page_title: Brandenburg, Kentucky
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Brandenburg, Kentucky / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A historical marker marking Morgan's Raid at Brandenburg, Kentucky, United States.
context_page_description: Brandenburg is a home rule-class city on the Ohio River in Meade County, Kentucky, in the United States. The city is 46 miles southwest of Louisville. It is the seat of its county. The population was 2,643 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: Brandenburg was built on a 3,000-acre (12 km²) tract of land called Falling Springs, purchased in 1804 by Solomon Brandenburg. He opened a tavern around which the community grew. In 1825, the community became the seat of Meade County, but it wasn't formally incorporated by the state assembly until March 28, 1872.
  During the Civil War, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan crossed at Brandenburg to start his raid into Indiana in July, 1863. During the Battle of Brandenburg Crossing, two men on the Indiana side of the river were killed by cannon fire from Brandenburg. A Union gunship was deployed to block the crossing, but it ran out of ammunition and Morgan and his men were able to pass into Indiana.
  Brandenburg was devastated by an F5 tornado during the Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974. Thirty-one residents lost their lives in this city. There was no early warning from tornado sirens or NOAA Weather Wire Service about the storm. About an hour after the storm, the same supercell spawned an F4 tornado that formed in the southwest part of Louisville in Jefferson County near Kosmosdale. Three people lost their lives in this storm, but it also left two hundred and seven injuries. The Brandenburg tornado remains as the only F5/EF5 tornado in Kentucky state history since official record keeping began in 1950, although later that day another F5 that hit Cincinnati, Ohio crossed the Ohio River from Indiana into Kentucky then into Ohio.
  The Confederate Monument in Louisville was relocated to Brandenburg in late 2017 and rededicated in 2018.
caption: Historical marker noting John Hunt Morgan's activities at Brandenburg
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