St. Matthews, once a prominent neighborhood of Louisville, is now a fourth-class city within metro Louisville. The first settlers came to the area in the 1780s, and for more than a century St. Matthews was largely an agricultural area where farmers specialized in growing potatoes. By 1900, a commercial district had grown at the intersection of several roads, known locally as the Point, and the land devoted to farming was gradually taken over by new commercial and residential development. After the great flood of 1937 and World War II, Shelbyville Road, the principal east-west street in St. Matthews, was the site of a commercial boom that included malls and other shopping centers, automobile dealerships, and a wide variety of other businesses. Today, the town of St. Matthews is a vibrant economic and cultural center that attracts people from all parts of metropolitan Louisville.