St. Joseph's Historic District
Railroad Workers' Neighborhood
Much of downtown Bowling Green west of Louisville & Nashville tracks owes its development to the railroad and to nearby industries. Most railroad workers stayed in downtown hotels prior to the mid-1880s when smaller and cheaper fame housing became available around St. Joseph Catholic Church. The houses they built in this neighborhood were typical of the popular styles of the period.
St. Joseph's Catholic Church
Many of the immigrant workers who lived in this area were Catholic.
Although they cherished new opportunities, they clung to the traditions of the church. Reverend Joseph De Vries was sent to shepherd the Bowling Green mission in 1858. The congregation built a frame church which was replaced in 1862 by a larger masonry structure designed by Frank L. Kister, St. The church building was expanded in the late 1880's. Patterned after the cathedral at Cologne, Germany. St. Joseph's new church was dedicated in 1889. The St. Joseph Catholic School opened at this location in 1911 to provide education and religious training for children of parishioners.
The Portage Railroad Spurs Early Industries
The L&N offered Bowling Green important access to the country just prior to the Civil War, but the St. Joseph neighborhood had been exposed to rail service since 1837. A year earlier, the Bowling Green Portage Railway had been chartered by several Bowling Green businessmen. The Railway, which chiefly hauled freight, ran for one and one-half miles from the city wharf on the Barren River to downtown Bowling Green.
When the L&N was completed in 1859, the railroad purchased this spur line. A number of important Bowling Green industries located along this early railway including a rock quarry, stone finishing plant, flour mill, a woolen mill, a planing mill, and a tool handle and furniture factory.
Marker is on Church Avenue.
Courtesy hmdb.org
