Reminders of Butchertown’s meat processing history dot the neighborhood just east of downtown Louisville. A crossfit gym has an image of two crossed meat cleavers on its door. The neighborhood association’s logo features a pig inside a lightbulb. Signs on electrical poles around Washington Street brand the area as “Butcher Block.”
The smell that often emanates from the lone slaughterhouse that remains, however, is not so beloved.
Louisville’s Air Pollution Control District recorded 530 complaints related to the Swift Pork Company slaughterhouse and packing plant in the first half of 2026, more than in all of 2025. APCD compliance officers categorized odors in the area as “strong” on 23 different days from January through June – nearly four times as many compared with all of last year. While odors were concentrated near the plant, APCD also recorded them this year nearly three miles away in the Belknap and Saint Joseph neighborhoods…