Every historic building has a story to tell
I voted early this year, in a large, cavernous space that bore no resemblance to precinct voting as I used to know it. For several years, I worked the polls in Lexington, supplementing the meager salary I received as a state employee with a long, long day in a historic firehouse or a local school. (read more)
Category: Rowan County
Tags: #kentuckyarchitecture, #RowanCountyKY, #votinghouses, #worksprogressadministration
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
Last September, I took the long way home and wandered though the middle of Hopkins County. One small rural community I passed through was Charleston, where in 1939 and 1940, the Works Progress Administration built a school. I saw no sign of this building as I drove north on Route 109, and my online search (read more)
Categories: Hopkins County, Works Progress Administration
Tags: #charlestonky, #historicschools, #kentuckyarchitecture, #kentuckyplaces, WPA
Deconstruction of historic buildings – taking them down carefully in order that the materials may be reused, instead of ending up in a landfill – was described as a “relatively new concept” in the United States in the 1990s. Practiced mainly on the west coast, the “construction in reverse” process has gradually drifted eastward, with (read more)
My first – and as yet, only – experience in Burning Springs, Kentucky, had nothing whatsoever to do with ignitable springs of natural gas.* No, I was in Clay County for work, and after completing my tasks, I set out (as is my wont) to wander the area. And off to the side of US (read more)
Categories: Clay County, Schools
Tags: #burningsprings, #historicschools, #worksprogressadministration, Burning Springs, WPA
Public education has a long and turbulent history in Kentucky. The reforms of the late 20th century followed efforts in the 19th century to provide access to education to children, with the most pressing need often being decent school buildings. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided sturdy, well-built school buildings to many counties across Kentucky (read more)
Categories: Breathitt County, Schools
Tags: #bigrockschool, #breathittcountyky, #EasternKentucky, #historicschools, #worksprogressadministration, WPA
The deprivations of the Great Depression continue to influence those born decades and decades after that very desperate time. I trace my penny pinching habits back to my grandparents, who passed along recipes, traditions, and an ingrained sense of frugality to their offspring. The programs implemented by President Roosevelt, most notably the Works Progress Administration (read more)
There is a small wooden chair in the front hall of my childhood home. Made of cherry or walnut, it is a nice little chair, but unremarkable except for its story. From an early age, I knew the chair traveled strapped to a horse through the Cumberland Gap in the 18th century. I fervently wanted (read more)
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