Author: thekaintuckeean

6 in September: The Most Popular Posts

Though there were only four new Kaintuckeean posts from September, there was a lot of strong traffic out of the archives. Below are the six most popular posts from September.

Griffith Woods

Griffith Woods. Author’s collection.

The 745 acres of Harrison County land provides the purest glimpse of what Europeans first saw when the entered the Bluegrass region. This is what the land looked like when the Native Americans lived here. Griffith Woods is a cooperative effort between the Nature Conservancy, the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission. Originally called Silver Lake Farm, the area features some venerable trees that are more than 300 years old.

Read more at http://www.kaintuckeean.com/2010/07/no-destination-griffith-woods.html

A #DemolitionWatch Update

Fritz Farm. Fayette County PVA. 

One post from September helped to catch readers up on the many demolitions that have occurred around Lexington over the past couple months. Significantly, the circa 1875 farmhouse at Fritz Farm near the corner of Nicholasville Road and Man-O-War was demolished to make way for the future mixed-use development known as The Summit at Fritz Farm.

Read more at http://www.kaintuckeean.com/2015/09/catching-up-on-lexingtons-recent.html

Lost Lexington at the University of Kentucky

This post was a promotional post for an event I had at UK’s Singletary Center to speak about my book, Lost Lexington. What made the event more special was that it was the inaugural event in the Hemenway Writing Center Speaker Series! It was a great event with a great group of attendees who asked some great questions!

Read more at http://www.kaintuckeean.com/2015/09/lost-lexington-coming-to-university-of.html

3,849 Images from Lexington’s Past

Cadets along Main Street. UK Libraries. 

UK Libraries unveiled a new collection which included some incredible photographs from Lexington’s past. The photos, digitally extracted from dry plate, silver nitrate glass negatives, date from ca. 1898-1918.

Read more at http://www.kaintuckeean.com/2015/07/6-images-from-lexingtons-past-and-3848.html

Riverside Historic District

Audubon Statue at the Point. Michael Monks. 

A guest post from the archives, written by Michael Monks of RCNKy.com, is about the Riverside Historic District in Covington. This treasure includes eight blocks along the Licking River beginning at the confluence with the Ohio River. Architecture of the “Greek Revival, Federal, Queen Anne, High Victorian, Gothic, Italianate, and French Second Empire styles” can be found here.

Read more at http://www.kaintuckeean.com/2012/07/RiversideHD.html

Silas Baptist Church

Like many churches in the region from both the Baptist and Disciples of Christ traditions, Silas Baptist draws from the heritage of the Traveling Church which was founded in Virginia in 1767.  This July 2010 offers image and text from the on-site historic marker with a little extra insight on this oldest continuously running church in Bourbon County.

Read more: http://www.kaintuckeean.com/2010/07/no-destination-silas-baptist-church.html

Discover more and follow the Kaintuckeean on Facebook!

A Ghoulish Walking Tour in Lexington

The BGT deTour this month is more than just a walking tour. It’s a ghoulish walking tour featuring the torrid tales of Lexington’s past. Plus, a lot of interesting history!

Local folklorist and ghost guide Kevin Steele will lead the tour that will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 7 near the corner of West Second and Jefferson Streets.

Kevin Steele is a local ghost guide and folklorist. Kevin Steele. 

Each year, Kevin Steele leads the popular Lexington Ghost Walk and Creepy Crawl on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings in October. But Kevin (a regular deTourian) has agreed to share some his expertise with the #BGTdeTours crowd.

The tour will include the Vogt Reel House, Hampton Court, the Green Lantern and other destinations. The walk will conclude at Blue Stallion Brewing Company which is generously donating 10% of deTourian sales to the Blue Grass Trust.

If you are on Facebook, let your friends know you are going on this #BGTdeTours – click here!


IF YOU GO
October 7, 2015
Gather at 5:30 p.m.

Starts Near Second & Jefferson, Lexington

Free and open to the public. An AfterHour at Blue Stallion Brewing Company follows with a percentage of proceeds supporting the Blue Grass Trust.
#BGTdeTours

Daniel Midkiff rose from ‘Inmate’ to a leader in the Sport of Kings

This now-demolished structure at 224 Walton Avenue is zoned commercial in an area that is being revitalized as The Warehouse Block. A demolition permit was sought on September 23, 2015 for the 1,052 square foot house that, according to the PVA website, dates to 1946.

The house, however, looks and is quite older.

A Sanborn Map of Lexington from 1920 reveals that a similarly designed structure (1.5 story dwelling with full front porch) then existed at 224 Walton Avenue. So I would suggest that the structure was built ca 1910-1920.

Sometimes, however, a seemingly inconspicuous home has a rich history. That is the case here.

Wreckage of 224 Walton Street on September 30, 2015. Author’s collection. 

The 1921 City Directory identifies 224 Walton as the home of several members of the Midkiff family: Bernadine, Con, Daniel, Earl, and Nora. A quick check of ancestry.com helped determine that the first four were Nora’s adult children. Bernadine was a stenographer, Con a laborer, Daniel a foreman, and Earl an oiler.

It also appeared that the house was rented by Mrs. Nora Midkiff who was, according to the City Directory, a widow (Oscar being the name of her late husband who passed away in 1907). The adult children, all natives to Kentucky, weren’t Lexingtonians. All were born in western Kentucky.

I immediately wondered what tragedy must have befallen Nora’s late husband so that she would relocate from the western part of the state to Lexington with a handful of young children?

Elected Official Succumbs to Fever

I found the answer on the front page of The Hartford Republican dated July 12, 1907 through a search on newspapers.com under the headline: JAILER OSCAR MIDKIFF SUCCUMBS TO TYPHOID.

The Hartford Republican, July 12, 1907. UK Libraries.

Mr. Midkiff was “elected Jailer of Ohio County November 1905, on the Republican ticket, and has made a competent, careful official.” At the cemetery, he was given full military honors “including the firing of salute over the grave and the solemn sounding of ‘taps’ by bugler Allison Barnett.”

The news article further noted that Midkiff “leaves a wife and five small children, one of whom a little girl is also quite ill from typhoid fever.”

A sad story indeed. And did the ill child survive?

Inmates at the Pythian Home

By 1910, the remaining family had already made the move from Ohio County to Fayette County: that years federal census identified each as an “inmate” at the Pythian Home of Kentucky.

Pythian Home for Widows and Orphans at Clays Mill, Lexington. UK Libraries.

The Pythians were a fraternal organization and secret society founded in 1864. The local chapter acquired the residence and farm of Richard T. Gibson, near the intersection of the pikes to Clays Mill and Harrodsburg, making it a home for widows and orphans in either 1907 or 1908. The site is now occupied by Lafayette High School.

It was here in 1910 that the Midkiff widow and five children resided, so it seems that the little one who was ill with typhoid fever at the time of her father’s death did survive. And within the decade, each of the children took a vocation and supported their mother.

Daniel Midkiff

One of those children was Daniel Boone Midkiff.

He worked for the Lexington Utilities Company until 1923 when he joined his brother-in-law in the construction business. The two also partnered in establishing a quarry, although he sold his interests in each of these entities to his brother-in-law in 1939. At this time, he began to manage an equine stock farm. Ultimately, he began to take “a string of horses to the great meets and racing them under his own colors and operating the Overbrook Horse Farm on the Tate’s Creek Road” according to the Sesquicentennial History History of Kentucky edited by Wallis and Tapp in 1945.

He was a charter member of the Thoroughbred Club. He partnered with Joseph Mainous to establish the Mainous & Midkiff Insurance Company. In 1952, the Lexington Leader described Midkiff as a “farm manager, real estate dealer and insurance man.” His Lexington Herald-Leader obituary, dated September 26, 1990, stated that “Daniel B. Midkiff Sr., known for his love for thoroughbred horses, died yesterday at his home in Lexington. He was 91.”

And the house in which he, his widowed mother, and his siblings struggled to stay together during the early 1920s was demolished 25 years to the week after Midkiff’s death.

224 Walton Avenue, post-demolition. Author’s collection.

Lost Lexington Coming to the University of Kentucky

In April 2015, I was honored to receive the Excellence in Writing Award from the University of Kentucky’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Design. It is always rewarding to be honored by your alma mater, but it is unique when it is for something so distant from your academic career (my UK degrees are in accounting and law).

The accolade arose from my creation of this website and the publication of Lost Lexington. Later this month, I’m returning to campus for what I’m told is the inaugural event in the Robert E. Hemenway Writing Center Speaker Series. There, I’ll be speaking about writing the Kaintuckeean and Lost Lexington and I’ll be sharing a few of the backstories from Lost Lexington.

I want to thank the Writing Center, the WRD Department and especially Professor Judi Prats (who incidentally taught me a 100-level English class when I was a UK undergraduate) for hosting this event.

And, since the event is open to the public — I hope you’ll join the festivities!
IF YOU GO
Robert E. Hemenway Writing Center Speaker Series: Lost Lexington 
September 29, 2015
Reception 6:00 p.m.
Talk, Q&A 6:30 p.m.

President’s Room at
Singletary Center 
Rose & Euclid, Lexington

Free and open to the public.

More details on Facebook.

Remembering September 11

It was my senior year of high school when a friend alerted me that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. A few years earlier, that same friend and I had travelled to NYC. Though we didn’t ascend the twin towers on that trip, the iconic structures towered over other skyscrapers so that if you saw them then you would be able to figure out your bearings.

A few years before that trip, I remember walking the underground shops stories below the 110-story skyscrapers. September 11 was emotional for all Americans and we will not forget the tragedy of that day.

After 9/11, country musicians quickly wrote new songs. Some embraced a militaristic perspective, suggesting that the “American Way” was “putting a boot in your ass.” (Toby Keith). Others recognized the importance of the moment – like Pearl Harbor or the JFK assassinations for earlier generations – where all would remember where they were “when the world stopped turning, that September Day.” (Alan Jackson).

I was 18 – a senior in high school at Lexington Christian Academy. Between first and second periods, I dismissed my friend’s comment about a plane hitting WTC as probably just another accident. I thought of the Cessna that had hit the White House in 1994.

By the time I arrived in my second period class, the south tower had been struck by United Flight 175. I knew then that America was under attack and that this was no small accident. In horror, I sat in a classroom of scared 17 and 18 year olds as we collectively watched  the south tower fall.

Some of us thought of a military response and were concerned about the return of the draft; several in my class have served in the years since 9/11.

Our school did not close on 9/11. A few teachers maintained ordinary class schedules, but the day was anything but ordinary. As you can image, a lot of prayers were offered. It was a day I will never forget.

In 2004, Mrs. Kaintuckeean and I visited NYC. During our trip, we stopped by Ground Zero. During law school, I twice ventured to New York City with a classmate (NRK, who helped me to get Kaintuckeean off the ground and remains a contributor). On each of those trips, we checked in on the progress at Ground Zero. By 2009, significant progress was underway on the One World Trade Center (construction took place from 2006 to 2013), but that was my last visit to New York.

But one of my other memories of New York City’s World Trade Center was found along a country road in Rockcastle County later in 2009. I happened upon the sleepy town of Livingston (which has since been reborn as a Trail Town) where a now-gone memorial to the twin towers took my breath away. I paused and remembered.

Today, we all will again pause and remember. #NeverForget

* The first picture above is also of the 9/11 Memorial that was once in Livingston. This post combines two earlier post about 9/11.

Catching up on Lexington’s recent demolitions

Due to scheduling, I haven’t been able to maintain and keep up with those structures on Demolition Watch. Below the jump is a list of properties that have been subject to demolition requests since I last updated y’all.

If you are interested in keeping fully up-to-date on these matters, you don’t have to wait for a Kaintuckeean post. A free service called Citygram provides the information to your inbox for free. Citygram is available only to a handful of cities around the country, but Lexington is on this exclusive list.

In addition to that solution, you can also request a weekly report from Lexington’s Planning Commissioner Derek Paulsen by filling out this form. The availability of this information is a great example of a more transparent government!

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch images off of the Fayette County PVA‘s website in time for all of these parcels. Luckily, Google Maps can help out, too.

4100 Nicholasville Road

ca. 1875. This farmhouse on the northeast corner of Nicholasville Road and Man-o-War Blvd was on the last good-sized farm in south Lexington. It is the future site of a commercial development, The Summit at Fritz Farm. 

via Fayette PVA


A Commercial Block

Several nondescript buildings in the block bounded by Midland Ave., East Third Street, and Lewis Street are being demolished to make way for an expansion of opportunity by Community Ventures Corporation. These properties include 225 Midland, 261 Midland, 265 Midland and 250 Lewis.


via Google Maps


NOLI CDC

142 York Street via Fayette PVA as an example of the shotguns demolished.


You may recall a couple of previous Demolition Watch posts that focused on demolitions in the NoLi area of Lexington, including some on York and Eddie Streets (here and here). Well, redevelopment of that area continues. Structures implicated in this round are on York Street and all were built ca. 1900. Parcels include 142, 140, 136, 134, 132, and 130 York Street.


According to NOLI CDC, the program (which implicates funding by Lexington’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund) “transforms vacant or condemned properties in the North Limestone neighborhood into affordable live/work units that respect and respond to the neighborhood’s historical context.” Each of the rebuilt York Street properties will sell for $72,500 and will be deed restricted based on income limits. 

Rendering via NOLI CDC

509 Smith Street


via Google Maps


537 West Fifth Street 

ca. 1909

via Fayette PVA



646 Maxwelton Court

ca. 1924

via Fayette PVA


849 Whitney Avenue

ca. 1910

via Fayette PVA


301 Preston Avenue

ca. 1920. From the picture, we can see why this one was demolished. According to the Lexington Leader, Joseph Lee Robinson lived here when he died at a short illness. A native of Augusa, Ky., Mr. Robinson lived in Lexington for 35 years before he passed away on January 13, 1930. His funeral was held at the Kerr Brothers Funeral Home.

via Fayette PVA

Kentucky’s Oldest Presbyterian Church

Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Ky. Jason Sloan. 

For the next edition of #BGTdeTours, you have the opportunity to explore the oldest Presbyterian church in Kentucky. The site is the Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church which is located on Walnut Hill Pike near Old Richmond Road.

The church was formed on land given it by General Levi Todd, Mary Todd Lincoln’s grandfather, in 1785. That year, a log structure was erected for the pioneers. One of the first ministers, Rev. James Crawford, is buried in the church cemetery. In 1791, Crawford created a school of Latin, Greek and the Sciences at Walnut Hill. Crawford is among the 85 individuals interred at the church cemetery.

Amidst the 1801 “great revival” that overtook Kentucky in religious fervor, the church at Walnut Hill was demolished and the extant stone structure replaced it. Originally and until an 1880 remodeling, the stone sanctuary had “eight square windows on two levels that allowed light to enter the sanctuary at the ground level as well as in the galleries that surrounded the inner room on three sides.”

Windows at Walnut Hill. Jason Sloan. 

Since 1880, however, eight large Gothic windows have provided light into the holy space. But the church has not been in continuous operation since the church first opened. According to the structure’s application to the National Register of Historic Places, the Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church was ‘unoccupied’ in 1973. In fact, after 168 years of use the structure was abandoned in 1953.

Floorplan of Walnut Hill. National Register.

In June 1974, the church doors were reopened and the sanctuary rededicated in 1975. In 1977, a silver communion set and baptismal bowl that were gifted to the church in 1851 were returned from a North Carolina museum that had housed the artifacts since the 1940s.

In 1985, an education and social wing was added to the Walnut Hill Church which is now an ecumenical facility with ties to both the Presbyterian and Episcopal denominations.


The award-winning #BGTdeTours program is designed to provide tours of places you might not normally get to see, helping people interact with and learn about sites that make the Bluegrass special. For young professionals (and the young at heart!), deTours are “always” the first Wednesday of the month at 5:30 pm, and are always free and open to the public.

IF YOU GO
BGT deTour
Walnut Hill Church
September 2, 2015
Gather at 5:30 p.m.,
program begins at 6:00 p.m.

575 Walnut Hill Rd., Lexington

Free and open to the public. An AfterHour at Jean Farris Winery follows.

#BGTdeTours
Walnut Hill, ca. 1972. National Register Application (H. Lynn Cravens).

Sources:
Local History Index
National Register of Historic Places Application (1973)

A Review of The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia

Over 150 writers contributed to The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia which is being published this month by the University Press of Kentucky. Editors Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin have compiled what is being described as “a foundational guide to the black experience in the Commonwealth.”

The beautiful 596-page tome is not without its flaws. Although the entry on “slave trade” did note that Lexington and Louisville “became centers of the slave commerce,” there was no entry dedicated to the markets themselves. An informed entry on “Cheapside” would have been an excellent addition – the full dialogue on this subject seems to be missing which has spawned a political issue in and of itself. Another addition I would have preferred to have seen would have been a place index. Connecting the dots of multiple references within the text to a particular Kentucky town or county would have assisted local researchers, though the information is probably easily gleaned from a digital version of the text.

Notwithstanding these small contentions, the volume is filled with the long-undertold parts of Kentucky’s rich history. Any lover of Kentucky history would be well-served by sitting down for an afternoon to peruse this book, then to keep it nearby for regular consultation.

To celebrate Kentucky’s bicentennial in 1992, the Kentucky Encyclopedia was born. Since, two regional encyclopedia’s (Louisville and Northern Kentucky) have continued to tell the stories of the individuals, places, organizations, and events that have shaped Kentucky’s storied past. Now, the stories involving Kentucky’s African-American past are being told in a single volume.

First African Baptist Church in Lexington.

The entry on Lexington’s First African Baptist Church tells the early challenges experienced by Peter Durrett, the slave who helped organize and pastor the church that was once the largest congregation in Kentucky. (At least two other historic black Lexington churches, Antioch (Colored) Christian and St. Paul AME lack entries.)

The entry on Margaret Garner, the escaped slave who was on the most “complex figures in the history of American slavery,” is heart wrenching.

The release of this book on August 28 itself holds significance. Seven years ago (2008), Barack Obama became the first African-American to accept the nomination of a major political party for President of the United States. Forty-five years earlier (52 years ago, 1963), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech in Washington, D.C.

While history may not hold the release of the Kentucky African-American Encyclopedia on the same level from the perspective of national import, it is still a significant step toward understanding the history of all Kentuckians.

Disclaimer: The author was provided a courtesy copy of this book. This review followed.


Lost Lexington & Kentucky Historical Society’s “Food for Thought”

Each month, the Kentucky Historical Society hosts its Food for Thought luncheon series in Frankfort. This month, I’ll be speaking about and reading from my book, Lost Lexington, to share back stories of the places in Lexington that once were – but have been lost to history. The event is on August 19 and begins at noon at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.

After the event, I will be signing copies of the book. And the Kentucky Historical Society will be selling copies of the book if you don’t have one already. Reservations are required and must be made by August 14 by contacting Julia Curry at 502-564-1792, ext. 4414 or via email at [email protected]. Tickets for the luncheon are $25 per person for KHS members and $30 for non-members.

IF YOU GO
Kentucky Historical Society
Food for Thought Lunceon
Lost Lexington author,
 Peter Brackney

August 19, 2015
Beginning at noon

100 West Broadway, Frankfort

Reservations are required and must 
be made by Aug. 14. Contact Julia Curry at 502-564-1792, ext. 4414 or [email protected]

Celebrate National Farmer’s Market Week with Lost Lexington and Homegrown Authors

What better way to celebrate National Farmer’s Market Week than coming to see me on Saturday morning?

That’s right, it’s National Farmer’s Market Week through August 10. And on August 8 – from 9 am until about noon, I’ll be at the greatest Farmer’s Market of them all: the Lexington Farmer’s Market at Cheapside Park! (OK, I’m a little biased. But definitely one of the best!)

I will be there do discuss and sign my book, Lost Lexington, as part of the Homegrown Authors series by Morris Book Shop and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. And I’ll be joined by another local Kentucky author, Ben Woodard, who has some awesome stories to tell. He’s been writing children’s books with his latest being Bubbles: Big Stink in Frog Pond.

So come on down to to the Lexington Farmer’s Market and say hello (and support your local authors…and farmers!)

According to the Herald-Leader, the Lexington Farmer’s Market will be celebration National Farmer’s Market Week with “a watermelon and cantaloupe fundraiser to benefit the Bluegrass Double Dollars program, which matches food vouchers for fresh fruit and vegetable purchases. [Plus] there will be music by the Lexington Philharmonic, appearances by local partners, and awesome produce, meats, cheese and Kentucky Proud products from around the area.”

See you tomorrow morning, Saturday August 8, between 9 and noon at the Lexington Farmer’s Market downtown at Cheapside Park!