The EE Sampler - Jefferson County Public Schools

Disposal of Animal Waste
Sarah Payne
Home of the Innocents is a children’s village which gives medical aid, counseling and shelter
for young people who are in need. While this institution was newly built in 2003, the land that it rests
on has a long and interesting history. What is now the Joan E. Thomas children’s village used to be
the Bourbon Stockyards. Butchertown, the area surrounding the stockyards, has been linked with the
meat industry since the 1830s. Due to Louisville’s location on the Ohio River, the city was a good
spot to slaughter animals and ship the meat downriver to reach markets in the South. In 1834 a hotel
for farmers known as the Bourbon House became the center of the meat industry. A stockyard was
constructed in 1864 at Main and Johnson streets. Eleven years later it became a corporation called the
Bourbon Stock Yard Company.
Lasting from 1864 to 1999, the Bourbon Stockyards was the oldest constantly operating
stockyard in the United States. Early in its business, the Bourbon Stockyard created serious
environmental dangers in Louisville. Beargrass Creek was a convenient place to dump waste from the
stockyard and the butchers. All of the unwanted parts of the slaughtered animals, such as guts, hides,
blood and hooves were disposed of in Beargrass Creek. This was convenient for soap and candle
makers who could scrape fat off the banks of the creek in order to make their products. However, it
posed a serious environmental hazard to the city. Animal parts would enter the Ohio River from the
creek at 2 nd Street and would wash downtown. They would then get stuck on rocks and rot. The smell
from the rotting entrails was so overpowering that eventually something had to be done. Instead of
outlawing the disposal of waste into the water, town leaders chose to move Beargrass Creek so that it
flowed into the Ohio River north of the city.
Though such waste disposal practices are now forbidden, the Beargrass Creek is still polluted
with nearly every water quality problem that can be imagined. In fact, none of the bodies of water in
Kentucky are safe for body contact. Much progress still needs to be made in order for our waters to be
environmentally safe. In the future, we may see our environmental practices as revolting as we now
view the disposal of animal waste into creeks and rivers.
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