Now that we’ve seen a little bit of downtown Paducah, let’s talk a little about its history. Founded due to its Ohio River access, much like St. Louis, the city thrived due to these connections, and when the railroad came later, Paducah embraced that new technology, as well. A gigantic rolling stock mill still provides many jobs in the city, and much like St. Louis again, Paducah transformed from a river town to a railroad town.

During the Civil War, it was tied up in the tensions and contradictions that tore at Kentucky (read about that here). There was even a fortification, Fort Anderson, that was built around Paducah’s own Marine Hospital, built off the standard design just like the ones in St. Louis and Louisville.

The port of Paducah is still very busy, and multiple barges with tugboats passed by as we looked at the Ohio River from the levee.

In fact, further upstream, there were perhaps close to a dozen tugboats docked, which is something I’ve never seen before on a major river in the United States.

I find it interesting that Paducah has focused on fixing up buildings and not on some useless exercise in relaying the wharf stones. Smart business decision.

You can drive straight into the river if you’re not careful!

There’s this beautiful Greek Revival house that surely is one of the oldest buildings in town; when it was first built it no doubt faced the arriving steamboats docking on the levee.

And of course, the railroads were prominent, and still are. There’s a giant floodwall; the flood of 1937 that hit Cairo also struck Paducah.

This is the Carson Center for the Performing Arts. I’m OK with building these in downtowns, but not at the price of acres of parking lots that sit empty most of the time in place of thriving, urban density that is activated seven days a week, not four hours on the weekend. Surprisingly, there is not a glut of parking around the center but there are two pointless lawns in front of it that hopefully some day can be reutilized for shopping or residential.

Just look at these beautiful buildings right by the flood wall.

The real treat is the market building, which while not still active as shopping like in Cincinnati, is instead an arts center. Fine by me.

There is a thriving restaurant scene on the blocks on either side of it.