Kentucky’s story,
kept in trust
since 1884.
Kentucky’s privately supported historical society. A library, museum, and research center in Old Louisville — collecting, preserving, and sharing the significant history and culture of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley.
- 142
- Years collecting
- 3
- Buildings on campus
- Free
- Admission & parking
From the collection
Front Entrance, the Filson, 1912.
What we do
A library. A museum. A meeting place.
The Filson collects the materials of Ohio Valley history — and then puts them to work, in the hands of researchers, students, educators, and anyone curious about where this place came from.
Visit
A campus in Old Louisville
Three buildings — the 1905 Ferguson Mansion, the Wood Carriage House, and the AIA-award-winning Owsley Brown II History Center. Free admission, free parking, free public tours twice a week.
Plan your visitResearch
The collections of the Ohio Valley
Manuscripts, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, and rare books spanning more than 230 years of regional history. Open to the public — free for members, $10 daily for non-members.
Use the collectionsPrograms
Lectures, conversation, conferences
The James J. Holmberg Lecture Series, Dine and Dialogue author talks, the Filson Institute summer cohort, exhibit openings, and a steady calendar of public programs throughout the year.
See what's onFrom the President
“The Filson is like American democracy when it is at its best — growing beyond the limitations of its founders, but still guided by their good intentions.”
Patrick A. Lewis, Ph.D.
President & CEO · The Filson Historical Society
About the institution & its leadershipFrom the collections
Items in conservation now.
The Filson’s Adopt-an-Artifact program funds the conservation of specific items from the manuscript, photograph, and museum holdings — a frieze, a tintype, a painting, an organizational record. Adopters receive treatment updates and a private viewing once the work is complete.
Carved frieze, museum collection
Der Freischütz Frieze
Photograph, 19th c.
Painted Tintype of Horace Walker
Painting · G. Caliman Coxe
The Wedding
Jewish Collections initiative
B'nai B'rith Records
The book that shaped the lecture
Next at the Filson · May 14, 2026 · 6 PM
This Vast Enterprise: a new history of Lewis & Clark.
The James J. Holmberg Lecture Series welcomes journalist and historian Craig Fehrman, whose five-year reexamination of the Lewis & Clark expedition draws on new documents, Native perspectives, and research conducted in part at the Filson. Sponsored by the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the General Society of Colonial Wars.
Member-supported
The Filson is kept open by the people who use it.
Membership underwrites the work of preservation — climate control in the stacks, conservators at the bench, and the doors open to every researcher who needs them. Starting at $30 for educators and students.