Shelby Township
Big green spaces — especially Stony Creek Metropark — plus the beautifully preserved Packard Proving Grounds and a fast-growing, family-friendly suburban feel.
The story
Shelby Township has been a destination far longer than you’d guess — mastodon bones turned up on a local farm in the 1800s, and an ancient beach ridge running through town marks the edge of a prehistoric lake. The modern township was organized in 1827 and named for Isaac Shelby, a Revolutionary War hero and Kentucky’s first governor. Early life centered on a little crossroads settlement called Disco, which earned a colorful Prohibition-era reputation as “Whiskey Center,” complete with blind pigs and a local “Moonshine King.”
Two landmarks define it today. The first is the Packard Proving Grounds — a stunning 1927 auto-testing complex designed by famed industrial architect Albert Kahn, with a Tudor lodge and a 2.5-mile high-speed oval so well-engineered a driver set a 148-mph world record there in 1928. Packard tested cars and aircraft engines here, Chrysler tested tanks here in WWII, and it’s now a lovingly restored historic site. The second is Stony Creek Metropark — 4,400-plus acres of lake, beaches, trails, and woods that draw over a million visitors a year. Add in River Bends Park (once boxing champ Joe Louis’s training farm) and you get the real Shelby Township: one of the fastest-growing, greenest, most family-friendly corners of the metro’s northern edge.
Did you know?
- The Packard Proving Grounds, built in 1927 and designed by legendary architect Albert Kahn, had a 2.5-mile oval test track so smooth that a driver set a world speed record of nearly 149 mph on it in 1928.
- Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis bought a 500-acre farm here in 1939 — Spring Hill Farm, now part of River Bends Park — where he relaxed and did his roadwork.
- Stony Creek Metropark, much of it within the township, spans over 4,400 acres around a 500-acre lake and draws more than a million visitors a year.
- Mastodon bones were dug up on a Shelby Township farm in the mid-1800s — the area’s been a draw since the Ice Age.
- During Prohibition, the old settlement of Disco was nicknamed “Whiskey Center,” famous for its blind pigs and a notorious local “Moonshine King.”
Notable locals
Shelby Township’s most legendary resident was the great Joe Louis — the “Brown Bomber,” heavyweight champion of the world — who kept a 500-acre farm here as a training and rest retreat. The other big name isn’t a person but the Packard Proving Grounds, a temple of American automotive history. (U.S. Representative John James also calls the township home today.) From a world champion’s quiet farm to a record-setting speedway, this fast-growing suburb has a surprisingly storied past.
