Crestwood, Kentucky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crestwood is a city in Oldham County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 1,999 at the 2000 census.

1 Geography
2 Demographics
3 Lifestyle
4 History
5 External links

[edit] Geography

Crestwood is located at 38°19′28″N, 85°28′60″W (38.324557, -85.483300)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.3 km² (3.6 mi²), all land.

[edit] Demographics

Interstate 71 exit sign for Crestwood and Pewee Valley in Kentucky.

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 1,999 people, 811 households, and 548 families residing in the city. The population density was 214.4/km² (554.5/mi²). There were 860 housing units at an average density of 92.2/km² (238.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 94.80% White, 2.15% African American, 0.35% Native American, 0.60% Asian, 1.10% from other races, and 1.00% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.15% of the population.

There were 811 households out of which 33.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.5% were married couples living together, 12.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.4% were non-families. 26.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.02.

In the city the population was spread out with 25.9% under the age of 18, 9.0% from 18 to 24, 32.6% from 25 to 44, 23.1% from 45 to 64, and 9.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 89.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $42,619, and the median income for a family was $55,000. Males had a median income of $37,250 versus $23,984 for females. The per capita income for the city was $21,569. About 6.6% of families and 7.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.6% of those under age 18 and 8.7% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] Lifestyle

Crestwood was recently ranked 52nd overall on a CNNMoney.com survey for "The Best Places to Live, 2005." This was the highest ranking given to any city in the state of Kentucky. The report also revealed that Crestwood had one of the lowest crime rates among the places studied.

[edit] History

In the early 1900s, railroad conductors on Louisville & Nashville trains chugging through the heart of Crestwood would shout the name "WHISKERS!" as they passed through.

Milton Carl Stoess Sr., a longtime resident of the area, said the city's nickname stems from Crestwood's previous name, Beard's Station, in honor of Joe Beard. Although the railroad brought that less-than-dignified nickname to the community, it also brought commerce and new residents. Both the Louisville and Frankfort rail line, laid in 1851, and the Interurban Railway, laid in 1905, precipitated growth in Crestwood.

And still today, Crestwood attracts city dwellers from Louisville -- now usually travelling out Interstate 71 in cars -- making it one of Oldham County's fastest growing commercial and residential hubs.

According to a 1974 Oldham Era article, Beard became one of the area's first transplants when he bought 263 acres on Floyds Fork in 1839 and moved there from Fayette County. His home, called Woodland Cottage, was on what is now Waldeck Farm on KY 22.

In October 1850, Beard bought a tract of land containing "two acres and 16 poles" where the railroad and KY 329 intersect and built a warehouse. When the tracks were finished in 1851, the warehouse became the railroad station. Prior to the railroad days, travel to and from the small farming community was by stagecoach. According to an Oldham Era article written during the 1940s by Lou C. Clore, Samuel Grimes ran a stage coach from La Grange to Louisville, "a round trip of 52 miles, in one day, over a dirt road. Two trips were made weekly."

The railroad shifted much of the area's development to Crestwood from Floydsburg, which did not have a railroad.

Several sources agree that Crestwood was established in 1857, although no one is sure of the significance of that date. In any case, it was primarily a rural community at that time.

L & N acquired the railroad and in 1881 built a new depot at Beard's Station, where it had a stock pen and a ramp for loading cattle and sheep. That building was used by the South Oldham Fire and Rescue Squad until 1979, when it was demolished. The fire department built a new station across the street.

When the Interurban Railway from Louisvillle was completed, it brought more commerce to the area -- including a livery stable, distilleries, a creamery, grocery stores, a meat market and a bank.

It also carried freight.

Around 1920, "we shipped cream by the electric railroad from Brownsboro to Peru (now Glenmary)," said Helen Yager, 92, who moved from Brownsboro to Crestwood around 1950.

Yager also remembers as a teen-ager making the trip from Brownsboro to Crestwood to bowl or visit the town's ice cream fountain. Usually she'd walk but "sometimes we'd ride horse-and-buggy and sometimes we'd ride horseback." To accommodate the growing number of visitors to Crestwood, Robert Yager built a hotel in 1908. Until 1975 when it was razed, the hotel building was used for doctors' offices and a beauty shop.

Some of the new residents did not take kindly to the city's "Whiskers" nickname. In 1909, its name was changed to Crestwood.

Around that time, Beard Deposit Bank, which started in a two-story house on KY 146 in 1893, changed its name to Crestwood State Bank. Today the bank stands on the same lot.

Stoess, 75, has lived in the area all his life and said the name "Crestwood" probably stems from the fact that the city lies "right on the crest of a ridge."

"And the railroad track runs right up through that ridge," he said in a recent interview. "If you let a drop of water land on one of those rails, and let it splash, half of it would go into Curry's Fork and Floyds Fork and the other half would go into Harrods Creek. That's the divider. Plus, at that time the city was wooded, so hence the name."

Around the turn of the century, elementary school was held in a Baptist Church on Floydsburg Road before locating in the former Crestwood Elementary, which still stands on KY 22.

The high school was built nearby in the 1920s and continued there until Oldham County High School was built in 1953.

Raymond Lowry, a lifelong resident of Crestwood, was in the 4th grade at Crestwood Elementary when the high school was built. He said until then, high school was held in a two-room house in Centerfield.

One of the most memorable events in the city's history was also related to the railroad.

In 1968, a freight train derailed at the junction of KY 146 and KY 22 when a steel pipe stored on one of the cars came loose and fell between the car and the track. Rocket propellant stored in another car caught fire, setting off a massive explosion. The huge orange fireballs could be seen for miles and landed on several buildings, sparking several fires.

"When that car caught fire, those rocket propellants just took off," Stoess said. "It lit up the whole sky around here. One of my friends who runs a dairy farm out here about three miles out of Crestwood thought the end of the world had come."

No one was killed in the blaze.

Stoess said that during his childhood, residents depended on the railroad and farming.

"We used to ship a lot of potatoes out of here," he said. "All the kids used to gather up here and have potato fights. I think that's where I got my first black eye."

Another product that figures prominently in Crestwood's history is orchard grass seed. Oldham County was considered the top producer in the country -- and possibly the world -- of the seed until the late 1960s, and an annual festival was started in 1952 in honor of it. The national Orchard Grass Festival soon included a much-touted beauty pageant as well. It continued into the mid-1960s.

Before the community incorporated in 1970, the Crestwood Civic Club took it upon itself to make public improvements.

The first project for the club, which started in 1914 and is still exists today, was to build a sidewalk in front of the post office. In 1917, it installed a warning bell at the railroad crossing and in 1927 its members installed the city's first street lights.

An influential town figure around the turn of the century was Alexander E. Duncan, whose family settled in the nearby Floydsburg area in the 18th century. Duncan, born in 1878, operated a store in Crestwood until 1903 when he moved to Cincinnati. In 1912 he founded Commercial Credit Corp., which later become one of the largest credit firms in the country.

Years later, he returned to the Crestwood area to build a monument to his late wife -- Flora Ross Duncan. The chapel, Duncan Memorial Chapel, was built on the community cemetery grounds in 1936 and is still used for weddings and special ceremonies.

An important part of Crestwood's development was the struggle for construction of utilities. Efforts to bring public water spanned nearly 30 years and finally succeeded on Sept. 1, 1965.

One of the first large residential developments in the area, Stoess said, was the Clorecrest subdivision, built in the late 1960s after the city hooked on to public water.

"That was the first subdivision to have water. From then on out, the subdividers came in droves."

Crestwood was incorporated in 1970, and since then has seen continued development.

Stoess and his brother, Clayton, were among the primary reasons for that development.

Today, the Stoess brothers own a majority of the commercial property in the center of town, including a funeral home, hardware store and furniture store. They also own much of the property across the street from the funeral home, property that houses a drug store, supermarket, several shops and a gas station.

Both Stoess and Robert J. Deibel Jr., an area businessman whose family is prominent in local politics, say the continued development is inevitable.

"Many residents would like to see Crestwood stay the way it was 20 or 30 years ago," Deibel said. "But that's not realistic. So you do the best you can, because you're not going to stop it."

Stoess said many people are just trying to make the best of it.

"The people that have lived here all our lives, well, we take the attitude that if we had said that 30 years ago, none of us would be here," he said. "We're willing to share the good life."

From: "Crestwood - Rails Put Farming Community On The Track To Commercial And Residential Development" by Kim Chappell, Courier-Journal