City and Neighborhood Leaders Congratulate Portland Anchor on 50 Years!

Louisville’s oldest neighborhood newspaper the Portland Anchor celebrated its 50th anniversary in July 2025 with a special 40-page issue filled to the brim with original reporting and community submissions, including a fair share of congratulations from community leaders and figures from the Anchor’s past and present:

On behalf of the City of Louisville, I want to congratulate the Portland Anchor on celebrating 50 years of incredible stories and coverage of one of our city’s oldest neighborhoods. We live in a time where Louisvillians can get their news and information from many places, and it’s encouraging to see a longtime neighborhood publication continue to flourish after half a century. There is so much momentum in Portland right now, from the brand new PlayPort and Waterfront Park expansion, to the upcoming AHOY Children’s Museum, we will continue investing in the people and places that make Portland great. So congratulations on your 50th anniversary, and we look forward to the next 50 years of the Portland Anchor.

Congratulations to the Portland Anchor neighborhood newsletter for their continued success in keeping Portlanders connected to the community. For fifty years, the newspaper has worked to uplift residents’ voices and share the stories that matter most to our neighborhood.

Thank you for the service you provide to the Portland neighborhood, your dedication has made a lasting impact. We can’t wait to see what the next fifty years bring!

Congratulations to the Portland Anchor neighborhood newsletter for their continued success in keeping Portlanders connected to the community. For fifty years, the newspaper has worked to uplift residents’ voices and share the stories that matter most to our neighborhood.

Thank you for the service you provide to the Portland neighborhood, your dedication has made a lasting impact. We can’t wait to see what the next fifty years bring!

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Western Middle School for the Arts opened its doors in 1928 at the corner of 22nd and West Main. For much of this time, the Portland Anchor has been a vital presence—chronicling our neighborhood’s stories, voices, and humor for more than half that time. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to capturing the spirit of Portland and for fostering a strong sense of community through the decades. As the saying goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” You help us remember, reflect, and respond. Here’s to the past 50 years—and to many more ahead!

Congratulations to the Portland Anchor as they celebrate 50 years of community and journalism! We are so thankful to share the neighborhood with them and look forward to celebrating more milestones like this for years to come.

I’m a Louisville native raised on my Dad’s tales of heated neighborhood rivalries between his Parkland and the boy teenagers of Portland.  Then, in the 1940s, I watch Portland pass-by as a child in the back seat as we regularly drove through 26^th Street—the old Shippingport Turnpike—to a left on Portland Avenue and on across the K&I Bridge to New Albany and beyond. 

Then, as a beginning archivist and public historian at UofL in the late 1970s, Rick Bell took me on a walking tour of Portland and I’ve been hooked ever since.  Using his narrative as a base, I developed a popular historical walk of my own that ultimately became a commercial one-hour video presentation called “Portland:  The Independent Neighborhood” in my Tom Owen’s Hometown Louisville series. Over the years, as an archivist here at UofL’s Archives and Special Collections, I’ve assisted many researchers with Portland neighborhood topics, including a paper on the “Blacks on Lytle Street” by a student in my “Historic Louisville” class that sadly was never completed. 

Finally, here at UofL’s Archives and Special Collections, starting in 1976, I have tried to round up virtually every issue of the Portland Anchor newspaper so that it would be available to researchers.  That publication chronicles over the decades neighborhood businesses that have come and gone, served as a place for “old timers” to reminisce about life in other eras, encouraged civic belonging, and built loyalty among “Portlanders” near and far.  A leaf through past issues is a lesson in neighborhood uniqueness, reminding us all that this INDEPENDENT neighborhood can legitimately brag about having its own museum, newspaper and mayor elected annually at the Portland Festival! 

The Portland Anchor is celebrating 50 years in July as the oldest neighborhood newspaper. That is great. Everyone needs to get a copy or two.

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This month Portland is celebrating the 50th birthday of its own newspaper, The Portland Anchor. In July of 1975, Portland residents were seeking dignity for Portland. They hoped to magnify the pride that Portland residents held for their ancestral community by the river. The Portland Anchor was the answer. The Anchor became the voice of a united neighborhood. The Anchor’s main focus is to promote dignity of the Portland neighborhood, help solve community problems, and develop political strength so Portland can get its fair share.

This same group also started the Portland Summer Festival and Homecoming, initiated the work to develop Portland Plaza Housing for the Elderly, got two bridges built to restore access to Lannan Park and focused on downzoning the neighborhood from industrial to residential. Each of these initiatives were complicated and audacious undertakings. Doing them all within a short period of time was breathtaking progress for the Neighborhood and showed that Portland was taking charge of it own destiny.

The Portland residents of the 70’s and 80”s proved that by getting organized and working together, each lending a hand at their level of ability, could pull off important projects to improve life for residents and uphold the dignity of Portland residents.

Fifty years later the Anchor is still in publication, but now led by a new group of young leaders. It is still the voice of Portland. The Anchor still plays a major role in preserving neighborhood dignity and advancing improvement.

I think I can speak for those leaders of fifty years ago. If they were assembled today on this 50th Anniversary to discuss the future of Portland and the Anchor they would first thank the new, young leaders for their perseverance and wish them well. They would ask you, all residents, to hold on to the amazing history of Portland. They would encourage you to focus on needed improvements and to get involved in solving problems, lending a hand at your own level of ability. They would also look back proudly at past accomplishments and forward with hope for those achievements yet to come, thinking of that Portland of yesteryear and visioning the future of a Portland brimming with potential.

Happy anniversary Portland Anchor!

“Purpose has been the power that shaped the destinies of most of the world’s great people.  It was their pillar of smoke by day and their pillar of fire by night”

Those were the opening lines of a talk I gave as a ninth grade student during the closing assembly of Western Junior High School.  They were penned by Ms. Pruitt who wrote the speech that I gave.  I did not fully appreciate their significance until later in life.

Some ten years later, a number of us who loved the Portland neighborhood were discussing what actions we could take to help assure its success for the future.  A number of ideas were mentioned.  Among them were the need for more housing for the elderly, some way to bring people together to celebrate our neighborhood and ways to share information and to promote Portland to the broader community of Louisville.

The ideas generated by us as enthusiastic activists included holding some sort of festival and homecoming event [ the Portland Festival ], finding a way to build new apartments for our senior citizens [ Portland Plaza ] and some sort of publication highlighting important issues facing the area.  As history has shown all of those ideas became a reality.  It took some time and more volunteers giving considerable effort to the cause for them all to become a reality.

However, one was able to begin quickly — a neighborhood newspaper.  The Portland Anchor was chosen as a name reflecting our connection with the river.  Some of us had prior experience in publishing.  Mine was with The Broadcaster, Portland Christian School’s student paper, and The Red Shield Roundup, the Boys’ Club members’ paper.  In fact the first edition of the paper was in the same format as The Roundup and printed at the Boys’ Club on the same press.

Am I surprised that fifty years later, The Portland Anchor is alive and thriving?  Not at all!  It was a great idea, DONE ON PURPOSE by great people dedicated to the cause.  I am proud and thankful that I was able to be part of the group that established The Anchor!  It is rewarding to see the next generation eager to see it continue.  Thank you.

Happy 50^th Birthday.

As the Portland Anchor turns fifty, our team proudly continues the stewardship we assumed two years ago, keeping the paper freely circulating through Portland’s hands and homes. For half a century the Anchor has traced this riverfront neighborhood’s journey—from a bustling port that linked Louisville to distant shores to today’s community shaped by travelers, migrants, and freedom seekers. That lineage of open passage now guides the up-and coming AHOY Children’s Museum, where a 50-foot boat—now docked on campus and steadily being restored—will let kids step aboard history and imagine new horizons. The newspaper joins a vibrant, intergenerational complex that already features a permanent exhibit charting Portland’s past, rotating galleries showcasing contemporary art, artist residencies in the Lighthouse building, and a working letterpress where elders and youth print side by side. By housing the Anchor within this creative ecosystem, we ensure Portland’s stories keep flowing in free newsprint that amplifies neighborhood voices and charts possibilities for the next fifty years and beyond. I am proud to be a Portland resident and contribute to our shared story.

Portland Then: Over the past fifty years, Portland Anchor has kept a spotlight on the beautiful expressions of community life that makes Portland so endearing. On behalf of Portland Now, and all the board members of our neighborhood association, I want to say, “Job well done!” Portland Anchor has been a resounding, positive voice for our neighborhood. The monthly paper has done more than words can say to create and communicate the whimsical culture of our neighborhood. Thank you to everyone at the Portland Anchor.

Portland Now: You may, or may not be aware, that our neighborhood association has an open meeting on the first Tuesday of every month. We are but one of the many organizations in our neighborhood working for the common good of Portland. We would love to have more of our neighbors join our meetings to discuss current events and future dreams. The meeting begins at 6:00, with a half-hour of food and fellowship; business and community discussion begins at 6:30. We meet at Church of the Promise located at 1800 Portland Avenue.

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Jim Coombs was a noted poet in Portland for many decades. One of his poems, Just A Minute, brings insight for all of us looking at what we have done and what we could or should do in the future. Take some time to consider what he has written.

“I only have a minute…with sixty seconds in it forced on me…can’t refuse it. Didn’t seek it…didn’t choose it. But,…it’s up to me to use it, give account of it.”

What I think about these thoughts is that a neighborhood is more than a group of houses next to each other. It is the people wo lived here 50 years ago and those who call it home now, working together, and looking out for each other. Our Portland newspaper is an important ANCHOR to get things done the right way.

Personally, being involved in our local paper has been challenging at times, but the rewards and benefits of its existence is worth it all. The good out ways the weight of my efforts of unloading my car each month to spread the news!

It has been quoted “The world is not interested in the storms you have encountered…but did you bring home the ship”? In my opinion having the Portland Museum and its staff and resources available has made me a lucky person who’s looking ahead for a few more decades of service. The people
who work together to get the Anchor in your hands each month are more friends than co-workers. When you see one of them, say thanks!

I can’t finish this month’s special publication without mentioning all the businesses that support our paper (profit and non-profit). This challenges us to visit as many as possible!

Happy 50 years anniversary Portland Anchor and thank you to the founders and the Steering Committee! We at Holiday Hairstyles certainly appreciate your efforts to keep this wonderful neighborhood paper going! Here’s to another 50 years!!

I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed the little Carmie and pictures in the chitchat section over the years.

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