Louisville Historic Tours

06/30/2025

Pizza power is back! Opening at 4:30p today in Germantown.

06/29/2025

😮

06/29/2025

This is for memorialization purposes:

On Sunday, June 29, at 11AM a Louisville Historic Tours LLC (LHT) guide experienced another incident which illustrates the ongoing confusion and resulting practices of unfair competition created by the visitors center in Central Park, which offers rival guided walking tours under the auspices of the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council (OLNC):

A party of five people who had purchased tickets for the 11AM "Historic Old Louisville Walking Tour" (offered by the OLNC and starting in Central Park) showed up today at the wrong spot because they confused their tour with the "ORIGINAL Old Louisville Walking Tour" (offered by LHT and starting at the corner of South Fourth Street and West Ormsby Avenue, 2 blocks away). We will leave the actual problems this presents for the respective tour guide and our company for another discussion.

Unfortunately, incidents like these are not uncommon, and this counts as yet another illustration of the ongoing confusion generated by the newer, rival walking tours offered in Central Park. These tours started some 10 years ago—and some 10 years AFTER Louisville Historic Tours LLC began offering walking tours in Old Louisville.

This confusion is the result of a number of factors:

1) Similarity in product names;
2) Sameness in starting times offered;
3) Lack of attempt to create a distinct and original walking tour in lieu of riding the coattails of an already extant and successful product;
4) Poor communication with guests on the part of the Old Louisville Visitor Center.

Confusion between the tours offered by LHT and the OLNC began in 2014 when the OLNC unsuccessfully attempted to assume ownership of the Victorian Ghost Walk from creator David Dominé, who in turn terminated his agreement to operate walking tours out of the visitors center in Central Park. Out of spite, the OLNC began their own copycat tours, and they did very little to differentiate their product from the one that already existed.

Although they did create a shorter (60-minute) version, the walking tour they created followed a similar route, contained much of the same information, and had the same tone as the original. In addition, they offered their tours at almost the EXACT SAME TIMES as the original: 11AM and 1:30PM, as opposed to 11AM and 1PM as offered by LHT.

Given that tours offered by LHT had already established themselves through years of word-of-mouth of publicity and the notoriety of author David Dominé—not to mention good reviews on social media platforms and write ups in national and international publications—it’s not hard to conceive that newer, underpriced walking tours would undermine the foundations of Louisville Historic Tours LLC while piggybacking off the success of the already existing tours. Almost immediately, LHT noticed good reviews meant for their tours left in error for OLNC tours on ticket sites such as TripAdvisor; by the same token, bad reviews meant for the OLNC tours began popping up on review sites for LHT tours. At the same time, we experienced a dramatic increase of the volume of irate phone calls, emails, and texts from potential customers who were confused by the two very similar tours in the neighborhood.

Instead of engaging in legal action, as would have been the prerogative of Louisville Historic Tours LLC, we decided instead to concentrate on offering the best walking tours possible and strove for ways to make our tours stand out from the others. When people mistakenly showed up for one of our tours with tickets for the rivals in the park, LHT guides were instructed to send them in the right direction, and if possible, to call the visitor center and let them know they had lost guests looking for them. In cases like today, when the OLNC tour-goers arrived irate and at the last minute in the wrong spot, LHT guides were instructed to invite them along on our tour, at no additional cost, so they could still enjoy the neighborhood without having to run off in search of their tour group.

Recently, however, the OLNC has begun realigning their products to resemble more closely those offered by LHT. Their tours have been extended from 60 minutes to 90 minutes (the length of the original LHT tour)—and they have started offering their tour on days and at times they previously did not offer tours, Sundays at 11AM, for example. Hardly surprising, we’ve now been seeing a marked increase in correspondence from confused tour-goers and incidents like the one experienced today.

To be clear: There is absolutely nothing wrong with competition, as painful as it might be in some instances. We live in a capitalist society, and competition is part of the game. However, competitors are required to engage in fair business practices, and creating confusion does not constitute fair competition. It is an actionable offense in the eyes of the law.

06/29/2025

This is for memorialization purposes:

On Thursday, June 26, the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council committed copyright infringement when they shared a photo belonging to Louisville Historic Tours LLC on their page to promote and publicize their rival walking tours offered through the visitors center in Central Park. The photo in question was taken by David Dominé on Monday, May 19, and it was subsequently distributed on various social media sites by him and/or agents of Louisville Historic Tours LLC.

As seen in screenshots below, David Dominé good-naturedly and indirectly asked that the photo be taken down when the infringement was discovered. The post with the photo, which is the main one used to promote the original tour offered by Louisville Historic Tours LLC, was subsequently removed; other than this action, the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council has done nothing to rectify the situation. Instead of a simple mea culpa or apology, they blocked David Dominé and Louisville Historic Tours LLC from their social media.

06/28/2025

Another nice review of the PRIVATE hour-long walking tour of Old Louisville, this time with Debra!

06/28/2025

06/27/2025

THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

✨ The Witching Hour at Witches Brew ✨
SATURDAY JULY 19TH 8PM – MIDNIGHT

When the clock strikes 8, the veil lifts. Join us for a spine-tingling evening of music, magic, and mystery like no other.

🎸 LIVE ENTERTAINMENT:
🔮 damnneardead – Southern gothic folk
punk that stirs your soul and shakes your bones.
🎤 Precious Perez – Spanish vocals that enchant and haunt.
🎶 Alexa Morgan – Soulful R&B that moves the spirit.
🌟STARRING:
🃏 Jared Howell Magic & Fortunes – Paranormal magician who’ll make you question reality.
👻 Kayla Sellers aka RedneckMedium – Southern charm meets chilling psychic insight.
☕️ And hosted by yours truly, Mama Buddafly – I’ll be sharing real stories behind the haunted objects hidden in our shop… if you dare to listen.
🎟️ NO COVER. Bring your curiosity, your courage, and your coven.

See you there or see you scare.😱

06/27/2025

Thanks for the five stars on Google, Megan!

06/26/2025

06/25/2025

06/25/2025

𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞!

When we told you about Old Louisville’s walking courts, we mentioned Lawton Court, which is a court built around shotgun houses instead of Victorian mansions and apartments. That got us wondering about shotgun houses, and we discovered another Louisville first in architecture. After the destruction that Hurricane Katrina caused in New Orleans, 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐠𝐮𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐔.𝐒. 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲.

So what's a shotgun house, anyway? A shotgun house, or shotgun cottage, is a long, narrow house, typically just one room wide (12-15 feet) and three rooms deep, with no hallways. You walk straight from one room into the next. The first two rooms could be living areas or bedrooms. The last room is almost always the kitchen. Bathrooms were added to the oldest houses, and you'll usually see only one side with windows to give some privacy. Some shotgun houses have a second story in the back, and they are called Camelbacks.

Between 1870 and 1900, Louisville’s population doubled from 100,000 to 200,000. There was an influx of German, Irish, Italian, Scottish, and Swiss immigrants who came to work in the factories. This created a big demand for housing close to the factories, and some enterprising developers built shotgun houses by the thousands to accommodate the workers. Today, you’ll find shotgun houses in neighborhoods like Butchertown, California, Germantown, and Portland. Where Victorian mansions signify the history of the wealthy elite in Louisville, shotgun houses signify the history of the working-class people in Louisville.

Next time you're in Louisville, take a walk through one of these neighborhoods. You’ll see history written in the architecture, and it’s worth having a look at it.


𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠