Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/532701
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.15 25 ? WHY LOUISVILLE , Why is Louisville in the Eastern time zone instead of the Central time zone like Nashville, Tennessee, which is almost directly south of here? The entire state was in the Central time zone when the federal government, specifcally the Interstate Commerce Commission (now called the Department of Transportation), decided to recognize and regulate time zones in 1918. (Railroad companies were in charge of time zones before then.) But time zones are malleable. The ICC established that local governments could request a time-zone change for "convenience of commerce," and by 1947 the agency had shifted our state's boundary to include northern and some of eastern Kentucky in the Eastern time zone; Louisville remained on central time. The question of moving the Louisville area from central to eastern time came up in the 1950s, according to Orville Butler, who has written about the history of time zones in the U.S. "The Louisville Chamber of Commerce saw themselves as having more commercial interests with the East than they did with the Midwest," he says. In 1956, the Chamber polled its members, asking if they wanted to observe daylight- saving time year-round, which would put Louisville in step with Eastern time in the fall and winter. About 72 percent of members voted yes, according to an article in the June 1956 issue of Louisville Magazine (published by the chamber at the time). "Talk about daylight savings time, and the farmers rise in wrath," the article read. (Farmers must really need that early- morning sunlight.) For fve years, it was farmers against city slickers in the war over timekeeping. In 1958, the state legislature passed a law banning use of anything but Central Standard Time, prohibiting the use of daylight-saving time in the fall and winter. But, Butler says, "The Louisville Chamber of Commerce put up the fnances for some citizens of Louisville to (fght it in) court and they won. Essentially, the court said, 'Time is whatever you think it is.'" In the end, time became what the Chamber of Commerce thought it should be, and on July 23, 1961, Jefferson and 15 surrounding counties became part of the Eastern time zone. — AT