Timeline story
Yellow Banks becomes Owensboro
Frontiersman William Smeathers (Bill Smothers) built a cabin on the south bank of the Ohio in 1797 at a landing flatboat men already called Yellow Banks for its clay bluffs.
Daviess County was created in 1815; the town was laid out in 1816 and incorporated in 1817 as Owensborough for Col. Abraham Owen, killed at Tippecanoe in 1811 (the spelling shortened later). Smothers later scouted for Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred in Texas.
Downtown Smothers Park marks the home site — western Kentucky’s river gate still sitting on that yellow bank.
Cite this story
Published . Last revised .
Chicago
Snowden, Shannon. "Yellow Banks becomes Owensboro." Kentucky History Drive. Published September 24, 2026. Last revised October 26, 2026. https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/yellow-banks-becomes-owensboro/.
MLA
Snowden, Shannon. "Yellow Banks becomes Owensboro." Kentucky History Drive, published 24 Sept. 2026, last revised 26 Oct. 2026, https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/yellow-banks-becomes-owensboro/.
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