About Anchorage Fire and EMS

The fire department was established in July 14, 1911 by Chief Eugene J. Straus and a group of volunteer firefighters. Over the years a number of changes have been made to both the service and the way we fight fires. Dedication and pride however are still the key ingredients to the success of the department.

In the late seventies several citizens noted that the established EMS services in the area did not meet the needs of Anchorage since response times were sometime more than thirty minutes due to distance, traffic and the number of ambulances available at the time. Together the citizens rallied to get a certificate of need from the state to create their own ambulance district. Now an Anchorage citizen can get medical assistance in four of five minutes.

The fire department covers a small four square mile area in eastern Jefferson County while the EMS service normally will respond to anything east of I-64. The department has 23 paid members, each working 24 hour shifts (one day on, two days off).

Apparatus

Of all the outlying villages that developed in the two-hundred-year history of Jefferson County, Anchorage has been the only one to retain its character in the path of suburban growth. Located in Eastern Jefferson County along LaGrange Road, it is a park-like community of some eight hundred and fifty residences, a school, churches and a few select business in the wooded hills and valleys adjoining branches of Beargrass and Goose Creeks.

The northwestern boundary is formed by land claimed in 1773 by Isaac Hite and identified on John Filson's first map of Kentucky as Hite's Mill, later part of the grounds of Central State Hospital and E. P. Sawyer State Park. The connecting roads to the Ohio River at Harrods Creek and to Middletown on the south were early transportation routes along which farms of the first settlers were located.

Most influential among the early landowners was Edward Dorsey Hobbs, whose family ran businesses in Middletown. As a surveyor, he had drawn some of the earlier maps of Louisville as well as Anchorage and planned for the orderly growth of the area. He was involved with the establishment of the Louisville and Frankfort Railroad (later purchased by Louisville & Nashville Railroad) through Anchorage in 1849. For several years the crossroads was known as Hobbs' Station. Although the Ohio River is twelve miles away, the nautical name of the retirement home of riverboat captain James W. Goslee was adopted when the town was incorporated in 1878, three years after his death at a railroad crossing. Tradition has it that the anchor that hangs inside the rim of a locomotive wheel in the center of town is the one that Captain Goslee removed from his ship, the Matamora, and put on his lawn at "The Anchorage" in 1869. It is a monument to the river and the railroad and to those who shaped the town's growth.

With train service available, including the Louisville, Anchorage and Pewee Valley inter-urban line starting in 1901, students seeking a high school education could attend the local boarding schools: Bellewood Female Seminary, Pine Hill Academy, and Forest Military Academy. Construction of the Citizens National Life Insurance Company building in 1911 generated enough tax base to allow the community to create Anchorage Graded School.

The chapel at Bellewood Seminary had become the meeting place of a Presbyterian congregation organized in Middletown in 1700. In 1869 the gothic Revival-style sanctuary of the Anchorage Presbyterian Church was built. St. Luke's Episcopal Church was built in 1908 and the Catholic Church of the Epiphany was constructed in 1975.

Isaac W. Bernheim, a Louisville distiller and the benefactor of Bernheim Forest was among the prominent citizens who acquired a summer house in Anchorage. Through his influence, the Fredrick Law Olmstead firm of Brookline, Massachusetts was commissioned in 1914 to design a plan of growth for Anchorage. The plan incorporated the stone bridges and triangle intersections that were features of the Louisville park system, also designed by the firm. Bernhiem was the first president of the Anchorage Civic League, formed in 1914. The league has worked closely with the town board on issues of public concern and to provide community functions for the citizens of Anchorage. With growth stimulated by rail lines, the town board acted in 1901 to confine commercial growth to a limited district, thus beginning the zoning and land use planning that protected the town from incompatible development.

Between 1947 and 1978 many large estates were subdivided into smaller building sites. The number of houses nearly doubled between 1977 and 1997. To preserve the rural character of the town the Anchorage Historic District was established, with listing on the National Register of Historic Places taking place in 1982. Ten years later, the boundaries of the district were extended to include most of the town. The town became a fifth-class city in 1966 and moved to a fourth-class city in 1984.

The population of Anchorage was 1,477 in 1970 and 1,726 in 1980. By 1990 it had increased to 2,082 and in 1996 the population was 2,058.

Mildred Long Ewen

Click here for a map of the area.

For more information:
City of Anchorage Web Site