Louisville is governed under a charter of 1893, which is in the form of an act of the state legislature for the government of cities of the first class (Louisville is the only city of the first class in the state). The mayor is elected for four years, and appoints, subject to the approval of the board of aldermen, the controller and the members of the two principal executive boards--the board of public works and the board of public safety. The legislative power is vested in a general council composed of 12 aldermen and 24 councilmen. Both aldermen and councilmen serve without pay, and are elected on a general ticket for a term of two years; not more than two councilmen may be residents of the same ward, but there is no such limitation in regard to aldermen. The treasurer, tax-receiver, auditor, judge of the police court, clerk of the police court, members of the board of school trustees (1 from each legislative district) and members of the park commission are elected by popular vote; the assessor, by the general council. The duration of franchises given by the city is limited to 20 years. _History._--The site of the city was probably visited by La Salle in 1669 or 1670. In July 1773, Captain Thomas Bullitt,[2] acting under a commission from the College of William and Mary, surveyed a tract of 2000 acres, lying opposite the Falls of the Ohio, and laid out a town site upon this tract. Colonel William Preston, county surveyor of Fincastle county, within which the 2000-acre tract lay, refused to approve Captain Bullitt's survey, and had the lands resurveyed in the following year, nevertheless the tract was conveyed in December 1773 by Lord Dunmore to his friend Dr John Connolly, a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, who had served in the British army, as commander of Fort Pitt (under Dunmore's appointment), was an instigator of Indian troubles which culminated in the Battle of Point Pleasant, and was imprisoned from 1775 until nearly the close of the War of American Independence for attempting under Dunmore's instructions to organize the "Loyal Foresters," who were to be sent against the rebellious colonists in the West. The city of Louisville was laid out on the upper half of this Connolly tract. It is possible that there was a settlement on what was afterward called Corn Island (which has now practically disappeared), at the Falls of the Ohio, as early as 1775; in May 1778, General George Rogers Clark, while proceeding, by way of the Ohio river, against the British posts in the Illinois territory, landed on this island and built block-houses for his stores and cabins for about twenty families of emigrants who had come with him. These emigrants (or the greater part of them) removed to the mainland in the winter of 1778-1779, and established themselves in a fort built within the present limits of Louisville. A town government was organized by them in April