All things have a beginning – – and so it was with the Portland Gateway sign and planting area at 22nd and Portland Avenue –
Category: Local History
Ed “Nardie” White Shares Portland Memories
“Portland was a closed community in a big metropolitan city. When you think about Louisville, you think about it as a big metropolitan city. But Portland was a definite city that was a community of its own. You had a pocket on Short Street. You had a pocket at St. Xavier. Owen Alley up here…that was a pocket. Those were all Black families. So we lived in clusters all around Portland. We lived in this 20-block radius. I lived between 21st street to 29th Street, that was my core area where I lived, and everybody knew everybody from generations.”
The Portland Anchor’s Founding: Missions and Miracles
“Somehow, the dreams of many individuals and groups meshed with old fashioned determination and hard work and the infant newspaper was cranked out on a rickety, old printing press in the basement of the Salvation Army Boys’ Club.”
The “Less than Great” Flood of 2025
The site of the city of Louisville is located on low and undulating ground with downtown Louisville surrounded on three sides by the Ohio River. Throughout the city’s history, water has risen above flood stage on the average of once every seven years. The lowest residential areas, Portland, Shippingport, West Louisville and the Point have suffered many minor floods. Approximately every fifty years the city has been invaded by major flooding.
Lafayette’s Visit to Portland
Portland in West Louisville has a colorful history that many people have forgotten. However, with the 250th Anniversary of the United States and the Bicentennial of the Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Portland on May 11, 1825, approaching, historical milestones are being remembered and celebrated.
I REMEMBER: Portland Taverns of the Past (1970s)
What are your memories of these places? We thought it would be fun to share some ads from the Portland Anchor in the 1970s, showing the vast amount of drinking establishments in the Portland neighborhood.
I REMEMBER: Anchoring the News with the Courier Journal (August, 2007)
Portland Anchor volunteers, from left: Charles Frick, Alma Wright, Gordon Brown, and Tim Crabtree. “Somehow, everyone started calling me the editor,” Alma Wright recalled. “One day I asked Gordon, ‘Am I the editor?’ and he said, ‘You’re the editor.'”
Bardstown Woman Recalls Tragedy and Triumph Living on Shippingport
Read the story of 80-year-old Linda Kramer, who sat down with the Portland Anchor to discuss her memories growing up on Louisville’s historic Shippingport Island during its waning days of the 1950s.
I REMEMBER: KentuckyShow! (October, 1984)
Forty years ago in October 1984 the Portland Anchor was much like it is today, with announcements of Halloween activities and even excitement around a new arts attraction: KentuckyShow! This month’s article from yesteryear announces the multimedia show’s opening festivities at and around the Kentucky Theater, a cinema set at that time to permanently house the project.
WELCOME TO WILD BISON BOULEVARD: Walk the Paths of Kentucky History with Us
Wild Bison Boulevard is a one-man art exhibition on October 6th, 2024 celebrating the crossing of America’s ancient herds of migratory bison from Indiana into Louisville, Kentucky at the base of the Great Falls of the Ohio River. The exhibition consists of an educational story trail stretching along the main walkway of the 56-acre Portland Wharf Park with 20 exhibits accompanied by narrative set of 120 walkway guideposts.