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This is a milestone in Louisville Water’s history: for the first time in our 165 years of operations, all customers will receive a monthly bill. This week, the billing department will upload the last batch of bi-monthly meter data. Why did it take so long? You can blame bushels of corn and a war. Enjoy this story from Louisville Water’s archives.
Come Downtown and Pay!
When Louisville Water began in 1860, there were no meters to measure water usage and no water bills. A couple weeks before pumping the first drink of water, the company approved a tariff schedule and if you were interested in water, the assessor visited your home or business to calculate the annual rate. A house with one or two rooms was five dollars; a cow cost one dollar, and if you had a steam engine at your business you paid 1.5 cents for every 100 gallons you thought you used.
There were not hundreds of homes using the water (well water was free!) and one of the more popular uses was street sprinklers. Companies would pay a flat rate to fill their tanks to water the dirt streets.
You paid in person at the company’s office (which is where the Omni Hotel sits today in downtown Louisville) and it was the honor system. By 1873, Louisville Water divided the city into two districts, the east and west. “East” customers paid their bills in January and July and those in the west district paid in April and October.
The archives show that many people paid with a bushel of corn or green beans and not cash.
Installing Water Meters
Realizing that this honor system of payments was not working, Louisville Water began metering water usage. Businesses, primarily manufacturers, were the first to get meters; but there were 151 saloons with meters by 1887. Customers signed a deposit and with a meter, paid quarterly. We even offered a discount for prompt payment.
Louisville Water had to approve a customer for service and there were lots of squabbles. The Bremaker Moore & Co. paper mill sued to get a lower rate – we settled for 7.5 cents for every 1,000 gallons instead of charging 15 cents. It seems the paper mill was shocked at how much water the meter showed it used. The county jailer wrote a letter begging to leave the water service on – the jail had not paid in two years and owed $1,776. In 1875, the Board denied a meter request from Mr. Bordon for his saloon on Jefferson Street because it was a small business. That same year, when the Hulings and Brown Company wanted to use the same meter for their stable and their house, the Board said no.
Meter Readers and Assessors
Being an asessor at Louisville Water meant you talked with lots of people. The assessor’s office was filled with large wooden desks and formal chairs. We employed a group of assessors into the 1920s.
By 1941, we had completed installing meters for customers and were mailing bills instead of requiring customers to come in-person to pay. Then, World War II upended lives and businesses. When many of our workforce were called to active duty, Louisville Water shuffled how it did the business operations. In a newspaper article, the company president said the war meant that it is “conceivable that we will have women meter readers in the future.” Although that didn’t happen immediately, the company realized it couldn’t read the meters monthly. In 1944, customers began receiving a bi-monthly bill, a practice that continued in Jefferson County until we added the advanced meters during 2020-2025.
In the 1960s, Louisville Water glamourized the life of a meter reader. As Edward Kehl and Gilbert Brutscher worked in teams, a photographer followed along. Working in the billing department was also considered a pristine position. The archives show ornate photos of the lobby and the billing rooms. Bills were created by typewriters until 1965 when Louisville Water purchased its first IBM 1401 computer.
Technology and Convenience
In 165 years, Louisville Water has gone from the honor system to pay for water with a handwritten deposit to advanced meters with an online portal for billing. The new meters allow us to move all customers to monthly billing since we can remotely collect water usage instead of employees walking miles and miles to manually collect water meter readings.
On August 26, Louisville Water uploaded meter information for its final batch of bi-monthly bills. Our billing department and metering staff have new tasks but still focus on customer satisfaction, which has been a priority since 1860.
