Throwback Thursday: Remembering 200 years of the Bowling Green Police Department

Back when the West was wild and Kentucky was considered wilderness,
there was a much different version of law and order that kept the
peace in those frontier towns like Bowling Green at the turn of the 19th
century. Established in 1823, this is the bicentennial year of celebrations
for the Bowling Green Police Department. An official ceremony was held
earlier this year to commemorate the occasion, but we thought it would
be fun to go way, way back to the days when Bowling Green had
watchmen, marshalls, and chiefs of “patrolle.”

Bowling Green was established in 1798, with a town square and jail built
around the area where Fountain Square is now. According to the City of
Bowling Green’s website, the city’s very first records of law enforcers
are dated 1823 – with “watchmen.” August 9, 1823, James Keele was
appointed “captain of the patrolle,” with John Potts and Isaac Bennings
as help. By 1825, there was a series of 26 watchmen on rotation, each set
having a captain, lieutenant, and two privates. Fines for failing to do
your duty ranged from $1.50 to $3.00.

By 1838, Bowling Green’s river town commerce was really booming
and the town began to grow at a much faster pace. Through a series of
circumstances that year, Jeremiah R. Robinson was appointed to
Town Marshall. Just over 800 people lived in Bowling Green
during the 1830s, but the population boomed to over 2,000 by the 1860s.
The Town Marshall and Police Judge were tasked with overseeing all
city ordinances be enforced.

After the Civil War, the term “marshall” fell out of fashion and was
replaced with “chief of police.” When Henry James was appointed Chief
in 1893, no one was ever called the marshall again. By then,
Bowling Green was a third class city, and its population was just over
11,000. By 1905. the police department was housed at 1019 State Street
and was also home to the city/county jail. Police appointments back then
were restricted to white males of privilege who had the means to seek
appointments, compared to the series of rigorous testing applied now.
The first female police officer appointment went to Mary Potter in the
1960s.

With Bowling Green on the move, as always, the city is short on police
officers. For more recruitment information, please visit the city’s
police department website. There’s a lot more BG police history that
could be shared here, so consider this just the highlights.