Before the Civil War, the land on which the East End neighborhood now resides was mostly dotted with large estates owned by Lexington's elite. These estates on the outskirts of the then-smaller city sat on large tracts of land. After the Civil War, these large parcels were divided into smaller parclers to create neighborhoods for recently freed African Americans to rent, purchase, and build housing. The East End, as we know it today, was once a collection of these neighborhoods, small sections named Gunntown, Kinkeadtown, and Goodloetown, to name a few. Thanks to the talented and driven Black professionals in the neighborhood, it was also a center for creation and growth for the racing industry in Kentucky, now a dominant part of Kentucky's culture and economy. Take this tour to learn about the jockeys, teachers, and nationally recognized musicians, as well as some of the historic infrastructures in which they lived and worked, all of which played an essential part in forming Lexington as we experience it today.

Isaac Murphy was the first person to win three Kentucky Derbies and the first to be nominated to the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame. At one point, Murphy was the highest-paid jockey in the US and had the best win percentage in thoroughbred racing history. This is the site of his home, although it no longer stands. Documents indicate that it was a two-story, red brick house built about 1814-1815. Murphy's success as a jockey enabled he and his wife, Lucy Carr, to purchase the large 10-room home, which became a center for social events. The house even featured a roof observatory that offered a view of the nearby Kentucky Association racetrack. When Murphy died in 1896, Lucy remained in their home until 1900. The house was demolished in the 1930s.

Archeological investigations have revealed the home's foundation, a section of which has been preserved and incorporated into the Issac Murphy Memorial Art Garden. The park is linked by the Legacy Trail to the Kentucky Horse Park where Murphy is buried, the only jockey so honored.

"To improve the breed of horses by encouraging the sports of the turf," the Kentucky Association for the Improvement of Breeds of Stock was established in 1826. Fifty members of the group met at Mrs. Keen's Inn to begin the industry that would later establish Lexington as the Horse Capital of the World. By 1872, the association would own 65 acres located where William Wells Brown Elementary School now stands. Street names in these neighborhoods are inspired by its racing history. The racing industry's growth in Lexington can be traced back to the late 1700s when thoroughbred breeders entrusted the grooming, training, and riding of their horses to African Americans held enslaved on their farms. When slavery ended in 1865, these men remained experts in the industry. The Kentucky Association Race Track offered many opportunities for African American horsemen to showcase their considerable skills well into the twentieth century. From 1875-1902, African American jockeys won 16 of the first 28 Kentucky Derby races.

The Courtney Mathews House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Courtney Mathews (1868-1940) began working for jockey Lucian Lynn's family at the age of sixteen. He quickly grew into an adept trainer and was hired by the owner of Ashland Stud, Thomas Clay McDowell (who married a granddaughter of Henry Clay), in 1897. He conditioned horses for McDowell and was the overseer of Ashland Stud for the next 38 years. Mathews and his wife Louise purchased their home at 547 Breckenridge Street in 1928. Mathew's choice in buying this 1905 style, size, and material composition home, demostrates his success and influence in the industry.

Breckenridge Street bordered the Kentucky Association racetrack. An entrance to the track was opened from the street in 1910. The street's unorthdox width is due to the fact that it once served electric streetcars as a turnaround until 1933.

African Cemetery No. 2 is the earliest recorded cemetery in Lexington to be organized, owned and managed by African Americans. Founded by Benevolent Society No. 2 of Colored People in November 1869, it was chartered by the State in March 1870. One hundred years later, the site had become an urban wilderness. Government officials discussed removing remains and using the land for commercial development. In 1979, a group led by Rev. H.H. Green, circulated a petition within the community to save the site. The next year they organized as African Cemetery No. 2, Inc to reclaim the eight acre property. New members were added to the board in 1995. The mission is to restore and maintain the cemetery as a memorial park that will become a regional center for African American Heritage and an outdoor laboratory for urban conservation.

Historic properties provide communities with a sense of identity and stability. Preserving and restoring these properties contriutes significantly to ensuring that they will remain for future generations. The cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. Some prominent people who are buried here include jockeys Oliver Lewis, Soup Perkins, trainer Abraham Perry, Free Blacks James Turner, Claudious Harvey, Samuel Oldham, White House Chef Laura "Dolly" Johnson, and Founders and Officers of Colored Fair Henry King and J. Andrew Scott.

Fifth Street Baptist, a white congregation, began as a mission church in 1888 for a presence in the newly developing northside of the city - north of Fourth Street and east of Limestone. But times change and church buildings receive new owners, just like houses. Fifth Street Baptist, rechristened Felix Memorial Baptist Church in 1915 sold its building at 237 E Fifth Street in 1963 and moved to the suburbs. The church was bought by Shiloh Baptist Church, a historically Black congregation. Shiloh traced its roots to 1896 when the founding members worshipped that first year in a barn at the Kentucky Association Race Track. Over the years, Shiloh grew, prospered, and in 1923 constructed a new brick building. By 1963, the congregation had over 700 members and the church needed a larger building and moved to this location.

Dr. Palmer's drugstore was the only black-owned drugstore in town and became a franchise of Rexall, it was the company's first drugstore in the country to be owned by an African American. Dr. Zirl Augustus Palmer was born in 1920 in Bluefield, VA. He traveled to New Orleans to study pharmacy and managed to have the state of West Virginia pay for his train fare and part of his tuition. He earned his degree from the University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy. In 1959, Palmer purchased the property on the southeast corner of 5th Street and Chestnut Street, where he established Palmer's Pharmacy, Luncheonette, and Doctor's Office in 1961.

Palmer's business fostered relationships in the community and was a boon to the neighborhood. It offered a convenient location for people to obtain their medications. Its soda fountain and lunch counter served as a social function as a gathering place. The building also housed doctors' offices on the second floor, providing another essential service.

In addition to bringing his entreprenseurship and professional expertise to the East End, Palmer was actively engaged in the civic affairs in Lexington. He served on the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Chamber of Commerce, and Planned Parenthood. He was a member of Main Street Baptist Church, where he conducted a health care program, the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, and the Civic Center Board. He was the first African American memer of hte Optimist Club and Big Brothers. He chaired the local United Negro College Fund and helped organize Community Action Lexington-Fayette County and the Hunter Foundation for Health Care. Dr. Palmer was also the first African American to be appointed to the University of Kentucky's Board of Trustees. He served from 1972-1979.

Tragedy struck on September 4, 1968 when the blast of a bomb destroyed Palmer's newest store, along with several others in the West End plaza. After being trapped in the rubble for hours, he, his wife, Marian, and their daughter all went to the hospitall. Dr. Palmer believed that the attack stemmed from his invovlement in the local Civil Rights movement, which proved to be correct. In 1970, an all-white jury delibrated just ninety minutes before finding former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, Phillip K Campbell guilty of the crime. Following this frightful and trying time, Dr. Palmer sold his business and retired to protect the well-being of his family. With the destruction of Dr. Palmer's West End plaza businesses in 1968, the Palmer Pharmacy building at 400 E Fifth Street is the last remaining building that he built, owned, and managed.

Dudley Allen stabled and trained horses at the Kentucky Association track and stables. In 1892, "Race Track Notes," Lexington Leader reported that "Dud Allen worked a half a dozen of his stable head for head for one mile in less than two minutes." In 1904, the St Louis Republic stated that Allen's stable was still at the Kentucky Association Track.

The first generation of Lexington's urban Black families lived in the residential spaces of Kinkeadtown and similar neighborhoods until the turn of the century.

After the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified federally in 1865 and all of the state's Black citizens were officially free, the state saw a huge shift in the Black population as they left agricultural areas and moved to cities and towns. Neighborhoods in cities and towns were specifically established as Black subdivisions. Often the names were comprised of the white landowner's last name before the word "town."

Kinkeadtown is named for George Blackburn Kinkead, an antislavery advocate from early adulthood, even though he was raised in a family that owned slaves. Kinkead offered legal aid and employement to recently freed people during this transitional time. Kinkead purchased the 11 acre tract of land at East Fourth and Mosby Streets. By 1870, Kinkeadtown consisted of 17 properties and a small grocery store, located on the corner of East Fourth and Kinkead Street, owned and operated by a Black couple, Nathan and Eliza Page.

From June to August 1833, Lexington lost 500 of its 7,000 residents due to the cholera epidemic. William "King" Solomon, known by locals as the town drunk, laid dozens to rest here when no one else would bury them. This lot was purchased in 1832 by Christ Church, the Old Episcoal Burying Grounds (OEBG) is Lexington's oldest surviving cemetery. The old graveyard has been called "Lexington's Westminster Abbey" due to the many famous citizens buried here. No one has been interred here since 1870.

One of few people of color buried in OEBG is London Ferrell, a free Black minister and one of only three who did not flee Lexington during the epidemic. This small Gothic Revival cottage was built in 1867 and stands at the center of the burying ground. Traditional holds that it was designed by Lexington architect John McMurty as a chapel.

The Lyric Theatre opened in 1948, originally built as a movie-house in the Art Deco style. It quickly became a cultural icon and fostered the height of entertainment for Lexington's African American community. It hosted movies, fashion shows, vaudeville acts, local concerts, and pageants, and was Lexington's center stage for Jazz, Soul, and R&B music in 1950s. Notable performers include BB King, Wynonie Harris, Mercer Ellington, and Billy Brown. The Lyric also hosted Count Basie and Ray Charles. A variety of small, Black-owned businesses flourished around the Lyric Theatre until it closed in 1963. The building sat dormant for 50 years until it reopened in 2010. Today the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center's mission is to preserve, promote, present, and celebrate diverse cultures through artistic presentations of the hightest quality, educational programming and outreach, film, and opportunities for communitiy inclusion.

Les McCann, one of Lexington's most recognized musicians, was born in 1935. He contributed greatly to the national jazz scene, perhaps most notably through the albums Swiss Movement and The Shout. He was a self-taught musician and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show after winning a singing competition while in the Navy. He began his relationship with music at the Lyric Theatre where he worked and helped visiting artists with moving and carrying equipment. Mr. McCann died December 29, 2023 in California.

Winn Gunn, an ardent abolitionist who lived at 340 E Third Street, bought a 14-acre tract of land between Deweese and Race Streets after the Civil War. There he developed Gunntown, a community of small shotgun houses built on narrow lots, primarily for rural freed men and women who flocked to town looking for employment and educational opportunities. Gunn helped found the Gunn AME Chapel, a Black church at 346 Deweese Street. A short length of Gunn Street remains today, starting behind the Lyric Theatre. Deweese and Race Streets are shown under the R and R of "Ward 3" in the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of 1886.

The East End's Constitution School began as a frame building in 1871 and was known as Colored School #2. It was built on Corral and Lincoln, now Race Street, by Trustees of the Colored Public Schools. They petitioned town council to use funds from taxes paid by African Americans for public education to rebuild the school in 1904. The entrance to the new school faced Constitution Street, hence the name change. The building was razed in 1977.

Deweese Street, often called the "do as you please street," was the center of culture for the East End and site of numerous prosperous African American businesses by the late 1800s. The Lyric Theatre and Sterling Barbershop are two examples. The variety of businesses, including clothing and grocery stores, beauty and barber shops, insurance companies, entertainment, and other services enabled residents to take care of daily needs. All were an easy walk, making the East End the walkable, mixed-use neighborhood planners seek to create today.

With integration in the 1950s, the role of Deweese Street began to diminish as businesses were able to move to different areas, or in the case of insurance companies, were bought by larger companies. Beauty and barber shops and funeral homes were the exception, and they continued to provide services to East End residents.

Julia Perry (1924-1979) was a prominent African American female composer in the 20th century. She lived in this house when it was owned by her father, a physician, Dr. Abraham Perry. She left Lexington and eventually studied at Julliard and studied and played in Europe. She wrote twelve symphonies in her lifetime. She lived in this house when it was owned by her father. Jim Julia's grandfather and grandmother, Abraham and Clara Perry were examples who purchased two lots in 1880 and built their two-story home, which still stands at 216 Eastern Ave. The family moved to Akron, Ohio in 1934 when she was 10 years old. Her music has been performed by hte Lexington Philharmonic and other orchestras in Ohio, New York and Europe.

This Italinate cottage was the home of Edward Dudley Brown (1848-1906) who in one lifetime went from slave to jockey to trainer to owner. Separated from his family at eight and sold to Robert A Alexander of Woodburn Farm in Woodford County, Brown proved to have a marked adeptness with thoroughbreds and was soon riding. In his youth, before he became too heavy, he entered Triple Crown history books for the first time when he won the 1870 Belmont Stakes on Kingsfisher. He gradually transitioned from jockey to trainer, and is best known for training Baden-Baden, Hindoo, Plaudit, and Ben Brush. Ben Brush became the first horse inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1955. One newspaper article described Mr Brown as quiet and not given to gambling or other risky habits. He saved his earnings and began buying and training his own stock. He owned and raised multiple yearlings that eventally won the Kentucky Derby, Ben Brush and Plaudit among them.

This two-story brick home was constructed in 1818 for Lucy Wilgus and her husband, Thomas Luxom. Her father, Garrett Davis Wilgus, was a building contractor who developed Chestnut Street in 1884 and owned property on East Third Street. Garrett Wilgus died in 1893 and his family subdivided his remaining property from Wilgus to Race Street in 1901.

The Gunn House passed out of the Gunn family's ownershp. It was enventually bought in the 1920s by Ellen Davis, a formerly enslaved woman who had a child by John T Hughes, a wealthy white thoroughbred horse breeder. Davis lived in this house until her death in 1927. Her son lived there until his death in 1935. It served as a doctor's office until 1954 when is was purchased by Smith and Smith for their funeral home.

This house is best known as the home of Dr. Thomas Wendell, a well-known black physican. The house was built around 1900 and was originally occupied by a white couple, Thomas and Ida Jones. The Wendell Family moved here in 1907. Dr. Wendell practiced medicine in Lexington for half a century and died in 1953, the same year a new building at Eastern State Hospital was named for him. He had been a staff physician there for many years treating African Americans with mental illness.

In March 1882, several members of Main Street Baptist Church left the congregation to organize a new church. They built a church on Corral Street and took the name Liberty Baptist Church. Over the next four decades, the congregation moved several times, each time into a larger facility to accommodate the growing membership. In 1925, West Chestnut Street Christian Church, which had a predominately white membership, agreed to sell its building. At this location, the church continued to prosper, and along the way added "Greater" to its name.

Garrett Wilgus, a building contractor, announced plans in 1884 to open Chestnut Street from Third Street. He ran newspaper ads saying he was selling lots "very cheap for cash." In 1886, Ellen Davis bought this house. She was formerly enslaved by the Hughes family but also had a son with John T Hughes, a wealthy thoroughbred horse breeder. Hughes acknowledged that he was the father and sent his son to New York for school. Although Davis and Hughes never married, their relationship continued until his death 60 years later. When Hughes died in 1924, he left the bulk of his estate to Ellen Davis, making her a wealthy Black woman. She later bought the house at 340 E Third Street where she lived until her death.

This original farmhouse was built around 1814 for Robert Megowan. It is one of the oldest farmhouses within city limits and the oldest still standing in the East End. Garrett Wilgus was a prominent brick mason and builder. He bought this house and remodeled it between 1855-1871. Wilgus eventually sold twelve residential building lots and joined George B Kinkead and Winn Gunn in creating room for Black residents in the East End.

The African American population in Lexington more than doubled between 1860 and 1870. This was due largely to recently freed enslaved people migrating from rural areas to more urban areas. In response to this influx, landowners and developers platted lots to sell to the rising African American population in the city. This housing trend was readily apparent in the East End. Like Kinkead, Gunn, and Wilgus, another prominent landowner at the time was David S Goodloe, a local physician. He subdivided his land and created another urban cluster of African American residences. Goodloetown, as it came to be known, was established around 1871 between Race, Second, and Third Streets. By 1887, Goodloetown had grown to include Gunntown and Bradley Bottoms. It was the largest Black residential area in Lexington. Today, the area of Goodloetown is undergoing restoration and preservation of some homes and tranformation into an Artist Village.

Jimmy Winkfield (1882-1974) won over 2,600 races in his lifetime. He was the youngest of seventeen children born to George and Victoria Winkfield. He lived with his sisters on Warnock Street. He began exercising horses at the age of seven and participated in his first race as a jockey at the age of fifteen in Chicago.

Winkfield raced in the US from 1899 to 1904. He won 161 races in 1901 alone. When Jim Crow injustice finally reached the racetracks, it forced him off the tracks. Winkfield was the last Black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby in 1902.

After death threats from the KKK and damage to his reputation for jumping a contract, Winkfield left the US for Czarist Russia in 1904. He had to flee the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and moved tp France. He fled Nazi-occupied France in 1940 and returned to the US, where he signed on to a Works Progress Administration work crew. In the 1950s, he returned to France and opened his own training school for jockeys. He attended the Kentucky Derby in 1961 with his daughter. They were denied entry to a pre-Derby party at the Brown Hotel until hotel management confirmed they were invited guests of Sports Illustrated. Winkfield returned to France and lived there until his death in 1974.

Once the site of the home owned by thoroughbred trainer William Huston and his wife Bettie Tracy Huston. William had been employed by HP McGrath. On this corner were the homes of two prominent East End residents: John Caulder and thoroughbred trainer William Perkins. Caulder, who lived at 505 E Third, was the principal of Constitution Elementary School which opened in 1883 with 100 pupils.

Perkins, the older brother of James Soup Perkins, the jockey, trained over 600 thoroughbred winners in 18 years. In 1926, he trained more winning horses (82 races) than any other trainer in the US. He lived at 503 E Third until his death in 1927.

The park and community center are named after Charles Young, native of Mason County, Kentucky, the third African American graduate of West Point. Colonel Young was the highest ranked African American who served in the segregated United States Army. He should have commanded troops in World War I but was forced to take a medical discharge instead. He was prevented from promotion during his lifetime due to his race but was posthumously promoted to four star general in November 2021.

Mary Owen Todd Russell (1781-1844) owned two hundred acres called Goshen. She began building the home Glendower in 1802 and finished it in 1815. She platted and sold lots from the remaining acreage starting in 1822. To gain access to the development, Mrs. Russell opened Jefferson and Todd streets, which was deeded to the city as public thoroughfares. Mary Russell was the daughter of a pioneer settler and surveyor who was killed at the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. She inherited this land as a child and was considered one of the richest women in Lexington when she came of age. The Williams Race Track stood on the Todd property at Short and Georgetown streets and was used by the Kentucky Association from 1826 to 1828.

St Joseph Hospital was opened in Lexington by the Nazareth Literary and Benevolent Institution in 1877. At its beginning, African American patients were treated in two small and separate cottages. By 1887, a three-story building had been erected as a hospital for black patients. Dr. John E Hunter was the first African American physician to provide medical treatment to them. The hospital buildings were vacated in 1959 and razed in 1966.

In 1928, the Glendower property, originally built by Mary Russell, was purchased and used as a school of nursing. The home was razed in 1942 for the erection of Euphrasia Hall that still stands. It was named in honor of the first director of the hospital, Sister Euphrasia. The Colored YMCA, organized in 1947, acquired the building in 1964. In 2022, the building was purchased by the Lexington Rescue Mission.

Maryland Avenue was also known as the Preston Subdivision. Margaret Wickliffe Preston (1819-1898), inherited the acreage and Glendower home from the estate of her step-mother, Mary Owen Todd Russell. This public street was deeded to the city following the development of the subdivision in 1889. The boundaries are Jefferson, West Second, West Third, and Georgetown streets.

Lot #51 of the Preston Subdivision was purchased in 1895 by an influential Black couple, Dr. William Henry Ballard and Bessie Brady Ballard. Dr. Ballard became the first African American male pharmacist in Kentucky in 1893. He established his pharmacy in Lexington, first on South Mill Street, then on North Limestone, and finally on Deweese Street. Dr. Ballard was a member of the Colored Bluegrass Medical Society and held positions of power in a variety of black associations, including the Citizen's League of Emancipation, the Colored Fair Associatoni, the Negro Business League, Colored Parks and Playgrounds and more. He married Bessie Brady in 1892. Mrs. Ballard was the president of the Women's Improvement Club, the Kentucky Association of Colored Women's Clubs and was a founding member of the Phyllis Wheatly YWCA in 1920. This was their home.

The house was originally built in the 1820s for Abraham Drake. In 1940, it became headquarters of the American Legion Nathan Caulder Post #132. The post, organized in June 1920, was named in honor of Nathan Caulder, a military veteran of the Buffalo Soldiers, Spanish American War, and World War I. Nathan Caulder, a career soldier who fought in multiple wars, ultimately dying in 1919 in France. He is buried at African Cemetery No. 2.

Lot #51 of the Preston Subdivision was purchased in 1895 by an influential Black couple, Dr. William Henry Ballard and Bessie Brady Ballard. Dr. Ballard became the first African American male pharmacist in Kentucky in 1893. He established his pharmacy in Lexington, first on South Mill Street, then on North Limestone, and finally on Deweese Street. Dr. Ballard was a member of the Colored Bluegrass Medical Society and held positions of power in a variety of black associations, including the Citizen's League of Emancipation, the Colored Fair Associatoni, the Negro Business League, Colored Parks and Playgrounds and more. He married Bessie Brady in 1892. Mrs. Ballard was the president of the Women's Improvement Club, the Kentucky Association of Colored Women's Clubs and was a founding member of the Phyllis Wheatly YWCA in 1920. This was their home.

She was the first African American female pharmacist in Lexington. She was born in Mississippi but in 1920 purchased the inventory, equipment, and store of the People's Pharmacy at 118 N Broadway. The building was previously the drug store of African American William Mayo. It also held the offices of physicians Dr. John E Hunter, Dr. W. T. Dinwiddie, and more. Marble's sister, Lillie Marble Ray, purchased the home at 170 Old Georgetown Street in 1939 and they lived together until Harriet's death in 1966. They are both buried in Cove Haven Cemetery.

Portions of this house date to 1825. William Franklin Klair and his wife Mary lived here during the three decades in which he influenced local and state political decisions. He was a staunch Democrat. In 1894, women - both black and white - had been given the right to vote in local school board elections in Lexington, Covington, and Newport. It was noted that many African American women in Lexington voted Republican. They did so to prevent a black candidate who was running as a Democrat from being selected. In 1902, Klair, along with Senator J Embry Allen, successfully lobbied to have the women's voting right act repealed. It would be another ten years before women regained their right to vote in school board elections. With reintroduction in 1912, a literacy test was added to the bill with the intention of making it more difficult for African American women to vote. Having risen from being a newsboy became a political kingpin. In 1899, he was elected as a Democrat to the State House of Representatives. Klair's influence in local and state politics extended for three decades. His insurance company wrote policies for the city and UK.

Jaubert was born in 1829 to French parents in New York. He enlisted in Chattanooga, TN during the Civil War and became the company cook for the First Kentucky Regiment of the Confederate States of America. He cooked a lot of burgoo - a Kentucky staple featuring root vegetables and meat. Coming to Lexington after the war, he purchased the saloon of CE Mooney. His restaurant advertised as the Magnolia Saloon and he had many African Americans working for him.

From the time George Owen Rogers purchased the corner building and repurposed it for a restaurant in 1923, African Americans could not come in, sit down, or be served a meal. Across the city, state, and nation, restaurants, department stores, drugstores, theatres, hotels, and recreation facilities were segregated. The Black Freedom Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s (of which Lexington's black population were very active) changed that dynamic. George O Rogers bought a former grocery store and confectionary at the corner of Jefferson and West Main in 1923. He opened a second restaurant at 601 W Main Street. He sold his restaurant in the 1970s.*

This area was platted in 1815 and reportedly is one of Lexington's oldest, if not oldest, suburbs. Streets and alleys defined vehicle and walking pathways. The alleys, behind homes and businesses, were used for delivery of coal and wood, produce and meat, household goods, and debris removal. They also served as byways for enslaved and later African American domestic servants to enter and exit. On some of these narrow paths, homes of African Americans and outbuildings still stand. There are three alleys along the Heritage Trail: You will cross Klair Alley between Main and Short streets behind the corner building at Jefferson. The next is beside Stella's Deli. Originally known as Gill's Alley, it is now Ballard Street. The third is Todd's Alley, the entrance to the senior living apartment complexes, Connie Griffin Manor/ Ballard Place.

Ballard Alley, now Ballard Street, was an African American neighborhood of shotgun-style houses. After famous jockey Oliver Lewis and Lucy Wright married in 1881, they moved to 23 Ballard Street. Their home no longer stands. Oliver Lewis was the first African American jockey to win the Kentucky Derby in 1875. At the time, he was an eighteen-year-old employee of HP McGrath, owner of McGrathiana Farm. Oliver Lewis Way, an extension of Newtown Pike, was named in his honor in 2010.

All cities have pioneering women among their notbale residents. Dr. Mary Ellen Britton (1855-1925) is one of them in Lexington. In 1897, she enrolled in the American Missionary College at Chicago to obtain a medical degree, specializing in allopathy. Following graduation in June 1902, she returned to Lexington and applied for and was granted a medical license. At the time, she was 45 years old and living at 560 N Limestone, just across the street. Dr. Britton became the first Black woman to practice medicine in Lexington. She was the only female member of the Bluegrass Medical Society and was appointed to the National Medical Association as a vice president in 1911.

Mary Ellen was the daughter of Henry and Laura Britton and was one of 12 children, several of whom were adopted. There were among "free persons of color" of Lexington and lived in a two-story home at 123 N Mill Street in 1863, in an area now known as Gratz Park. The children were all educated in Berea, KY at the college established by John G Fee. After both of their parents died, Mary and six of her siblings moved back to Lexington where Mary became a teacher. She joined other African Americans in Lexington and across Kentucky in 1891-1892 to protest a proposed change in the passenger accommodations on trains passing through the state. She made a speech before the State Legislature about the Separate Coach Law, the power of which inspired poet Paul Laurence Dunbar to dedicate a poem to her named "To Miss Mary Britton"

God of the right, arise. And let thy pow'r prevail; too long thy children mourn In labor and travail. Oh, speed the happy day When waiting ones may see The glory-bringing birth Of our real liberty! Grant thou, O Gracious God, That not in word alone Shall freedom's boon be ours, While bondage-galled we moan! But condescend to us In our o'erwhelming need; Break down the hind'ring bars, And make us free indeed. Give us to lead our cause More noble souls like hers, The memory of whose deed Each feeling bosom stirs; Whose fearless voice and strong Rose to defend her race, Roused Justice from her sleep, Drove Prejudice from place. Let not the mellow light Of Learning's brilliant ray Be quenched, to turn to night Our newly dawning day. To that bright, shining star Which thou didst set in place, With universal voice Thus speaks a grateful race: "Not empty words shall be Our offering to your fame; The race you strove to serve shall consecrate your name. Speak on as fearless still; Work on as tireless ever; And your reward shall be Due meed for your endeavour."

At this home lived Benjamin and Susan Britton Franklin, brother-in-law and sister to Dr. Mary E Britton. They married in 1879 and purchased their home in 1884. Susan Britton taught school briefly before becoming a seamstress. She and Benjamin were parents of a son and three daughters. Franklin, his mother, and sister had been enslaved by George Robertson, Chief Justice of Kentucky. Franklin escaped slavery by joining the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War, serving in Company B, 119th Infantry Regiment. After the war, he was employed as a personal servant and steamboat fireman and engineer before becoming a barber around 1871. The building in which his business was housed still stands at 109 N Limestone.

The Lexington Citizens for Cultural Development, organized by African Americans, occupied a space in the house in 1984. One of the programs offered was music education for kindergarten-aged children. Dr. Necia Harkless (1920-2015) was the instructor. She was a native of Detroit, Michigan, who earned her degrees from Prairie View State and Agricultural College in Texas, Wayne State College of Education in Illinois, and the Detroit Institute of Music in Michigan. After earning her PhD in 1974, she became associate professor of education at the University of Kentucky (1974-1981) and then associate professor of graduate education at Georgetown College (1981-1985).

William Morton (1750-1836) came to Lexington in 1797 from Philadelphia and opened a mercantile store. It stood at the corner of Main and Upper Streets. He purchased twenty acres in 1795 on which this house was built in 1810. At the time, Morton owned ten enslaved people who no doubt provided the labor to build the home as well as maintain the surrounding acreage. Morton, one fo the most successful merchants in Lexington. He supported the building of the first and second Episcopal churches in Lexington. In his will, he left $10,000 for the construction of a public school for white children, which still bears his name - Morton Elementary School.

Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903) bought the property in 1838. Clay was the son of Green and Sallie Lewis Clay of Madison County and was the first cousin of Senator Henry Clay. While a student at Yale University, Clay attended a program given by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Realizing that slavery was not sustainable, Clay became an emancipationist. Clay became an attorney and was subsequently elected to the State Legislature in 1840. Known as a Firebrand, he was not afraid of opposition. He became an emancipationist much to the extreme displeasure of his contemporaries. In a building at North Mill and Main Streets, he set up a printing press and in June 1845 began publishing The True American. In August, sixty individuals broke into the building, packed up the printing press and equipment and shipped it to Cincinnati. Clay sued those responsible and won the judgement. He even installed a cannon in his building to prevent the same event occurring. Clay freed those enslaved that he owned but retained those held in trust for other family members. During the Civil War, he served as Minister of Russia, an appointment made by President Abraham Lincoln.

In 1850, the house changed hands again, and was at this time purchaed by Dr. Lloyd Warfield, who owned over twenty enslaved people. During the time of his ownership, the property's twenty acres was subdivided, reducing it to five acres. By 1873, the house and property were purchased by Lilly and Henry T Duncan. Duncan, the co-founder of the Lexington Daily Press, served as city council member and mayor from 1894-1895 and 1900-1903. The grounds and gardens were so beautifully maintained by their Irish gardener that it became known as Duncan Park, a name still used today. The former Duncan house is now a resource center for individuals and families in crisis and one of Lexington's city parks.

The lot on which this brick home stands was purchased in 1903 from the Voorhies Subdivision by Henry Tandy and J Alexander Chiles. A 40-foot x 100 foot portion was used to construct the adjacent corner building. The title to the remaining lot was deeded in 1905 to Emma Tandy, wife of Henry. She sold it to Reverend R.T. and Anna Frye of the Main Street Baptist Church in June 1905. They sold it back to Emma Tandy when they moved from Lexington in 1910.

This 1906 building was constructed for the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Among the eighteen founding members in 1894 were Dr. Mary Britton, Henry A and Emma Tandy, J Alexander Chiles, W.C. Taylor, and James F Brice, who became their pastor. The church relocated to Lima Drive in West Lexington by 1971. The original building was repurposed as a day-care center.

When Dunbar opened in 1923, it was the second high school for African Americans in Lexington. The school was named in honor of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a nationally recognized poet. Dunbar's uncles John and Alexander Burton, an aunt, Ann Burton Scott, and several cousins lived in Lexington. Paul Laurence and his mother visited the city often. He penned a poem, "After the Visit" to relay his feelings and impressions of Lexington. The school, under William H Fouse's guidance, quickly became known for its academic and athletic achievements. He encouraged students to participate in the Blue Grass Oratorical Contest which eventually spread to twenty-two schools. The school's football team won the state championship in 1942 and its basketball team was ranked among the highest in Kentucky throughout the 1960s. The school became a junior high school in 1967 after desegregation. It was closed in 1972 and the building was demolished in 1974. The entrance portal and the gymnasium identify the school's former site. It now serves as a community meeting and recreation facility.

This two-story home was built for the family of Dr. John E and Mamie Bush Hunter. Dr. Hunter, a graduate of Western Reserve University in Ohio, opened his medical practice in Lexington in 1890. He was the first African American physician granted permission to operate at St. Joseph's Hospital. Hunter, a very active civic leader, was a founder and officer of Greenwood Cemetery, the Bluegrass Medical Association, People's Pharmacy and Alpha Beta Lamda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Mamie Bush Hunter was a co-founder of the Colored Orphan Home in 1892.

Across the street from the Hunters' home stands one built for the family of jockey James "Soup" Perkins. Perkins began riding at the age of ten. When he was thirteen, he was mounted on twenty-six Thoroughbreds for races at the Kentucky Association in East Lexington. He brought sixteen of his mounts in first, five runners in second, three in third; only two were unplaced. At the age of fifteen, he won the 1895 Kentucky Derby, the second youngest jockey to do so. His mother, Mattie, managed his income. She purchased this lot and had this home built for the family in 1895.

African American women in 1920 organized a Young Women's Christian Association. The organization was named in honor of America's first African American poet, Phyllis Wheatley. This building was purchased in 1940. It was sold in 1968 and repurposed for apartment homes. A newer YWCA building was constructed for the group at 647 Chestnut Street in 1967. It served as a community meeting and recreation center until sold in 2009. *About the building: The structure was built in 1890 as an industrial training school. The city school board purchased it for use as a kindergarten for the Johnson Elementary school that stood at the corner of Fourth and N Limestone.

The Fourth Street Colored Christian Church was organizaed in 1851 by Thomas Phillips. He was enslaved to George Brand, a hemp manufacturer, but was allowed to preach to the newly founded congregation of Christians - Disciples of Christ. They began meeting in a barn at this location. By 1874 they had grown to the point that they were able to erect this brick church building. In 1880, they relocated to East Second Street, purchasing a church constructed for the white congregation of the Second Christian Church. The white congegration of Church Church Episcopal purchased this building to establish St Andrew's Episcopal for their African American members.

From 1780, this North-South route to and from the Ohio River town of Limestone, later named Maysville, KY was known as Mulberry Hill. The name was changed to Limestone Street in 1887. Mulberry Hill Historic District was designated locally in 1985. Twenty-six properties from the early 1800s are found within this district. These homes and buildings are featured as a walking tour of the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation.

This two-story late Georgian style home was built about 1808 for Adam Rankin (1755-1827), a minister of Mt Zion, an early Presbyterian church. Adam was called to Lexington to take charge of the young congregation on October 1, 1784. He resigned in 1825 due to controversy over the use of a version of Psalms in the church. He returned to his native Pennsylvania where he died in 1827. Rankin, while in Kentucky, became the slaveowner of the Hayden family. He first sold Millie Hayden, the mother, to an individual in 1817 and then her children at auction as he prepared to leave Kentucky. The one child who remained in Kentucky following the sale, was Lewis Hayden. He, his second wife, and her son, successfully escaped their enslavement in 1844.

Lewis Hayden had been enslaved to Adam Rankin from his birth in 1811 to about 1825 when Rankin returned to Pennsylvania. His next owner was Elijah Warner, a cabinet maker. Lewis was left as a bequest to Warner's daughter in 1829. By 1842, he had been sold to Thomas Grant and Lewis Baxter who hired him out as a waiter at the Phoenix Hotel, owned by John Brennan. His first wife, Esther and child, had been sold to slave dealers and transported south. Lewis next formed a relationship with Harriet Bell who had a son Joseph. Harriet and her son were enslaved to Patterson Bain. They arranged their escape with the help of abolitionist Delia Webster, a teacher, and Rev. Calvin Fairbanks. The Haydens became an important link on the Underground Railroad in Boston where they had chosen to settle.

This home was built in 1812 by John Brand (1775-1849), an immigrant from Scotland. He came to Lexington in 1802. In partnership with John Wesley Hunt, they established a hemp manufactory. With his earnings, Brand purchased all the land between Fourth and Fifth, Limestone and Upper streets. Brand would become owner of fourteen enslaved people whose labor helped build and sustain his wealth for several generations. Each of the Brand's children also received real estate in Lexington and farm property in Fayette and Woodford Counties.

Thomas Phillips (c.1790-1858) was enslaved to the Brand Family for "over half a century." He was not emancipated but allowed to preach and establish the Fourth Street Colored Christian Church in 1851. Phillips died in 1858 in the place where he had been enslaved.

Enslaved men, women, and children named in John Brand's will were: Tom, Isaac, Isabell and her three children, Jacob and Diana, Andrew, Nancy, and daughter Margaret. Johanna hired to Mrs. Bell. Solomon, Will, George, John, Dave, Dick, Betts, Harriet, Sam, Aaron, Sally, Ann, Matilda, Emily, Mary, and Martha her child. Old Mary, Eliza, Dicey, Tom, Harper, Lewis, little Stephen, Old Stephen, Jacob, Carr and China, Sanford (son of China) and little Moses and Jackson, sons of Evalina.

Lexington City Commissioners in 1958 passed an ordinance that recognized the need for preservation and protection of Lexingtonian heritage. As a result, historic districts were established to protect and preserve buildings and homes of architectural and historical significance in intercity neighborhoods. South Hill Historic District, one of fifteen in Lexington, was established in 1972 and expanded in 1976. Homes of African Americans freed before emancipation are within this district.

The duplex home was built in 1812 by James Lemon. The lower end of the duplex was purchased by James Turner in 1852. Turner, who had purchased his freedom in 1841, was a plasterer. He provided a much-needed service to those building new homes in a growing city. Turner, a trustee and later minister at St. Paul AME Church, also served on community and state-wide organizations such as Kentucky's Colored People's Convention, the Kentucky Colored Education Convention, the Lexington Colored School Fund, and the first treasurer of the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair of Colored People, first organized in 1869. The fair continued until 1942 with only two interruptions (World War I and the Great Depression).

Lizzie Percila McNeil, her mother, sister, and brother had been freed by James McNeil in 1864. They inherited a portion of the farm on which they had been enslaved. She was one of the incorporating members of the Colored Orphan Home founded in 1892. She served on the Board of Managers. She married Thomas J. Wilson in 1975 and htey bought this home in 1878. Wilson managed the McNeil Farm property and was president of Lexington's Agricultural and Mechanical Fair from 1901 to 1917. Although both Lizzie and Thomas identified with and were recognized by the Black community, all decade census enumerations for them listed their race as "white," an indication that they had fair complexions.

This Federal-style home had been built as a carriage house in 1812 for Rokesby Hall that stood adjacent. In 1836 when the larger home was sold, the new owner converted the carriage house into a dwelling. Henry King purchased it in 1867. King, with his wife Betty and their children, lived here until 1896. King was an interior painter. He was also an assertive and progressive leader in Lexington's Black community following emancipation. He was the founder and long-standing president of the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair of Colored People, a Trustee of Benevolent Society No. 2 and for the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, was Grand Master of the Colored Masonic Lodge and was an influential member of the Kentucky Negro Education Association and helped found what would become Kentucky State University.

James Andrew and Fannie Ellis Scott married in 1883 and bought this property in 1888. They subdivided the lot on either side of their home for rental properties. James Andrew Scott worked with his father, Reuben in the livery business and then was a grocery store clerk. in 1892, he became the first African American to be hired by the United States Postal Service in Lexington. He worked at the post office at Main and Walnut Streets. Other African Americans followed his lead becoming urban and rural mail carriers in the early 1900s in Lexington. James was also a Trustee and Clerk of Pleasant Green Baptist Church and a president of the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair of Colored People. He retired from USPS in 1920 after 28 years as a letter carrier.

Robert and Belle Ellis Gray bought a 33 foot frontage from Fannie and Andrew Scott to build their home. Robert, a tinner (maker of tinware and stoves), was also an enterprising inventor whose shop was located at 57 Water Street in downtown Lexington. In 1913, the Grays leased a building and grounds at the corner of Vine and Spring Streets. They became operators of the Terrace Inn to accomodate African American visitors who attended the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair for Colored People. The hotel had 25 rooms but was torn down in the second half of the twentieth century.

William and Hannah Tucker and their children lived in this house which William bought in 1824. Tucker had been freed in 1815 by George Trotter, Sr. who entered the document in the Manumission Book of the Abolition Society at Philadelphia. Tucker freed his wife Hannah and children before 1830. William and Hannah were proprietors of a mercantile business and confectionary. When he died in 1837, Hannah continued the business until her death in 1842.

Rolley Blue was still enslaved when he purchased property through acting trustee Bob Scott. In 1812, Blue bought at 50x140 square foot lot on the waters of Elkhorn near Mulberry Street in Lexington. In April of 1818 he advertised that he had opened a blacksmith shop on this property. As a blacksmith, Blue crafted and repaired iron implements for businesses, farms, and households. His skill forming horseshoes was in much demand because of Lexington's interest in the sport of horse racing. The 1820 census listed Blue, his wife Rachel and his son George, as free blacks. Rolley and Rachel were legally married in December 1825 by London Ferrill, a free Black minister of the First African Baptist Church, where Blue was a trustee. In 1829, the couple purchased this home which was built in 1816. He invested earnings in real estate and purchased the freedom of several family members during his lifetime. In his will, Rolley directed his executor to liquidate his assets and purchase the freedom of remaining relatives.

The African American Heritage Trail sign, located at the beginning of the Historic District, provides an overview of some homes still standing with roots to Lexington's freed Black community. The small population of free Blacks who were barbers, tailors, seamstresses, laundresses, house builders, plasterers, painters, and merchants lived within the downtown core among their white customers and employers. Segregated housing was not a feature of Lexington's residential composition prior to the Civil War. Enslaved people may have lived within their owner's household or in log or small brick dwellings close to the main house.

The four Victorian houses beginning at this location formed the Kimball House Hotel. Albert Douglas Warder and Lutie, his mother, purchased a former sorority house from the University of Kentucky before his enlistment in military service in 1943. After his discharge over a period of several years, he bought four other Victorian styled buildings. By 1948, he had opened the Kimball House, a 100-room hotel. His widow sold the hotel in 2000. It has been converted into condominiums. During the early yeras of hotel's operation, the facility was segregated - only open to white visitors and travlers - as was nearly every accommodation.

Samuel Oldham was a fashionable hairdresser and proprietor of a Caladonian Bath. He also sold general merchandise from his shop on Main Street. He purchased his own freedom in 1826 and then freed his wife, Daphney and sons, Samuel and Lawson Mitchell Oldham in 1830. Deed records indicate that he emancipated his son Nathan and daughter-in-law Angelina in 1835. Oldham purchased and freed other non-related individuals, Catherine Bundley, Samuel Downing and Betty (last name unknown) by 1840. His Federal-style home was built sometime between 1835 and 1837 on two lots. The couple sold the property in 1839 to William Bradford for $5,500. Oldham, a trustee of First African Baptist Church, signed the deeds for purchase of property for the church in 1834.