Again, sources are scarce and details are hard to come by in researching the history of Old Hickory Inn, but all seem to agree that it began in the early 1900s before a series of ownership changes over the subsequent decades. As the popularity of the Germantown neighborhood grew, so did the clientele at Old Hickory Inn, reaching out from a stalwart but small group of locals into more of a neighborhood hub.,
News stories start to kick in around 2009 when a fire triggered by a faulty gas meter ripped through the building and took it out of commission for about a year. Reopened in 2010, Old Hickory Inn was vandalized a short time later to the tune of $25,000, which would certainly be newsworthy on its merit as a prominent sum of money alone, but source Leo Weekly goes into further detail on the potential motive for the burglary. It turns out that a dispute between landlord and bar manager resulted in the bar manager’s eviction from the apartment upstairs, the subsequent changing of locks on Old Hickory Inn by said bar manager and ultimately the vandalization of the space that included clearly vindictive destruction such as the slashing of stools and urine found in bar’s cooler.
Though rumors continue to swirl around the nature of the 2010 incident, the past was put behind Old Hickory Inn later that year when the bar reopened in its current incarnation complete with post-fire and post-crime updates. Eventually, the Louisville dive bar was sold again in 2020 and reopened under that new ownership with a series of improvements including a new patio and a set of cosmetic repairs.
