James Lankford settled in the Rockport area in 1808, moving his wife and daughter into a cave under the bluff overlooking the Ohio River. Other settlers moved into the lowland that became downtown Rockport, originally dubbed Hanging Rock. By 1818 Rockport was named the Spencer County seat, and many families had moved to the top of the 200 foot bluffs to avoid the yearly floods. Downtown remained home to merchants, offices, and saloons where gambling was a favorite activity. By 1856 the town had 1,000 residents, many manufacturers, pork packers, mills, and breweries that relied on Rockport’s busy Ohio River port, which also shipped tobacco down-river to Owensboro, Kentucky. When the railroad connected Rockport to Jasper in 1874, more trade routes opened. In the 1930's Rockport’s sidewalks were laid by the Works Progress Administration, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Depression-era organization. Under the famous Rockport bluff lies the Ohio River, and from here in 1828 a young merchant, Abraham Lincoln, boarded a flatboat for his first river trip to transport produce to New Orleans.
