Indiana Basketball History Magazine – Winter 2018
The town of Leavenworth today sits atop a bluff overlooking a bend in the Ohio River, a breathtaking view especially when taken in at The Overlook Restaurant. The town was originally laid out down near the river in 1818 by cousins Zebulon and Seth Leavenworth. The town grew steadily and by the 1870s its population was estimated to be at least 1200. In the early 1890s the townspeople of Leavenworth and English were engaged in a battle as to which town would be the county seat. From a story in the English News Messenger, the battle was a literal one as “the fight was climaxed in 1894 when an armed band from English, consisting of 96 two-horse wagons, 82 mounted guards and 478 infantrymen entered Leavenworth and carried the records from the court house. English became the county seat in 1896”. Leavenworth slowly lost some of its significance and the great flood of 1937 finished off the town.
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