Welcome to the Louisville Metropolitan Public Safety Museum

The Louisville Metropolitan Public Safety Museum is a virtual museum, but we’re working hard to enter the brick and mortar world. We have lots of collection items but no place to show them off!

The Museum exists to showcase all of the men and women of the public safety entities that serve and protect the citizens and visitors to the Louisville Metro area. Louisville is an old city, older than Kentucky, even, as it was established in 1778 by Col. George Rogers Clark. At first, the regiment he led helped development a settlement on Corn Island, in the Ohio River, but it soon moved over to an area near the corner of present day Twelfth and Rowan Streets - an area called Fort-on-Shore. As the settlement sat at the Falls of the Ohio, the only natural barrier on the entire length of the Ohio River, it became a stopping place immediately, and grew by leaps and bounds. Within two years, 300 families had arrived, the street plan was laid out and governments services took hold.

On June 1, 1792, after eight years of discussion, what became the Commonwealth of Kentucky separated from Virginia, and Louisville, Jefferson County, was born. In due time, various public safety agencies emerged, as they were needed. First the Sheriff, of course, but soon town watchmen and volunteer firemen. By the 1860s, the Louisville Police Department had been established. Constables and deputy sheriffs performed law enforcement and other services outside the city limits, as well as a county patrol that would evolve into the Jefferson County Police Department. As smaller communities became populated, with some incorporating as cities, fire departments and sometimes, police departments, sprang up. Eventually the need for emergency medical services was recognized, first as part of the police departments and eventually as its own separate profession. With war came civil defense, which became all-hazards emergency management and responsible for preparing communities for whatever emergency might arise. Malefactors needed to be housed, with Jefferson County having a Jailer, and then eliminating the position, and eventually, establishing a county Corrections Department. And of course, the steady voice behind the radio tied them all together.

In these pages, we will show their faces and tell their stories.