Downtown – Shelbyville, Kentucky
Shelbyville hosted the Kentucky Main Street training in January 2013. This gave an opportunity to get to know the community a little bit better.
Squire Boone’s Station from 1779 was the only large station on the Wilderness Road between Harrodstown and the Falls of the Ohio River. In 1781 it was attacked and lost before being reoccupied again.
According to the historic marker on October 28, 1809, Clark learnt of the death of his Expedition partner, Meriwether Lewis. Clark had stopped in town when traveling eastward and read a newspaper report that Lewis had killed himself in Tennessee.
Of the buildings in Shelbyville, some have exceptional fenestration. Over the Main St. Antique Mall are two bays with three double-hung windows and a large segmental window overhead with very fine muntins. Another building that was vacant at the time has four bays overhead with round arched windows.
The Shelby County Judicial Center makes a nod to historic building language with a pedimented entrance and an arcade on ground level. The brick and stone details and the six-over-six windows also give a reference.
When compared to the original Shelby County Courthouse, the contrasts between the two buildings are many. The older building has greater details in the columns, pediment, and baluster. Interestingly the smaller size and scale of the building speaks to how the need for a courthouse at the time this building was constructed were less so than present time.
One last site is the Bell House Restaurant in a house that was converted for use as a restaurant.