In that year, a man named August David Ehrich, a master shoe maker born in Königsberg, arrived in Louisville.
The Blankenbaker, Bruner, and Funk families came to the Louisville region following the American Revolutionary War, and in 1797 they founded the town Brunerstown, which would later become Jeffersontown, Kentucky.
Further early immigration of Germans took place as they slowly followed the Ohio River after arriving in the United States at New Orleans, and settled in the various river towns, which included not only Louisville, but Cincinnati, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri, as well.
The "Forty-Eighters", who had come to the United States due to the Revolution of 1848, and these immigrants were big believers in Marxism and atheism.
Also, they opposed Kentucky seceding to the Confederate States of America, and their strong support of Northern causes led to the first German-born mayor of Louisville in 1865, Phillip Tomppert.
On March 4, 1938, the long-lasting German newspaper, Louisville Anzeiger, printed its final issue.
Since 1977 Louisville has maintained a relationship with Mainz, Germany, with the two cities officially town twinning in 1994.