A Brief History of Pewee Valley

In the late 1700s, a small settlement sprang up as a stopping point on the roads from Louisville to Brownsboro, and from Westport to Middletown. This settlement, originally called Rollington, was located near the intersection of Old Brownsboro Road (Highway 22) and present day Central Avenue, as early as 1784.

Michael and Rosanna Smith were among its first settlers and they developed a farm in the area about 1810. In 1835, the Oldham County Court commissioned the Smiths' son, Henry, to survey the Rollington-to-Floydsburg road, the earliest route that crossed through present-day Pewee Valley. The road followed much of today's Central Avenue and then cut to the northeast toward Floydsburg. G. T. Bergmann's 1858 "Map of Jefferson County, Kentucky" says Rollington Road was lined with about a dozen buildings, including a tavern, a sawmill, a school, a church and, most probably, a store.

The turning point in the town's history came in 1851 when the Louisville & Frankfort Railroad completed its line between the two cities. A stop called Smith's Station was set up about 1 1/2 miles from the Rollington settlement, between Anchorage and LaGrange. Thus, the Smith of 'Smith's Station' is believed to be Henry S. Smith, who owned a large tract of land adjacent to the railroad.  This railroad stop eventually became known as Pewee Valley, named after a song bird, the Eastern Wood Pewee. The second half of the name is still a mystery because the town is actually on a ridge.

Year-round and summer homes began springing up around the station after the railroad started commuter service in 1854. In 1856, the community's first post office was started, and an 1858 map shows about 15 residences. Many of these first suburban residents were wealthy, worldly individuals who came to Pewee Valley to build country estates. They established the character of the community which, into the 20th century, continued to be a place with an unusually high number of talented artists, journalists, and intellectuals.

Among the notable early residents were Noble Butler, a teacher with a master's degree from Harvard University whose grammar text was widely distributed in Kentucky; W. N. Haldeman, owner of the Louisville Morning Courier and, after the Civil War, founder of The Courier-Journal; William D. Gallagher, poet, journalist and newspaper editor; and Elisha Warfield, a noted novelist.

Though development stalled during the Civil War, it picked up afterward. Three of Pewee Valley's current church congregations -- Episcopalians, Catholics and Presbyterians -- built their first churches in the 1860s, indicating the influx of people and the growing prosperity and stability of the community.

The construction of a railroad depot, partly financed by private residents, was completed in 1867. Located on the south-east side of the railroad tracks at the intersection of Central Avenue and La Grange Road, the depot became the community's center. Early in its history the depot housed the post office and a store, and later was used for meetings and community events, such as boxing matches and bake sales.

In 1866, Henry Smith bought another 220 acres on the south-east side of the railroad tracks and began laying out roads and subdividing the land, creating Ashwood (now Ash), Tulip, Maple and Elm avenues. Their names refer to the trees, many of which still survive, that Smith planted along them.

The area's black residents lived in cottages behind the large houses of wealthy employers. Also, an 1879 map shows a collection of about 10 houses and a chapel just outside of town in the area known as Fraziertown, a small black community that developed after the Civil War. And across town along Old Floydsburg Road stood Pewee Valley Baptist Church, which functioned for a few years also as a school for black children. Stumptown, a more recent black settlement, grew up in this area.

In 1870, the Town of Pewee Valley was incorporated by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and given its Charter. The town was described in 1874 in "Collins' History of Kentucky" as "the most beautiful of the suburban villages of Louisville," Brooks wrote. Its population was given as about 250, and it was reported to have three churches, two hotels, four stores, and one physician. Pewee Valley's development as a summer vacation spot peaked in the late 19th century. The Villa Ridge Inn, no longer standing, was built near the depot in 1889, and a number of large homes also were used as summer residences.

The turn-of-the-century was an era captured by two noted residents, author Annie Fellows Johnston ("The Little Colonel") and photographer Kate Matthews. Johnston had lived briefly in Pewee Valley in the 1890s and returned to live in the Beeches on Central Avenue in 1913. Matthews photographed the locales and people of Pewee Valley, and her work is represented in important national collections. Her family's home, Clovercroft, burned in the 1950s.

The biggest change in the town during the first three decades of this century arrived with an electric railway, the interurban in 1901, with service every half-hour to Louisville. It strengthened already-close ties with Louisville by making commuting easier and allowing some older children to ride the cars to school in Louisville. The Villa Ridge Inn became an important part of the community after opening as the Kentucky Confederate Home in 1902. Residents mingled with the Civil War veterans at the state-supported home.

The railroad depot was demolished in 1960 to straighten La Grange Road. Children used to roller-skate on. The depot's large platform. Miss Fanny Craig operated what was probably the town's best-known school in a small building behind Edgewood, her mother's house on Central Avenue. The school building was demolished in 1988, when the property was subdivided. The house was renovated.

The construction of large houses for vacationers and wealthy commuters had virtually ceased by the 1920s. The Depression hit, and in the 1930s commuter rail service in Pewee Valley stopped and the population dropped. In the 1960s the town began to make the transition to the Louisville automobile suburb it is today, Lloydsboro, Pewee Valley's first large modern subdivision, was laid out in 1962. The pace of new development picked up in the late 1970s and 1980s as subdivisions were built, and the town now has a population estimated at about 1,400 with 600 homes or so.