The City Thomas Jefferson Drew

This bronze figure of Thomas Jefferson in downtown Jeffersonville honors more than a namesake. According to local tradition, Jefferson actually helped design this town. When the settlement was laid out around eighteen oh two, it followed a distinctive grid that the president himself suggested, a checkerboard pattern with alternating squares left open as green space, meant to act as buffers against the spread of disease in a cramped frontier town.

The place was named for the sitting president. It is often called the only city Jefferson ever designed. The unusual plan proved hard to live with and was eventually abandoned, but the story stuck, and so did the name.

The statue in Warder Park stands as a reminder that this Ohio River town traces its very streets to one of the founders.