In early September, the Vanderburgh County Historical Society organized a walking history tour of the Lamasco district. The guided tour featured some of the oldest buildings in the area, which was its own town from 1839 until 1857, when it was annexed into Evansville.
The only guided tours available in Downtown are held in May each year during Preservation Week by Evansville Historic Preservation Officer Dennis Au. However, Au says he’s worked on six walking tour booklets, two of which are available at the Convention and Visitors Bureau office in the Pagoda. Four booklets are available at the Evansville Department of Metropolitan Development in the Civic Center.
What Evansville does not offer are bus tours. In most cities that offer them — like Asheville, North Carolina, or Chattanooga, Tennessee — the bus tours are run by a private company. Whether such a business could work here, especially as the Downtown continues to be reborn, remains to be seen.
