Locksmith In
Shepherdsville

It is known that Native Americans lived in this Shepherdsville area at least 15,000 years ago. The area was originally known to European Americans as “Bullitt’s Lick” for the salt licks discovered by surveyor Capt. Thomas Bullitt in 1773. The first salt works operation began by Casper Mansker from Pennsylvania, who settled on the property in 1779. The works were located on Mansker Creek, and Mansker himself operated on a small rental of property. They were located at the present day site of the Bullitt Lick Middle School. This was Kentucky’s first commercial salt works. It is believed that they were abandoned because of Virginian works competing with them along the Kanawha River (West Virginia) as well as the expense and danger of Indian attacks. The mill and store were begun by Adam Shepherd, who moved to the watercourse in 1790. Two years later, Shepherd bought 900 acres (360 ha) of land and began developing a permanent settlement in the vicinity of the licks. The city received its charter in 1793, shortly after the initial surveying of the county carved out of Jefferson and Nelson counties in 1784 and 1786, respectively. Shepherdsville was designated as the county seat when the county was formed in 1796.

The year of 1806 marked the emergence of the first of Shepherdsville post offices. Once 1836 came around, individuals started experiencing Paroquet Springs; a mineral water health spa. Allegedly this miracle water could cure any disease. Folks from far and wide would come to Shepherdsville to sip and soak in the rejuvenating pools that sat right on the main road. In the mid-1850s, the mainline of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was constructed a few hundred yards east of Lebanon Junction which, at the time, was called Belmont Station. During the Civil War, Union sentries guarded the railroad bridge over the Salt River at Shepherdsville against sabotage, an almost certain target. In 1879, fire razed the Paroquet Springs Hotel to the ground, and the land around it was sold. The water continued to be bottled and sold until about 1915.

In 1904 The Lynching of Marie Thompson By Shepherdsville Staged near the jail just west of Lebanon Junction, this was the lynching of Marie Thompson, who was also known as Marie Thueson, or Thompson. A widow with four children, she boarded and killed her two youngest (ages five and nine) by placing lye in their food or drink to try to sell her story to the circus. Soon people would say she had only been “in her right mind” two weeks in her whole life. Turned her in to the law and betting against serious punishment (you were betting a for sure hanging, but only 70% on a for sure).