Tragedy on River Road
Event Details
In the early morning hours of October 1935, a body is discovered very near the intersection of Blankenbaker Lane and River Road. The corpse is identified as 26-year-old Evelyn Sliwinski, wife of a local tailor, who was last seen “making the rounds” across Louisville hotspots. A witness comes forward and identifies the man she was with – none other than the year’s Triple Crown winning jockey, William “Smokey” Saunders. A manhunt ensues, eventually ending with Saunders’ arrest, who is brought back to Louisville on charges of murder. This lecture will follow the twists and turns of a saga which gripped the Great Depression public, and ended with a surprising conclusion.
Cover Photo: Side view of the Croghan-Blankenbaker House located at 4306 River Road in Louisville, KY
Photo courtesy of University of Louisville Photography Archives
Meet Our Speaker
Ronnie Dreistadt is currently the Education Coordinator at Historic Locust Grove. Previously, he worked at the Kentucky Derby Museum, where he came across this story in the Courier-Journal newspaper archives. He has written two non-fiction books: “Lost Bluegrass: The History of a Vanishing Landscape” and “Wicked Tales From the Kentucky Derby,” in which one chapter is dedicated to the telling of this story. He is currently adapting the story into a novel form, which involves extensive research, conjecture, and hopefully, answering the questions that have been lost to history.
