Central Park, Louisville
Central Park is a 17-acre (69,000 m2) municipal park maintained by the city of Louisville, Kentucky. Located in the Old Louisville neighborhood, it was originally the country estate of the DuPont Family. Early in its existence, the park was the site of the Southern Exposition, but later became mostly known for hosting the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival and northern portions of the annual St. James Court Art Show.
Interest in developing park space for Louisville's growing population arose in the late 1860s, but it wasn't until the DuPonts decided to open the front lawn of their estate to the public on June 15, 1872 that the city finally got its own park. Although open only during warm weather months, it was an instant sensation and became immensely popular. Citizens could enjoy Sunday picnics and fashionable strolls, evening concerts, fireworks displays, balloon ascensions, plays, and much more. The first known production of a Shakespeare play in the park took place on July 1, 1895 when a national touring company presented As You Like It in the area where the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival's stage is now located.
During the Southern Exposition in 1883, 13 of the park's 17 acres (69,000 m2) were temporarily "roofed in" and used to showcase Thomas Edison's light bulb, one of the first large-scale public displays of the light bulb in the world. In 1885 the park was unroofed, and was instead used as an outdoor exposition, with an Edison-designed electric trolley line transporting visitors around the park to see such sites as a roller coaster, bicycle trails, and an art museum surrounded by a lake.
The park's future became less certain after the murder of the family's patriarch, Alfred DuPont. A bachelor who enjoyed all the good things that late Victorian culture had to offer, he was a habitué of the night life. In 1893, while sitting in a chair at a local bordello, he was shot and killed by Maggie Payne, an angry prostitute seeking support for a child she claimed was his. The local papers covered up the murder, claiming it was a sudden heart attack. A Cincinnati newspaper later divulged the true cause of death, but it wasn't publicly acknowledged in Louisville until the 1930s.
In the late 1890s, after Alfred's brother Biderman moved to Delaware, the family sought to sell their old estate to the city for a permanent park space, but negotiations dragged on and the family reluctantly began making plans to subdivide it into building lots. Around that time the city renamed the park DuPont Square, perhaps to encourage the family to keep it a park, but the name never stuck. Louisville's civic leaders finally stepped up in 1904 and purchased the old estate for $297,500: well over $2 million in today's currency.
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