Every historic building has a story to tell
Many years ago, on a farm located on the Salt River in Mercer County, Kentucky, my maternal grandmother planted a spiraea. It blooms early in March, sometimes the delicate white blossoms even appear in a mild February, and blend in with snow on the ground. My mother took a division from this shrub and planted (read more)
Category: Kentucky Gardens
Tags: #kentuckygarden, #shrubs, #spiraea, Gardens
It’s spring break for my minions, and this morning we were lucky enough to huddle in the basement during a tornado warning! I must admit, I was very proud of how quickly they followed my directives. I deposited them safely on lawn chairs in our dank cellar before rushing back to the first floor to (read more)
Categories: 1901 Farmhouse, Kentucky Gardens
Tags: #garden, #kentuckygarden, #springbreak, daffodils
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal – a series of projects and programs instituted in the United States between 1933 and 1938 – was responsible for the construction of 139 schools, gymnasiums, and athletic fields in Eastern Kentucky. That is just in one part of Kentucky. Nearly all of our 120 counties once had a (read more)
Category: Rowan County
Tags: #farmersky, #historicschools, #kentuckyarchitecture, #worksprogressadministration, WPA
Good reflexes have saved me from injury many times in my career (and before my professional life, I had a near-calamitous encounter with a bus in London). Yesterday I managed to not sideswipe any nearby vehicles as my neck swiveled sharply to catch sight of what looked liked a historic Pure Oil filling station. (read more)
Categories: Filling stations, West Virginia
Years ago, I helped document a farm with a great 19th century stone and frame bank barn (a bank barn is one that is set into the side of a hill, so you can access the barn from the lower level, usually reserved for livestock, or the upper level). On the lower level, which was (read more)
Category: Franklin County
Tags: #farm, #historicbarns, #kentuckyarchitecture, #kentuckybarns, barns
Two years ago, after an exhausting day battling bush honeysuckle, ticks, and the heat, my friend Eric and I roamed about Edmonson County, Kentucky, looking for interesting historic buildings. We found plenty, but the most interesting was the former home of U.S. Representative Beverly Mills Vincent (1890-1980). The early 20th century house is lovely, (read more)
Category: Edmonson County
Tags: #beverlymillsvincent, #brownsvilleky, #edmonsoncountyky, #kentuckyarchitecture
In 1960, the city of Paducah voted to buy the Katterjohn Building for its new City Hall. That plan never transpired, but the 1919 building, the former Illinois Central Hospital, was saved by George Katterjohn, Jr., a Paducah native and contractor. A successful adaptive reuse project turned the former hospital into medical offices. But that (read more)
January is usually a hard month, and the weather so far has not helped – Kentucky has been wet and cold, and then cold and wet. Thankfully, it is Whimsical Wednesday, so I shall lift my spirits (and hopefully yours?) with the fabulous J.N. Struck House. Built in 1893 by J.N. Struck, a contractor and (read more)
Categories: Jefferson County, Louisville
Tags: #highlandshistoricdistrict, #jnstruck, #kentuckyarchitecture, #louisvilleky
After several years of vacancy, there might hope of rebirth for the former Epworth Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. Located at the corner of North Martin Luther King Boulevard and Rand Avenue, the circa 1918 church has seen its share of different users, and a new development plan proposes to convert the church into 20 (read more)
I feel vaguely guilty for daydreaming about a historic building torn down over 40 years ago – a building I never saw – when there are so many languishing historic buildings across Kentucky that deserve attention. Yet in the course of researching something else (always the case!), I came across a photograph of this house, (read more)
Category: Fayette County
Tags: #chilesburgky, #housemoving, #lexingtonky, #richardchiles
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