Kentucky Towns: Pleasureville

Original site of Pleasureville, at the intersection of US-421 and KY-22

Located in southern Henry County on its border with Shelby County, the town of Pleasureville (38.346099, -85.115404) occupies land originally settled in 1784 as part of a Dutch Huguenot colony. About a mile and a half northwest of what is now the intersection of Castle Highway (US Route 421) and Kentucky Highway 22, the Dutch erected their fort and named the subsequent settlement Bantatown after the colony's land manager Abraham Banta.

In 1828, a post office was established and the town's name officially changed to Pleasureville. Sources are unclear as to the actual origin of the new name, with most published accounts suggesting that a visitor to the area proclaimed his stay to be so pleasurable that the town's name should be changed to reflect the citizens' hospitality. The other story centers around the old Pleasureville Hotel. A brothel was supposedly operating in the building which caused the town to be referred to as Pleasureville among the hotel's patrons. As much as I would like to believe this particular story to be the truth of the matter, the chronology simply doesn't add up.

The old Pleasureville Hotel

The original settlement that became Pleasureville in 1828 is located about a mile north of where the Pleasureville Hotel sits. In 1858, a full three decades after the town was renamed, what would ultimately become the Louisville & Nashville railroad passed south of Pleasureville. Not much later, a new town - which included the hotel - sprung up around the depot. By 1878, the post office (as well as the name) of Pleasureville had relocated south to the now bustling community at the depot. The original settlement became known as North Pleasureville and actually retained its own post office until 1962.

In its heyday, Pleasureville boasted not only a hotel and railroad depot, but also a cigar factory, multiple banks, and an ice cream parlor (among many other businesses). It also has the distinction of being home to Henry County's first school when the Lindley Academy was founded in the North Pleasureville vicinity in 1806.

The Pleasureville depot, site of at least 5 Civil War executions

Pleasureville also played a role in the Civil War when a band of Morgan's raiders attacked the town on June 9th, 1864. Captain Richard J. Sparks, who was the Provost Marshall of the town and had earned a reputation as an overbearing and punitive sort of commander, was killed in the engagement. In retaliation for Captain Sparks' death, Major General Stephen Burbridge (known as the Butcher of Kentucky) sent two Confederate prisoners via rail from Lexington to Pleasureville to be executed. Blood would flow at the Pleasureville depot once again in November, as three suspected Confederate guerrillas were shipped to Pleasureville and executed as retribution for the killing of two local African-Americans.

What remains of downtown Pleasureville

Today, virtually all of the earliest structures have disappeared, as have the L & N tracks. The depot remains, and so too does the hotel (as an apartment complex), but the once thriving downtown is now mostly vacant. There is a hardware store, a pool hall, and until recently a diner occupied the old depot, but Pleasureville appears to be headed for ghost town status.

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