Dismantling a Camp, Building a Neighborhood
Camp at Auction
At the end of World War I, Camp Zachary Taylor was a major demobilization point, with hundreds of thousands of troops briefly passing through as they were processed out of the military. Officials closed Camp Zachary Taylor in 1920, only three years after it opened. More than 2,500 acres were auctioned off in 1,500 parcels the following year. This sale established the foundation of a new Louisville neighborhood, Camp Taylor.
Fincastle Heights
The US Government retained a portion of the land of Camp Zachary Taylor, originally a drill ground, and used it to develop defense housing during World War II.
Fincastle Heights was a $1,000,000 government-owned housing project in the Camp Taylor area, built in 1941. The developer, the Federal Works Agency, awarded Samuel Plato, an African American Louisville architect, a $300,000 contract to build eighty-eight of the 250 units. The housing was open to any worker in a defense industry or Army and Navy civilian workers, along with families of soldiers at Bowman Field. In January 1946, the Government began proceedings to sell the housing project, as it divested itself of defense housing project ownership.
Neighborhoods Connected
As population density increased in suburbs of Louisville, neighborhoods such as Camp Taylor, Audubon Park, Germantown, and the Highlands saw more traffic. As early as 1928,city planners investigated a connector road between Newburg and Poplar Level Roads south of Eastern Parkway. The right of way connection construction happened sometime between 1937 and 1941.
