The site of the city of Louisville is located on low and undulating ground with downtown Louisville surrounded on three sides by the Ohio River. Throughout the city’s history, water has risen above flood stage on the average of once every seven years. The lowest residential areas, Portland, Shippingport, West Louisville and the Point have suffered many minor floods. Approximately every fifty years the city has been invaded by major flooding.
The recent April flood of 2025 is ranked the eighth highest in Louisville history. On April 10, the Ohio River at Louisville crested at 36.63 feet. The Great Flood of 1937, the highest ever recorded on the Ohio River, crested sixteen feet higher than the 2025 event. The community remained flooded for twenty-three days with over 175,000 people forced to evacuate their homes and businesses. The highest river rise in an area is referred to as a “Great” flood, and 1937 stands alone among all other Ohio River floods.
One of the earliest recorded floods was in February 1832. The river rose to a crest of 41 feet, about 13 feet above flood stage. Downtown saw steamboats cruising through the streets and the independent town of Shippingport was virtually destroyed. The old French village of Shippingport was a bustling river town boasting its own industries, schools, hotels and residences until the opening of the Louisville-Portland Canal in 1830. The 1832 Flood destroyed all but one building in Shippingport and effectively ended the town’s period of development.
The decade of the 1880s saw three consecutive years of serious flooding. In 1882, 1883 and 1884, the river rose above its normal levels and the city suffered damage. The flood of 1884 reached the height of 46.7 feet and would remain the highest recorded measurement of flood waters and earned the title of “Great Flood” until 1937. A 13 February 1883 edition of the old Louisville Commercial newspaper gives a detailed description of the damage done to old Portland.
The flood in Portland yesterday reached an unprecedented height. It was higher yesterday at 5 o’clock than it was in 1847. All along the river front people were driven from their homes and forced to seek shelter on higher ground. The distilleries are in imminent danger of being overflooded. The loss of property was not great a later hour yesterday evening, but the probabilities were that $50,000 or $60,000 would be swept away before morning, and at least 200 families would be turned adrift. A reporter of the Commercial was down in Portland yesterday evening, and the scene presented on the levee front was truly pitiable. The whole of the lower part of the suburb seems to be flooded or about to be flooded. The people were moving out of their little houses and trying to save as much as they could. From Sand Island to the ferry landing, and indeed, all along the river front as far as the street reaches, the water was lapping up against the houses. In some places the water was up to the second story; in others it only covered the ground floor. It is thought that at least 500 families in Portland will be thrown out of house and home.
Virtually forgotten today are the serious flooding in 1913 and 1945, the latter being the second largest flood reaching 42.10 feet. The 1945 flood was the stimulus to create the Louisville floodwall protection system with over 29 miles of levees, gates and pumping stations to protect residential areas. Designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and maintained by Metro Sewer District, the project took over forty years to complete.
