Historic River Front

Here the Tennessee River flows into the Ohio. On Owen's Island opposite Kentucky Avenue, George Rogers Clark's small army landed in 1779 to prepare for its defeat of the British in the Illinois country. In 1780 Colonel John Donelson landed 30 boats carrying 30 families that had floated downriver from east Tennessee; after a stopover they went up the Ohio and Cumberland and founded Nashville. In 1811 Captain Nicholas Roosevelt's New Orleans made port here, the first steamer to ply the rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. In 1861 Union troops under General U. S. Grant landed here to occupy Paducah for the duration of the war. Clara Barton arrived in 1884 on the Josh V. Throop during the American Red Cross' first major flood relief operation.

Paducah, Kentucky · United States