150 years ago today, Harrisonburg Town Council officially incorporated the Harrisonburg Police Department. Today we officially celebrate HPD’s Sesquicentennial anniversary!
1872…the Civil War had only ended 7 years prior. Ulysses S. Grant was President. Yellow Stone National Park was established as the world’s first National Park. The Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College begins its first academic sessions (later known as Virginia Tech). In defiance of the law, American suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time. Claude Monet painted the image from which the “Impressionism” art movement was named and modeled from.
So very many things have changed since those hand-written meeting notes of November 12, 1872. When the 700-resident Town of Harrisonburg wrote the single-man police department into being. The Chief was, by first note, the only police officer afforded in articles but by January 1, 1873, both a Chief of Police (Joseph Kelly) and a “police aide” position (Ofc. Willis) were on the books as elected town officials.Chiefs and officers would all be directly elected by vote of Town/City Council until the appointment of the first Harrisonburg City Manager, after which the Police department was selected/hired by the Manager.
Yes, so many things have changed. But what hasn’t changed is HPD’s mission to serve and protect the people of Harrisonburg and to be an active positive force within this community. If anything, that mission has only grown stronger with the support and engagement of the vibrant, complex, amazing energy and people that make up this city. We look forward to continuing our mission and our service, day by day, step by step, opportunity by opportunity. And should it carry us another 150 years…well then someone else is going to have to google the term for 300 year anniversary as I’m afraid the current staff won’t be around to write the next announcement.
To see the original meeting notes from 1872 click the link and jump to PDF page 378: https://www.harrisonburgva.gov/…/City%20Council…
Original source can be found here.
