Category: Uncategorized

Captain Wilgus’ Italian Villa, known as Parker Place, on deTour Wednesday Night in Lexington

John B. Wilgus House (aka Parker Place) at 511 W. Short St., Lexington. Mary Sloan.

It is rare to find such a plot of land in downtown Lexington, but there is the Parker Place on West Short Street. Once part of a much larger tract owned by Eliza Parker, the grandmother of Mary Todd Lincoln, the land was later acquired by Captain John B. Wilgus.

Capt. Wilgus, a Unionist during the Civil War, led the Lexington Blues. The Lexington Blues was a homeguard unit, the so-called ‘army of last resort’, purposed with protecting the life and property of the Union supporters in the event of an invasion by the Rebels. In business, Capt. Wilgus was active in various efforts and was a successful grocer and banker in Lexington.

In 1870, Capt. Wilgus retained John McMurtry to build, and likely design, an Italianate villa in Lexington’s Western Suburb on land he had acquired in the mid-1850s. Before Wilgus’ acquisition, McMurtry operated both a lumber yard and carpentry shop on the site.

Exterior of the Octagonal Room at Parker Place. Mary Sloan. 

The design included an octagonal room on the two-story villa’s western side – a room that housed Wilgus’ extensive art collection. Following his death, the collection was auctioned off. At that time, the Lexington Leader described the collection as including “rare foreign and American paintings” as well as “the celebrated marble bust and pedestal of Augustus Caesar by Joel T. Hart.”

You may recall the name Joel T. Hart as being the noted Kentucky sculptor, born in Winchester, who spent much of his life in Italy. One of his noted works, Woman Triumphant, was destroyed when the old (fourth) Fayette County Courthouse was destroyed by fire in May 1897.

Capt. Wilgus himself succombed to cancer of the jaw in 1889. His condition had been the subject of the news, as reported on by the Lexington Leader, in yet another reminder of the style of the news from yesteryear: Mr Wilgus “has suffered with a growth on his face … He consented to a dangerous operation to remove the tumor this morning.”

The house itself was sold a few years before Wilgus’ death. It changed hands several times before it was acquired by the Lexington Orphans Society, which being established in 1833, was one of the oldest such societies in the nation. Parker Place served as an orphanage from 1907 until 1975.

The property, as noted above is within the Western Historic Suburb of Lexington and is included on the neighborhood’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register application describes Parker Place as being “by far the largest scale and most elaborate residential building in the neighborhood.”

On Wednesday, April 1, 2015, the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation’s deTour program will tour Parker Place. The group will begin gathering at 5:30 p.m. and parking is available behind St. Paul’s Catholic Church or behind the Greentree Tea Room. More details are available here. The event is free and open to the public.

Lexington’s Centrepointe in Haiku

Every now and then, I dabble in poetry. As I drove past the Centrepointe block with its idle cranes, I wondered what will happen here? And when?

A quick haiku came to mind:

High o’er our city
tow’ring cranes idle they stand
What will happen here?

[Do you have a poetic bone in your body? I’d love to read (and hopefully share with other readers) your Centrepointe poems! Please post them in the comments!]

In October 2014, headlines read that “Crane causing delay for Lexington’s CentrePointe project.” But by mid-December, the cranes were being installed.

Representatives for the developers suggested that “the next phase of construction would have to wait until the tower crane can be delivered and secured on the site” according to a Herald-Leader article. Repeat: the crane installations occurred a full three months ago. And still…

Idle they stand.

In my book, Lost Lexington, the historic block of Centrepointe block fills an entire chapter. And I’ve written about it frequently here on the Kaintuckeean. You can skim through my earlier Centrepointe posts here.

Don’t forget to leave your Centrepointe poetry in the comments!

Demo Watch: Shotgun Houses on Lexington’s Jefferson Street

Clockwise from upper left: 440, 444, 448, and 446 Jefferson Street. 

Demolition permits have been filed to tear down four shotgun houses, each built ca. 1890, along the increasingly popular Jefferson Street corridor on Lexington, Kentucky’s northside.

As noted last week in another demolition watch, the “single-story shotgun is one of a dying breed.” These four shotgun houses were constructed a short time after the Warfield Bell Subdivision was platted. Located between Fourth and Sixth streets on both sides of Jefferson (plus Fifth and Sixth on both sides of Smith Street Extended), the subdivision consisted of 113 lots. It was the city’s first subdivision of 100+ lots.

I can’t find a proposal of what will replace these dwellings. Though at least one has been abandoned for some time and another is the site of multiple nuisance violations in the past few years, these houses did provide affordable housing in Lexington for 125 years.

And a quick note from last week’s Demo Watch: I posted a Watch for 3 structures already demolished. Mea culpa. I received word of the filing of the demolition permits on March 17 and posted three days later. The permits were, however, filed earlier. There isn’t much I can do about that, but I will continue to try and post Demo Watch posts. If a structure has already been demolished, at least something will remain written of it.

The permits for the above four shotguns on Jefferson Street, according to the Citygram I received, were filed on March 20. As of this morning, they hadn’t been demolished though it appears that the fire department has been doing some practice on the roofs of a few of the structures.

Demo Watch: Permits sought to demolish 4 structures near University of Kentucky campus

Demolition permits have been sought at these four Lexington, Kentucky properties. Individual images from Fayette PVA.

On March 9, demolition permits were sought for three structures on Euclid Avenue. Permits for wrecking the structures at 626, 630 and 634 Euclid Avenue would pave the way for a development already announced. The location is opposite Marquis from the new Euclid Kroger on its one end and a three story brick-and-glass commercial structure (The Ashland Building).

And while Euclid once had a number of single family residences along its way, the area has transformed into a more intensive use. Though these structures, built in the first half of the 20th century, were once representative of the homes along this avenue, they now seem almost out of place.

The history of this stretch of road can be told quickly through a few newspaper articles. In July 1903, the Lexington Leader announced that “the work of grading Euclid Avenue in the Aylesford division has been commenced and when macadamized will furnish the shortest route from the Tates Creek Pike to State College.” Once the road was paved, houses like the ones proposed for demolition sprung up on what became a residential corridor. In 1920, the road was designated a boulevard and paved with asphalt. But in June 1987, the Herald-Leader found that Euclid Avenue was “an expanding commercial thoroughfare that leads to Chevy Chase” and that it “may be designated a business corridor.”

The site is proposed to now become a retail and restaurant space; the development plan, also submitted to the city, can be accessed here. The map below shows its location, with the corner of Euclid Kroger poking from the bottom of the map.

Additionally, a demolition permit for 171 Montmullin was filed on March 11. This single-story shotgun is one of a dying breed. The one-bedroom, one-bath home is only 568 square feet. Built in 1910, it represents an architectural style once prominent in various parts of Lexington and other communities. Rapidly, however, progress is marking the end of the the shotgun style. Each year, more and more shotguns are being demolished.

Montmullin Street is located in the Pralltown neighborhood, which is the oldest historically African American neighborhood in Lexington. By 1940, it contained over 200 homes but has been “an ongoing battle to prevent the neighborhood from becoming a new housing area” for UK students for the past twenty years. Unlike the UK fight song, this battle has not been won and the demolition of 171 Montmullin marks another loss to the disappearing Pralltown.

A friendship pledge between two Georgetown, Ky. girls

Friendship pledge found in Scott County. Charles Bertram, H-L. 

Earlier this week, the Lexington Herald-Leader‘s weekly unCommonwealth series, written by Cheryl Truman, told the story of a decades old correspondence uncovered in a Georgetown home. You can read that story here.

A friendship pledge found under a fireplace tile piqued my interest. Signed by Loretta Thomas and Gwen Cranfill, it read:

Until the night of our graduation, we, the undersigned, hereby solemnly swear not to remove the rings placed on our finger. These rings are a token of our friendship.

The friendship pledge was interesting, in part, because of the observation that “what happened to Loretta Thomas is unknown.” The Herald-Leader story said that Gwen Cranfill became a professor and chair of English at Georgetown College; in 2013, she died at the age of 77.

With a few minutes on ancestry.com, I didn’t have the answers to the fate of Loretta Thomas … but I did have something.

By backing out Gwen’s age from the year in which she passed away, I guessed that she was born around 1935.  On a hunch, I guessed her friend Loretta was approximately the same age.

Within seconds, I was looking at the 1949 yearbook from the “Green & White” which was the yearbook for Garth High School.

The two girls were freshmen.

And though in different rows, they appear next to one another in the class photo.

Above, is the full page of the yearbook as extracted from ancestry.com. And to the right is close up of the two girls with Loretta Thomas standing immediately in front of her best friend, Gwen Cranfill.

There still lingers that question, though, of what ever became of Miss Loretta Thomas?

The girls’ school, Garth High School, remains standing on South Hamilton Street in Georgetown, Kentucky. The school ” is a 250-by-110 foot symmetrical irregularly shaped red brick building of the Collegiate Gothic and Arts and Crafts styles … decoratively detailed with stone,” according to the National Register file on the structure.

Garth School was built in 1925 and added to the National Register in 1971. Today, the building continues to serve an educational purpose as the Garth Elementary School.

Garth School, Georgetown, Kentucky. Russell & Sydney Poore.

Sources:


Ancestry.com. U.S. School Yearbooks, 1880-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

National Register of Historic Places, Garth School, Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky, National Register #88002187.

6 Kentucky women recognized this Women’s History Month

A handful of great Kentucky ladies. Clockwise from top-left: Laura Clay, Rebecca Boone, Belle Brezing,
Thelma Stovall, Martha Layne Collins, and Mary Elliott Flanery

Among other things, March is women’s history month. Underappreciated throughout the long arc of history, women have played a crucial role in human history. Even though social or religious norms may have relegated women to a lesser status through different historical epochs, women always found an opportunity to accomplish great things.

Just as they have elsewhere, Kentucky women have greatly contributed to the history of our commonwealth.

Jessamine County is the only Kentucky county that has a feminine name. Legend suggests that the county was named after Jessamine Douglas. Ms. Douglas was the daughter of surveyor James Douglas, who built his home near the head of Jessamine Creek. The legend goes on to say that the young Ms. Douglas was sitting near the banks of the creek when the sharp end of an Indian’s tomahawk found her head.

Laura Clay was more than just a suffragette. The daughter of emancipationist Cassius M. Clay, Laura worked through various channels to help Kentucky women receive the right to vote. In 1920, her name was placed for nomination at the national Democratic Party convention, marking the first time that a woman had ever been nominated by a major political party for president of the United States.

Reaching earlier into Kentucky’s rich history, Rebecca Boone worked hand in hand with her well-known husband, Daniel. Though Daniel Boone’s actions have been elevated to that of hero, Rebecca’s heroine status is rarely noted. She suffered the same frontier challenges her husband encountered, all while being left alone in the charge of their children while her husband made even further explorations.

Lexington’s noted madame, Belle Brezing, was also an accomplished Kentuckian. Though her trade may be deemed questionable, she was an incredibly astute businesswoman who maintained impeccable books and was generous with various philanthropic causes in Lexington. All this from a poor young orphan who became a mother herself at a young age.

Kentucky’s lieutenant governors and governors used to be elected separately. In 1975, Kentuckians for the first time elected a woman, Thelma Stovall, as lieutenant governor. Lt. Gov. Stovall took an active role in her position, especially when serving as acting governor when Gov. Carroll traveled out of state.

Succeeding Lt. Gov. Stovall was Martha Layne Collins, who was elected in her own right to the governor’s mansion in 1983. Gov. Collins remains the only woman to ever serve as Kentucky governor and was only the third female elected as a governor in the United States.

In 1922, Mary Elliott Flanery of Boyd County became the first female south of the Mason-Dixon line to be elected to a legislative body. Four years later, Katherine Langley became the first woman elected to Congress from the commonwealth.

And currently three of the seven members of the Kentucky Supreme Court are women.

The term “women’s history,” however, is almost a misnomer. The history itself is not limited to the female gender because history belongs to all of us. And to call it history isn’t accurate, either.

There are still “glass ceilings” to be broken, and every year new barriers are broken. Women’s history — our history — continues to be written.

The post above was originally published in the Jessamine Journal on March 12, 2015.  

The My Old Kaintuckee Bracket Challenge

It’s that time of year! Let’s cheer on the Kentucky Wildcats (and the Kaintuckeean) by joining the Kaintuckeean’s “My Old Kaintuckee Bracket” Challenge!

Just click here and fill out a bracket before the tournament’s first tipoff.

The winner of this year’s challenge will win a year’s worth of bragging rights plus an autographed copy of my book – Lost Lexington, Kentucky.

Help spread the word by forwarding this email to friends and sharing around the web!

Have fun and Go Cats!

Re-invisioning the area around Newport, Kentucky’s World Peace Bell

World Peace Bell – Newport, Kentucky Author’s Collection.

In downtown Newport, Kentucky is the landmark World Peace Bell. At 12 feet in both height and diameter, as well as a weight of 66,000 pounds, it is the largest freestanding bell in the world.

(With clapper and support, the bell rings in at nearly 90,000 pounds).

The bell was was originally proposed as the Millennium Bell and was to be the largest in a massive carillon within the unbuilt Millennium Freedom Tower complex. That complex, as noted in an earlier article, was scrapped but the Bell persisted and rings daily at 11:55 a.m. The unique ring-time is so that the bell is easily differentiated from the sounds of the bells in the nearby courthouse and churches.

The bell, and the accompanying museum, are great sites in downtown Newport, Kentucky. But they disappointingly sit at one end of a big ol’ parking lot. (On the site once stood the old Newport Finance Building which was demolished for that unbuilt Freedom Tower.) There is also a lovely memorial (even closer to the parking lot) to the fallen firefighters of northern Kentucky.

The bell was installed to ring in the New Year 2000 and the firefighters memorial was erected a few years later. Economic downturns intervened and these terrific community assets have languished at the edge of a parking lot.

But all that could change…

Rendering by Rachel Compte of proposed use. Can You Picture It, Newport?

A group of citizens envisions this space as being a central park for Newport. Drawings, including the one featured above, are available on the aspirational and uber-local urban design site Can You Picture It, Newport?.

The artist pictures the space being a community space that could host a weekly farmers market, movie nights, and yoga. These community proponents laud the installation of both the fire fighters memorial and the World Peace Bell and desire “to make the setting worthy of what [those symbols] represent.”

Can You Picture It, Newport? offers a disclaimer called “reality check,” too. Fully acknowledged are the limitations: the property is privately owned. A recent article in the Enquirer notes that neither the city nor the owner are actively looking to develop the property (in this way).

But it is nice to citizens sketch and dream about making their community a better place. Hopefully, some of those dreams can be made reality. After all, I couldn’t agree more that both the fire fighters memorial and the World Peace Bell deserve a worthy setting.

Lexington’s Newest Disappearing Neighborhood

Site of Shriners Hospital on South Limestone. Author’s Collection.

Groundbreaking on Shriner’s Hospital. U. of Ky.

Earlier this week, the University of Kentucky and the local Shriners Hospital for Children broke ground for a new hospital facility that will be located opposite South Limestone from the UK Medical Center in Lexington. The project is anticipated to take 22 months to complete and the cost is estimated at $47 million. The new Shriners facility will replace the existing 27-acre complex on Richmond Road that opened in 1955, though the Shriners began operating a hospital in Lexington in 1926. (That original Shriner’s Hospital was adjacent to and was later acquired by Good Samaritan Hospital at Maxwell and Harrison (later South Martin Luther King Blvd) streets. Good Samaritan was itself acquired by UK Healthcare in 2007.)

In 1925, Mrs. F. J. Conn “announced plans of constructing 100 homes on her property.” That property includes the site of the new Shriners hospital as well as the existing UK Healthcare parking structure.

Mrs. Conn’s husband, Frederick J. Conn, was the superintendent of bridges for the Southern Railway Company. Although the couple hailed from Illinois, Lexington city directories show them in Lexington since at least 1898. Mrs. Conn died in 1934 and Mr. Conn followed her in death in 1935.

He had escaped death on at least one occasion before: in 1908 he was electrocuted “at the overhead bridge on the Frankfort pike” according to the Lexington Leader.

Conn’s farm was bounded on the north by Transcript Avenue, the west by the then-Southern Railway tracks, and the east by South Limestone Street. A new street was constructed through the property; that street was named after Conn Terrace after the property’s owners.

According to an article in the Lexington Leader in August 1925, the development was not made for profit but the homes would be “sold at cost for the benefit of people in moderate circumstances who wish homes of their home.” Homes were to be built “as fast as there is demand for them.”

Birdseye View of South Limestone Dwellings. Author’s Collection.

The area was not within the city limits at the time and a 1939 real property survey of Lexington identifies a portion (though not all) of the development within the city limits. In the early to mid-1950s, Lexington expanded its boundaries southward to include South Limestone street from the then-city limits at Conn Terrace all the way to Rosemont Garden.

Before ground was broken on the site, I photographed the façades of each of these 1925-1950 dwellings that would in short time be lost from the fabric of Lexington. This is Lexington’s Newest Disappearing Neighborhood.

Conn Terrace

Birdseye View of 102-106 Conn Terrace. Author’s Collection.

The five dwellings on Conn Terrace, all part of the Conn Terrace development discussed above, have the loveliest scale of those being demolished. Of particular interest to me are the quaint structures at 102 and 106 Conn Terrace.

102 Conn Terrace. Author’s Collection.

104 Conn Terrace. Author’s Collection.

106 Conn Terrace. Author’s Collection. 106 Conn Terrace, ca. 1949. UK Libraries.

108 Conn Terrace. Author’s Collection.

110 Conn Terrace. Author’s Collection.

State Street

The three structures on State Street, as well as the three on Limestone Street, stood outside of the Conn plat. Each, however, offers a unique testimony and design to this old neighborhood.

109 State Street. Author’s Collection.
Kentucky Kernel Article on
Passing of Helen Stanley.
U. of Ky. Libraries.

109 State Street was the home of the University’s Recorder, Helen Stanley, from 1925 until the time of her death in 1937. Prior to her appointment as Recorder, she had worked in the registrar’s office since 1919. According to Prof. Gillis, Ms. Stanley was among one of the best recorders in the United States.

It is worth noting that State Street wasn’t always a site of off-campus housing and celebratory couch burnings. This area off of North Elizabeth Street was a middle-class neighborhood that offered “live where you work” opportunity to employees at the University.

For the past few decades, the presence of more and more students have made this area undesirable for the middle class. As the owner-occupied generation moved away, properties were sold to landlords. Some, though not all, of these landlords have added unsightly additions that irreversibly altered the neighborhood’s character long. Some, though not all, of the student residents exacerbated the problems of blight and decay.

While both the loss of these homes is disheartening and the continued “creep” of University developments is concerning, the use of this site by the Shriner’s simply makes sense.

113 State Street. Author’s Collection.

119  State Street. Author’s Collection.

123 State Street. Author’s Collection.

Limestone Street

Finally, note how different the three structures on Limestone Street are from the two roads running perpendicular to it. While a few of the structures on Conn Terrace and State Street have the scale of those on South Limestone, the dwellings facing the main road all were two-and-one-half stories to create a stronger presence along the highway.

1037 S. Limestone. Author’s Collection.

 1041 S. Limestone. Author’s Collection.

1045 S. Limestone. Author’s Collection.

Millennium Freedom Tower 2000 in Newport, Kentucky

Rendering of Millennium Freedom Tower 2000 in Newport, Ky. Developer via various websites.

Some of the most ostentatious construction projects are proposed, but never get off the ground. Work may begin, but projects languish unfinished for a variety of reasons.

In Newport, Kentucky, a 1997 proposal would have resulted in the construction of Kentucky’s tallest building (taller structures, however, would still have existed). The proposed Millennium Freedom Tower 2000 was the brainchild of two northern Kentucky businessmen.

The Freedom Tower would have been 1,083 feet tall and would have then been the world’s 11th tallest building (if it had been built, the Freedom Tower in Newport would today be only the 57th tallest structure in the world). Some commentary on the Freedom Tower places the building’s height in excess of 1,200 feet.

The proposal would have resulted in the building’s completion in time for the new millennium on December 31, 1999. Two thousand bells (corporate sponsored) would have helped to ring in the year 2000. A single bell that was the world’s largest swinging bell from 2000 to 2006, the World Peace Bell, was a completed part of the project and that bell occupies part of the site in Newport where Freedom Tower was to be built.

The Freedom Tower was projected to cost between $75-100 million. In 1996, the same developers proposed a less impressive 650-foot structure was proposed closer to the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers, but soil instability foiled that plan. Local business and government leaders of the day seemed to favor the second, larger proposal.

Then Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau president Mike Rozow remarked that “St. Louis has their Arch and New York has their Statue of Liberty. Maybe this will be Northern Kentucky’s signature place.”

1910 Sanborn Map of the 2.33 acre block. UK Libraries. 

The proposal called for a seasonal ice rink underneath along with shops and a museum complex with thrill rides above (think: Disney’s Tower of Terror). A restaurant/bar was proposed at 550-feet and it was envisioned that a television or radio company might locate its headquarters high above the community it covered. It could have been a “signature place” for northern Kentucky.

Campbell Towers. Kenton Co. Public Library &
Old Photos of Newport

Of course, the proposal required the razing of a block in central Newport (though some of the block had been previously demolished). A quick study shows that the most significant structure on the block, before the anticipated Freedom Tower project, was the Campbell Towers.

Campbell Towers was northern Kentucky’s first skyscraper, built in 1927. The 7-story structure was originally called the Newport Finance Building and it was adorned inside and out with brass fittings, marble and terra cotta tiles even upon its implosion in 1999.

Also demolished to make way for the project (and the World Peace Bell) was the old headquarters for the Newport fire department which served the city from 1934-1997.

I’m not sure exactly why the Freedom Tower was never constructed, though it seems to have run into a myriad of issues that thwarted its projected completion in time for the new millennia. If you know more about this project, please share in the comments below!

As with many major infill projects, a community’s historic fabric is lost. The impact of this loss is lessened when the resulting project brings new significance to a community along with economic vitality. Too often, proposed projects receive the green light for demolition despite being either viable or ready-to-go. These are the unBuilt projects that leave gaping holes in the communities in which they were to be built.