Kevin Gibson talks his new book, "Oldest Louisville"

Author Kevin Gibson talks about his new book, "Oldest Louisville," what some notable landmarks used to be, and how the book came together...

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
You're a news radio eight forty WA, says smack dab in the middle of
downtown Louisville. A lot of historyaround here. Kevin Gibson is an author.
He's pumped out a bunch of booksover the years about various things around
this city. Kevin, welcome back. Good have you on? Hey,
Terry, how are you. You'vegot another book out now called Oldest Louisville.

(00:25):
What's the premise. Well, it'sabout all the oldest things and the
history behind them around town. Sowe got the the oldest public golf course,
the oldest cemetery, the oldest municipalbuilding, the oldest hotel. Okay,
you're gonna let us guess a fewof those. Sure, what do

(00:46):
you think? What do you Whatdo you think? Is the here you
go? What's here's here's the one? What's the oldest radio station? It's
us, that's right, Yeah,yeah, in nineteen twenty two. Yeah,
we just celebrated our one hundredth anniversarylast year, and we never did
find out. Some engineer went toWashington, DC and picked the call letters,

(01:11):
and we weren't quite sure what theymeant because other ones, you know,
obviously these call letters to spell wordsor they're like WLS was world's largest
store because Sears owned it, thatsort of thing, WSM and Nashville's we
Shield Millions. That was an insurancecompany that owned the radio station. We
don't know what our name means.That's the weird PT. I couldn't find

(01:33):
anything about that either. Yeah,very strange, very strange, all right.
But oldest hotel is that the BrownHotel. That is actually the Seal
Box. The Sealbox was built justa little bit before the Brown. Oh
cool, So what have you done? You've gone into research obviously, and
then did you get to take didyou find old pictures? Oh? Yeah,

(01:55):
found some old pictures. Spent alot of old like you know,
the the Courier Journal archives are online. So I dug up all kinds of
great stories. And so what Itried to do with this was not just
tell you know, facts and figures, but to attach human stories to it,
because really that's what it's all about. For me, History is about
stories about people. You know.That's why I hated history in high school,
because it was about memorizing dates.The seal Bock has an interesting history,

(02:21):
to be sure, Yes, quiteinteresting, quite interesting, of course,
you know, it originally started onMain Street, and the seal Boch
brothers said, we want to buildsomething bigger and better, and so they
found that lot there. But thelot that they're on now I've been there
forever is since I you know fivethat was a bath house, public bath
house originally. Oh my, Ididn't realize there were seal Boch brothers.

(02:44):
Yes, So the the original sealBock uh, he talked to his brother
into coming in to town, tocoming to America to work with him on
building that hotel. So yep,you know, there was a time obviously
when Louisville was you know, thisriver city and things were moving, moving
up and down the river, andso didn't they have all the bourbon barrels,

(03:06):
a lot of those on the riverfront, and then they would just
roll those down to barges and getthem delivered to wherever they had to go.
Yep. And on on West Mainethat was that was tobacco Alley.
So there were you would get hogheadsfull of tobacco lining the streets of the
same situation, and they would sendthose down river as well. All right,
So your book goes into I guessa lot of different things, but

(03:29):
most of them are centered on downtown. A lot of it is now,
but there's you know, south west, you know, just all over.
Like one of one of my favoriteones was the Oldest Zoo Animal, and
that is a dot. I thinkit's an eighty six year old tortoise.
He's the oldest living zoo animal.Yeah, so a little bit of everything,
you know, still alive now.Yeah, still kicking. Oh man,

(03:53):
that is fantastic. I love that. Moving slowly but of course still
kicking. So is this is thisthe tabletop book? Is this a picture
book? It's mostly a tabletop kindof book, kind of a coffee table
kind of book. But there's plentyof reading, plenty of research went into
it, a lot of sleepless nightsworrying about deadlines. Right. I know

(04:15):
you've done other books in the pastabout about various prominent spots and so forth
in Louisville, and this one tookyou into is Main Street covered pretty prominently
in this one? Yeah? MainYeah, Main Street of course is the
oldest street. And Louisville was builtaround Main Street where Fort Nelson originally was.
Yeah, I know there's a FortNelson building. Is that where there

(04:40):
was located. Yeah, and there'sa little park there, the little pocket
park that's where the entrance to thefort supposedly is there was put me in
that time frame. I don't knowwhen Fort Nelson was here. Well,
this is going to be the seventeeneighties, right when Louisville was being founded,
yep. And it was just postrevolution and they just had it soldiered

(05:02):
up just in case there were goingto be some troublemakers coming this way.
That and you know, there werea lot of Native Americans around who didn't
take kindly to European settlers, kindof just taking their land away. So
yeah, that would make sense.And then I know, I know it's
in southern Indiana, but I've alwaysheard that the poll mall of Plant was
a prison before it was, youknow, the place with a big clock.

(05:26):
Sure, and then people would theybring some of the scallow wags from
other places, float them down theriver and throw them in that who's scal
there. Yep. I've read thatmyself, and that was actually in my
last book. I did a chapterof about that in my last book.
This used to be Louisville. Isn'tthat something? Though? Bourbon tobacco and
prisoners. We were big enough.Well, the sad part is they forced

(05:50):
those prisoners to convert that into afactory and then ship them elsewhere, So
they basically had to had to rebuildtheir own homes and then get shipped out
of it and let them free afterthat. I meanwhile, yeah, nope,
all right, So how many books? How many books do you have
that are related to this city?I want to say six, maybe seven?

(06:13):
Seven? Probably sounds like it wouldmake a nice collection for people that
love their local lore. Yeah,I agree, And they make great to
Christmas gifts too. All right.Where do people find them? Well,
you can find them on my website, Kevin Gibson writer dot com, Carmichael's
bookstores, and wherever fine literature issold. All right, Well, thanks

(06:33):
for including our radio station in thisone, because we're proud of being the
oldest station here. And of courseI've been here. Of course, I've
been here for forty percent of thisstation's life. That's crazy. You guys
always been good to me as well. And can I just shout out one
thing or two things? I'm gonnabe doing a meet and greet at Hilltop
Tavern in Clifton on Friday, thatI'm speaking at No Me Too. It's

(06:57):
some of my favorite and then I'llbe speaking at car Michalls on Saturday afternon
at four o'clock if you want tocome and listen to be crad alone about
local history. You're talking about Carmichael'sFrankfurt Avenue. Right, yeah, that's
correct, Okay, very good Saturdayfor and then at Hilltop on Friday night
because it's Friday night, and whereelse would you want to be? That's
right. That's a meet and greet. There will be food, there will
be drink, and there'll be friends. All right, We all right.

(07:19):
The new book's called Oldest Louis ohOn. That's Kevin Gibson. Good talking
to you again, keV. ThanksCherry, you're talking to you all right.
Websites Kevin Gibson writer dot com