Waggener High School - RingBrothersHistory.com

The Voice of St. Matthews, July 16, 1959:In ten Years...In ten years…..Ten years is not a very long time in the life of a community, or even of a man, but the bare statistics demonstrate that theten years The Voice has been in existence have been crucial in the history of St. Matthews.What was more or less a sleepy little Democratic community, with many of the outward appearances of a small town in1949, has grown into the loveliest—and one of the most expensive and largest—residential areas in the State, with a sold 2-1 Republican majority.Expanding at a rate rivaled only by the sister—suburb of Shively, the population of St. Matthews and the East End hasswollen from something under 20,000 to a Louisville Chamber of Commerce—estimated 54,500.Twenty-one new Cities have been incorporated, making 24 in all; and 17 new churches, a library, and a Y.M.C.A. havebeen built. The community has a sanitary sewer system, and a second one (for Beechwood Village) is on its way.There are 12 new schools (including three high schools) and church membership has risen to 30,000. The number of businesshouses and professional offices in St. Mathews (excluding Lyndon, Anchorage, and Middletown) now stands at 424,and among these are 59 doctors, dentists and chiropractors; 23 barber and beauty shops; 10 groceries; 20 restaurants; sixjewelers; 17 insurance offices; and nine financial institutions (including five banks).Figures released by the Southern Bell telephone Company show that almost exactly 10,000 new telephones have been installed;almost 1,800 in the Anchorage and Harrods Creek exchanges alone.The growth has been an astonishingly prosperous one. The annual gross family income for St. Matthews and the East Endcurrently stands at $166,163,114 or $10,157 average for the community’s 16,649 families. As a (missing words) averagehouse is valued at $22,580.In some areas, we have been weak. Commercial growth, suffering from a lack of real planning, has turned ShelbyvilleRoad into another Dixie Highway, and the community has made virtually no provision for new parks and playgrounds totake care of the expanding population, although in the last year there have been promising moves in that direction.There has been a certain weakness, too, in the division along arbitrary lines into 24 municipalities — a weakness communityleaders have recently been seeking means to correct, either through Metropolitan Government or some other form ofconsolidation.But generally the record here has been excellent. We have spent fortunes on new churches. The new schools have beenmodern, airy, and adequate. Industry has been kept out, and the new stores and offices are functional and attractive, and, inmost cases, have adequate parking space.The library, the Y.M.C.A., the new American Legion Post, and the Volunteer Fire Department have been a credit to thecommunity, and the post office has done a manful job of meeting the staggering needs of an exploding population.The Voice is tremendously proud to have been a part of this growth, and it has been our intention all these years to furnishthe public with a week-by-week history of the greater St. Matthews community. In this, our special tenth anniversary issue,we hav tried and we hope successfully—to summarize ten years of progress.