The Kaintuckeean

Hatfield & McCoy History Still Alive in Pike County

McCoy House – Pikeville, Ky.

The History Channel’s Hatfields & McCoys miniseries has brought renewed national attention to the deadly family feud that embroiled the Tug River valley for much of the nineteenth century. The Hatfield clan of West Virginia had a long-standing dispute with Kentucky’s McCoy family that included numerous deaths in both genealogies from 1865 to 1890.

During the New Year’s Night Massacre in 1888, the Hatfields rode to and torched the McCoy home on Blackberry Creek. Two of the McCoy children were injured, but the McCoy patriarch (Randolph, aka Randall) and his wife Sarah (aka Sally) escaped.

McCoy House Historic Marker
Pikeville, Ky.

The governors of Kentucky and West Virginia had urged the families to distance themselves from one another, and the New Year’s Night loss was enough to push Randall and Sally to Pikeville. There, the McCoys purchased a house at the corner of Main Street and Scott Avenue and Randall operated a ferry at the near crossing of the Big Sandy River.

Sally died first, date unknown. Randall lived until 1914 and both are buried in Pikeville’s Dils Cemetery along with other members of the McCoy family.

Pikeville’s and Pike County’s Hatfield-McCoy history lives with a number of other sites and markers; it is well worth the trek into history.

Source: C-J; Hatfield-McCoy Driving Tour Brochure

Lexington’s Historic Veterans Affairs Hospital

I call on all Americans to come together to honor the men and women who gave their lives so that we may live free, and to strive for a just and lasting peace in our world. — President Barack Obama

Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Leestown Road – Lexington, Ky.
Photo: Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., NRHP Application.

Lexington’s Leestown Road VA Medical Center was added earlier in the year to the National Register of Historic Places. As we recognize those who gave their “last full measure of devotion” in service to our country on this Memorial Day weekend, we note this registry inclusion of a facility that has treated countless members of the armed services since it opened in 1931.

Since the Pilgrims’ war with the Pequot indians in 1636, Americans have looked to honor and support their veterans and their families. These benefits and their method of delivery has certainly evolved over the past four hundred years. In 1930, President Franklin D. Roosevelt consolidated and coordinated veterans benefits through the creation of the Department of Veterans Affairs. That same year, construction was underway at the Leestown Road facility.

The Main Building, pictured above, is an impressive four-story atop raised basement, hip-roofed, multi-bay revivalist that is centrally located at the medical center. The focus of the building’s symmetrical design is a three-bay projecting pavilion with four terra cotta pilasters beneath the all-seeing oculus in the pediment’s tympanum. Until 1950, a wood and copper cupola towered above the pediment, but it was removed in 1950 after having been twice struck by lighting leaving only the cupola’s brick base.

The Main Building is one of eleven original buildings at the medical facility’s campus. Though it remains an active center of treatment, construction and development of the campus ceased in 1950 with a total of forty-one buildings of which the Main Building remains the largest and the most ornamental. In 1934, the facility was converted to a veterans’ neuropsychiatric facility which prompted the construction of many recreational facilities on the campus including a softball field, horseshoe pits and a miniature golf course.

Although the number of buildings at the Leestown VA have increased over the years, the overall acreage of the campus has decreased from an original 291 acres to only 135 acres today. With over 92,000 veterans in the Lexington service area, the hospital is an important component to caring for those who have served in uniform. The Leestown facility offers inpatient post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment, nursing home and hospice care, home-based primary care, prosthetics and orthotics, geriatrics, optometry, mental health, and substance abuse treatment.

Sources: NRHP Application, via Kentucky Heritage Council, VA History, VA Leestown, VA Memorial Day

New Downtown Mural Looking for Helpers

Planned Community Mural, “Go Native” – Lexington, Ky.
Photo: Christine Kuhn

Lexington’s Historic Western Suburb is a destination in and of itself. There, restaurants have sprouted along Jefferson Street while historic homes make for beautiful walks along Short Street. It hasn’t always been this glamorous: the city’s garbage trucks once parked in an empty field at West Short and Old Georgetown streets.

A few spots in the neighborhood still need a little bit of TLC, particularly along Ballard Street which is an alley parallel to and north of Short Street. Enter muralist and local resident Christine Kuhn.

Kuhn has planned and begun work on her mural, Go Native, on the side of a warehouse behind Stella’s Deli on Ballard Street. The 14′ x 88′ mural will provide a lesson on native and invasive plant species utilizing imagery and text in the script common to Audubon prints.

Over the weekend, the mural’s larger components were traced onto the side of the warehouse. Over the next few weeks, Kuhn will be painting on the colors. You can help! If you remember “paint by numbers” from your childhood, Christine will offer you a paintbrush and color if help is needed – just stop by and ask. Neighbors are already helping out.

The project is being partially funded by an EcoArts grant from Lexington, but an additional $1,750 is needed to purchase the supplies needed to complete the project. If painting isn’t your thing, perhaps you might consider helping complete these project financially. If you can help, visit Kuhn’s website and scroll to the bottom.

This is one of several murals that have appeared on the sides of Lexington buildings in the past few years – each a welcome addition to create beauty on an otherwise bland canvas.

UPDATE: Kuhn has created a Facebook event for the mural and times to help out painting! Times are:
May 24th (today!): Noon to dark
May 26th (Sat): Noon to 4:30 pm
May 30th (Wed): Noon to dark
May 31st (Thur): Noon to dark
June 9th (Sat): Noon to dark

Louisville Elementary School on National Register

Charles D. Jacobs Elementary School (1932) – Louisville, Ky.
Photo: T. Dade Luckett (NRHP Application File)

Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior approved the application of the Charles D. Jacob Elementary School for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Located at 3670 Wheeler Avenue in Louisville’s south end, the two structure elementary school has seen little exterior change since the 1930s.

The first building was constructed one hundred years ago, in 1912. The two-story structure features both craftsman and colonial revival elements and is a fraction of the size of the much larger 1932 addition which is connected to the original school by a breezeway. This larger structure was described upon its opening by the Courier Journal as “a buff brick building of modern architecture” which today exemplifies the traditional architectural style of educational buildings of the era, i.e., art deco/moderne.

Charles D. Jacobs Elementary School (1912) – Louisville, Ky.
Photo: T. Dade Luckett (NRHP Application File)

The land on which the school sits was formerly owned by Charles Donald Jacob, for whom the school and its neighborhood are named. The 1912 structure was a seven-room schoolhouse originally known as Jacob’s Addition Community School until 1922 when the neighborhood was annexed by Louisville and the school by Louisville City Schools. The name of the school was changed to Charles D. Jacob Elementary when the addition was added in 1932.

Charles D. Jacob was a four-term mayor of Louisville being first elected in 1872. Jacob’s father was the president of the Bank of Kentucky and thus Jacob was raised in a family of wealth. An elegant man, he always wore a yellow rose and sought to beautify and improve Louisville. To these ends, he is considered the father of Louisville’s parks. Iroquois Park was originally named Jacob’s Park after the mayor who envisioned the city’s great parks. Jacob’s administration oversaw the construction of the city’s first Home for the Aged and Infirm, the installation of the city’s first granite and asphalt streets, and the conversion of street lighting from gas to electricity. At the school’s 1932 dedication, a school board member said of Mayor Jacob: “I don’t think that the history of Louisville will show the name of a man who gave more service more unselfishly that that of Mr. Jacob.”

For more on the unique architectural combination found at the Charles D. Jacob Elementary School, be sure to read the National Register application file.

Source: NRHP Application File, courtesy Ky. Heritage Council.

What’s In a Name? History.

A number of local watering holes and restaurants around downtown Lexington have opened in recent years or are set to open soon – several with historic sounding names.

Least among them, Shakespeare and Co. opened in the old Clark Hardware Store last weekend. The “Victorian chic” restaurant reaches to circa 1600 with its name beckoning on of (if not the) greatest authors of the English language.

Local names, too, haven’t been ignored.

Nick Ryan’s Saloon on Jefferson Street adopted the same name as the saloon on North Mill Street circa 1905. It was then, in fact, a man named Nick Ryan who owned and operated his bar at what is now 120 North Mill Street.

More famously, the Jefferson Davis Inn was originally located at West High and Limestone where the Confederate President lived while attending Transylvania University. A popular pub until it closed in 1984, the JDI is being reborn again on South Broadway in a mixed use development between Cedar and Pine Streets.

And then there is Lexington’s most notable resident: Henry Clay. Clay owned the building on Jordan’s Row from which he practiced law across from the courthouse at an address which is now 110-112 North Upper Street. (This isn’t to be confused with the other existing Clay law office on North Mill Street.). There, work is finishing up on Henry Clay’s Public House which bills itself as an “old world style pub” where service will include ” a blend of todays and yesteryears classic cocktails, potations, and concoctions for the discerning bibulous patron, combined with a dash of american culture, historical heritage, and humorous anecdotes.”

Historical heritage is alive in Lexington and it is plainly evident in the naming of our new establishments.

Five Brews and Endless Possibilities at The Bread Box

West Sixth Brewing Company

Lexington’s newest brewery, West Sixth Brewing Company, is the flagship of The Bread Box which is a commercial redevelopment of the old Rainbo Bread Company building at Jefferson and Sixth Streets in the Northside Neighborhood. The oldest part of the building was constructd as the Holsum Bread Company in the 1890s. A series of renovations and hame changes (Honey-Krust, Rainbo) kept the bread factory going until it finally closed in the early 1990s.


The Breadbox, ca. 1919 (l) and 1940s (r). Photos courtesy West Sixth Brewing Company

Our tour occurred after a day of cooking beer – a seven hour process that will be followed by a couple weeks fermenting. Before long, the ancient recipe of water, grain, yeast, and hops will develop into one of the five craft brews produced at West Sixth: wheat, an IPA, an amber, a brown ale, and a stout are all excellent products worthy of more than a tasting. As Lexington’s mobile food truck develops, the location will be an excellent locale to get some tasty street food and a cold brew. Of course, there are other developments going on inside the Bread Box that will result in some other in-house food options.

Consider FoodChain – a non-profit fighting hunger and educating about urban indoor agricultural production. In a hands on way, they’ll be utilizing waste from the beer cooking process to feed the tanks of farm-raised tilapia. The CO2 produced by the tilapia will bubble up to the surface of the tanks where micro greens will grow. And, according to our tour guide, a local restauranteur will open later this year a walk-up fish restaurant using FoodChain product. I’m looking forward to some tasty fish-n-chips with my Sister Sue Stout.

Other groups calling the Bread Box home are Broke Spoke (a non-profit community bike shop), an artists’ cave, Cricket Press and the practice ring for the Roller Girls of Central Kentucky (ROCK). ROCK’s practice facility at 18,000 square feet is the largest room in the massive 90,000 square foot building.

The building’s scale, and some of its features, were exactly what the four guys who started it all wanted. Ben, Brady, Joe, and Robin wanted to start a brewery and searched Lexington for the right facility and found what the cavernous structure at West Sixth and Jefferson — already complete with a quality roof, fire code-satisfying sprinklers, a massive walk-in cooler and other features that would help expedite production. Production has moved along exceptionally fast and they are well ahead of expectations. Their IPA is a best seller and is the first canned craft beer in Kentucky – an accomplishment in scale since the minimum can order from the only vendor in the country is 100,000 units. The pallets, pictured at right, are only two of several scattered around the building. The can’s design is also acclaimed by Paste Magazine as one of the top craft brew labels in the country.

Adding to a growing beer scene in Lexington, the West Sixth Brewing Company is a welcome addition. The mission of its owners, culminating in The Bread Box, is also a huge boost for Lexington’s growing Northside. The area is destined to redevelop and hopefully other investors maintain the historic character that exists at 501 West Sixth.

Additional photos of The Bread Box and West Sixth Brewing Company are accessible on flickr. You really should check these out — the building is awesome!

The Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation hosts a monthly deTour for young professionals (and the young-at-heart) to a local historic site that has been well-preserved and restored – the group meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. Details are always available on Facebook! Our next meeting is Wednesday, June 6 where we will explore the historic Botherum on Madison Place in the Woodward Heights neighborhood! You can see Kaintuckeean write-ups on previous deTours by clicking here.

Annville Institute brought “Complete Living for the Mountain people”

Original Lincoln Hall, ca. 1915. Photo: Jackson Taylor. Source: KY Explorer.

Nine miles south of the Jackson County seat of McKee rests the community of Annville where the Reformed Church of America once had its college. Like so many communities across Kentucky, a “Campus Road” or similar name harkens back to an area when small, regional schools or colleges dotted the landscape — many in lieu of our modern high school which were often too far for students to reach, particularly in poor weather or at the time of the harvest. With dormitories on site, Annville was able to avoid these issues as well.

Lincoln Hall – Annville, Ky.
Source: NRHP Application.

Rev. William Worthington, instrumental in establishing and growing the school, had the purpose of “Complete Living for the Mountain people.” With the lens of political correctness, this mission statement may not seem appropriate, but considering the era the meaning is true: “to give the mountain people the best possible opportunity for the largest development for service in home, Church and state.”

The most notable building at the Annville Institute is Lincoln Hall, constructed in 1923 after a fire destroyed the original hall. The new Lincoln Hall is a Colonial Revival and would be more fitting or expected in Williamsburg, Va. than in Annville, Ky. Atop, the ten-foot square cupola features built-in arches, a metal dome and a presently-inoperable clock.

The school closed in 1978, but the property remains in the hands of the Reformed Church of America. They recently had the site added to the National Register of Historic Places and are working to convert Lincoln Hall into a cultural center. You can read more about what is going on at Annville with the good work of Jackson County Ministries which has operated the site as a field mission since the school closed.

Two Boone County Homes Added to National Register

Two Boone County homes – one in Belleview and one in Burlington – were recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Register is America’s official list of cultural places worthy of preservation and it is administered by the National Park Service. Nominations must be recommended by a state agency; in Kentucky, that is done by the Preservation Review Board and the Kentucky Heritage Council.

Locations are added to the National Register weekly and these two Boone County properties were listed at the end of February 2012.

Thomas Zane Roberts House and Workshop – Burlington, Ky.
Photo: Margo Warminski, Boone County Planning Commission
KY Heritage Council

The Thomas Zane Roberts House and Workshop (#12000042), located at 5074 Middle Creek Road in Burlington, is a picturesque farmhouse near the Ohio River. Its original owner and builder, Thomas Z. Roberts, was a master carpenter whose work shows in this frame two-and-one-half story temple-front dwelling that features an inset corner entry porch. Built in 1900, Roberts’ fine craftsmanship is evident in both his home and workshop – part of some 250 acres he once owned in the region.

It was here that Roberts – an inventor whose name is obscured by the more popularized Thomas Edison – spent time tinkering and inventing. Of all his creations, none were commercially adopted or patented (another reason why Edison is more renowned). Still, Roberts most notable creation was the Middle Creek Clock: a seven-foot tall walnut grandfather-style clock. Noted for its “intrinsic value as well as its extrinsic beauty,” the clock included a “Seth Thomas timepiece, a planetarium, a lunarium, and a dial showing the days of the week. … The planetarium contains an abbreviated model of the solar system, built to scale, and shows the earth’s position relative to Jupiter, Mars and Venus. “The orbit of each planet is precisely geared: while Venus gains one degree of arc in 1,656 days, Jupiter loses one degree of arc over 250 years.” The lunarium depicts the moon phase, and a dial indicates diurnal and nocturnal hours. The clock features an eight-day spring motor that sounds an alarm as it turns low and keeps ringing until attended.”

John J. Walton House – Belleview, Ky.
Photo: Margo Warminski, Boone County Planning Commission
KY Heritage Council

Belleview’s John J. Walton House (#12000041) is located at 5408 Belleview Road. It, along with its three outbuildings (a washhouse, a smokehouse and a corn crib) sit high atop a knoll about 1.5 miles east of the Ohio River.

Two stories tall, two bays wide and a room deep, the Walton House can clearly be seen as log construction given its impressive thirteen inch thick exterior walls. Built around 1840, the log pen construction was quite typical of the period’s regional architecture. In fact, the John J. Walton House is one of eight Boone County homes of log construction listed on the National Register.

It is worth noting that the three outbuildings described were not included in the nomination. Though described in the application, the buildings were not added to the National Register. They are, however, well-preserved examples of domestic outbuildings which are rarely in existence today thanks to obsolescence courtesy of rural electrification. It is rather peculiar that these outbuildings weren’t included, and I hope that this omission doesn’t lead toward lack of preservation.

Oldest Catholic Church in Eastern Kentucky

St. Therese Church – Heidelburg, Ky.

When considering the role of the Catholic Church in Kentucky outside the “golden triangle,” one immediately thinks of the central Kentucky region around Bardstown and Lebanon where many Catholics settled in the nineteenth century building a strong church and faith.

Original Church on Contrary Creek, ca. 1925

One, however, does not immediately think of the hills of eastern Kentucky. Although Catholic families can trace themselves to eastern Kentucky communities long before, it was not until 1927 that a Catholic church was established in eastern Kentucky. In Lee County’s Heidelburg community, four families established St. Therese at Contrary Creek “down in the holler.” Families worshipping there had as much as a two hour trek by foot to reach the small church by Contrary Creek.

In the 1940s, the decision was made to relocate the church onto the mountain above the holler. In 1948, the present wood frame clapped board church was constructed with its materials being reused from the old church on Contrary Creek. Its white siding and red roof are in stark contrast to the lush, green forest that surrounds it.

Regular services ceased in the 1990s and since 2001 the Catholic diocese of Lexington has designated St. Therese as an oratory, or house of prayer.

After recommendation by the Kentucky Heritage Council’s Preservation Review Board, the National Register of Historic Places included St. Therese Church into the register on February 28, 2012. With hope, this designation will enourage and promote preservation at this house of worship.

Sources: NRHP Application; Queen of All Sts. Parish
Photos: Ky. Heritage Council in the National Register Application

Forged by Fire: Ashland’s Calvary Church

Calvary Episcopal Church –
Ashland, Ky.

Thomas Underwood Dudley, the second Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky, emphasized growth among the Episcopal church among the populations in eastern Kentucky and among African Americans. Despite the segregationist views prevalent in his day (and his own background as a Confederate veteran), Bishop Dudley sought an integrated church: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.”

Efforts to grow the Episcopal Church in eastern Kentucky included the first recorded service in Ashland being presided by Bishop Dudley on February 2, 1885. From that service, a mission was formed in the diocese and from this group grew the Calvary Church. In March 1887, the Rev. W. H Hampton was called as the first minister of the parish. On September 8, 1888, Bishop Dudley laid the cornerstone and Rev. Hampton preached the first sermon in the Calvary Church which opened on Easter Sunday, 1889 for a congregation of 300. Architectural notes are limited, but this structure was described as an “eclectic brick and shingle” church.

Growth continued in the Ashland church and throughout the diocese, which as divided in 1896 with the Ashland church joining the newly formed Diocese of Lexington. Several transitions occurred during this diocesan split including the transfer of the Ashland School for Girls to Versailles where it became the Margaret Hall Church School for Girls. Disappointed at losing the school, the parish rector also departed in May 1898.

On July 3, 1898, Calvary’s first rector – W. H. Hampton – returned from Ironton, Ohio to administer the Holy Communion. Eight days later, the darkest days in the church’s hour came when the church was destroyed by fire. Only a few furnishings were salvageable.

Remarkably, a new cornerstone was laid ten days later. In June 1903, the new church was dedicated by the Bishop Burton of the Lexington Diocese. The building, a brick and stone Gothic structure, dominates its corner at Winchester Avenue and 14th Street. With its three story tower, stonework, battlements, and lancet window, the church building is traditionally Episcopalian.

A brick parish hall was built immediately to the sanctuary’s northwest after a 1979 fire caused $1 million in damage to a building donated to the church in 1975. Another fire struck the church in 1982. Despite its setbacks, the church remains strong as it searches for its new rector.

“It is a beautiful church, inhabited by a charming and cultured people and set in the midst of delightful surroundings.”
-H. P. Almon Abbott (1938)

Sources: Calvary Church; EpiscopalKY; Fiftieth Anniversary Church History (1938); Kentucky Historic Resources Inventory; NRHP Application (Ashland Commercial Historic District) Sunday Independent (11/16/1987). Special thanks to Marty Perry of the Kentucky Heritage Council and Lisa Pullem, the Convenor of Calvary’s Rector Search Committee, for their assistance in gathering the research for this post.