Erlanger, Kentucky

This Northern Kentucky community has worn three names. The first settlers arrived around eighteen oh seven, clustering near a tollgate on the Covington-Lexington Turnpike in a hamlet called Timberlake, after a local physician. When the Southern Railroad arrived in eighteen seventy-three the depot was renamed Greenwood, then quickly renamed again to Silver Lake when confusion with other towns on the line arose.

The current name appeared in eighteen eighty-two when a post office was established and both the office and the depot were christened Erlanger, in honor of Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger, a banker whose firm helped finance the area's early development. In eighteen eighty-seven the syndicate formally platted the Erlanger Proper Subdivision into two hundred twenty lots, and the town incorporated in eighteen ninety-seven. The baron's name outlasted his venture by well over a century.