From the 1880s until the 1930s, Fern Grove, later renamed Rose Island, was a popular resort destination where visitors rode steamboats, crossed a suspension bridge, picnicked, danced, hiked, and escaped Louisville's summer heat. Originally known as Fern Grove, it became the annual picnic destination of almost every Louisville church and offered hiking trails, picnic tables, a hotel, and a dance hall, with steamboats bringing groups across the river from Kentucky. In 1923, David B. G. Rose bought the property and renamed it Rose Island, adding twenty cabins, a roller coaster, swimming pool, live animal exhibits, shooting gallery, Ferris wheel, and dining hall. It was rumored that he secured a Kentucky liquor license by persuading authorities that the property was an island rather than part of Indiana. The construction of a suspension bridge across Fourteenmile Creek opened the resort to visitors from Indiana, who paid a toll to cross. The Great Flood of 1937 ended its years as a recreation spot when ten feet of water covered portions of the property, and after the floodwaters receded, the damage was too severe for it to reopen. The Portersville Bridge, built in 1912 across the east fork of the White River between Dubois and Daviess Counties, was flooded within months of completion in March 1913, leading to the removal of its hand rails so debris could pass and to the bridge being raised three feet in May 1913. After closing to traffic in 1999 following 86 years of service, the bridge was acquired by Charlestown State Park in 2008, disassembled and numbered, then inspected, cleaned, repainted, and reassembled in 2011 as a pedestrian bridge to the former site of Rose Island.