Every historic building has a story to tell
Last week, the historic United Brethren of Friendship Lodge Hall in Paris, Kentucky, suffered a partial collapse of its rear wall. The City of Paris Fire Department closed the road around the building and publicized the incident, but I am sure many people did not see beyond the decay of a long-neglected old building. It’s (read more)
A once-imposing and important piece of African American history in Lexington and Kentucky went up in flames on the night of January 3, 2022. Although local news sources referred to the building as an “old church building,” the structure located between Georgetown Street and Newtown Pike was first known as the Chandler Normal School and (read more)
Categories: African American History, Fayette County
In the years following the Civil War, churches served as the focal point of many African American communities. The church was not only a place for worship and prayer, but a foundation for forging a stronger community that included education and the preservation of cultural identity. Sometimes the church and the school occupied the same (read more)
There will be a Juneteenth celebration tonight, June 19, 2020, in Lexington, Kentucky, at African Cemetery No. 2. Juneteenth traces its origins back to Galveston, Texas where on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in the city with news that the Civil War had ended and enslaved persons were now free. The Emancipation Proclamation had (read more)
You miss so much viewing the world from a car. I’ve driven down North Limestone Street in Lexington hundreds of times – but what you glimpse through the windows of a car is different, in a hundred small ways, from what you observe while on foot. And it was on foot, trudging through a January (read more)
Categories: African American History, Fayette County
Tags: #africanamericanhistory, #AfricanCemeteryNo2, #shotgunhouse
Social organizations, like the Free Masons and Odd Fellows, played an important part in Kentucky communities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The buildings constructed by these groups often remain as significant examples of vernacular architecture even if the lodge itself is no longer active. Such is the case with a wonderful two-story frame building with (read more)
Categories: African American History, Woodford County
I keep telling myself that all of this rain could be snow…but it’s not really helping. Due to the soggy blanket of rain draped over Central Kentucky this morning, we are pushing the Heart Bombing at the Palmer Pharmacy Building in Lexington, Kentucky, back to 4 pm today, Friday, February 16, 2018. This should allow (read more)
Categories: African American History, Fayette County
Tags: Dr. Zirl Plamer, heart bombing, Palmer Pharmacy, This Place Matters
Six years ago, in Buffalo, New York, “heart bombing” was born. The Buffalo Young Preservationists “decided to showcase their love for abandoned and vacant historic buildings in their city by papering them with handmade Valentines.” On Friday, February 16, 2018, at 4 pm, a group of people will shower the Dr. Zirl Palmer Pharmacy Building (read more)
Categories: African American History, Fayette County
Tags: Dr Zirl Palmer, heart bombing, Ovan Haskins
When the cornerstone was laid for what is now Shiloh Baptist Church in 1923, it was proclaimed “one of the city’s most handsome edifices.” The stately, Beaux Arts/classical style church, built in a yellow brick, was the long-awaited dream of the Fifth Street Baptist Church, which had begun as a satellite branch of First Baptist (read more)
Urban renewal was not kind to many areas of Louisville, Kentucky. The Brown Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (built 1864-65) weathered the waves of demolition around it, and some 150 years after Gideon Shryock designed the building on West Chestnut Street, its exterior continues to impress. But the design of the church is only one (read more)
Categories: African American History, Churches, Greek Revival Style, Historic architecture, Historic Preservation, Jefferson County, Kentucky architecture, Kentucky churches, Louisville
Tags: Brown Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Chestnut Street Methodist Church South, Gideon Shryock, Louisville KY churches, Reverend L.H. Brown, West Chestnut Street, William Strickland
Interested in a specific topic? Check out some popular categories below, or enter your search terms in the box.