area grew to over one million people, various neighborhoods and suburbs started forming as people began to move away from the downtown areas. Many industries emerged, like the UPS Worldport Hub and Louisville Slugger baseball bat factory. As new areas emerged, the older parts of the city were often left behind, with structures left to decay for nature to reclaim.

Join author Stephen Mosier and venture into these forgotten structures from bygone areas. Journey into mansions, bridges, churches, and an abandoned tuberculosis sanatorium. See forgotten architecture and buildings in the River City that could soon be gone forever.