A Sad House on a Hill, Lancaster, Kentucky

In 1901, a new flour and feed mill opened on East Buford Street in Lancaster, Kentucky. It was just about two blocks from the courthouse and the square of commercial buildings, and adjacent to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, in what was then a “thriving section of town.”* The mill is still standing, and last week I walked down East Buford Street to take a picture of it, but I was distracted by a house across the street. A sad house, I immediately thought, taking in the the two-story, frame dwelling on a hill.

Façade of the house on Buford Street.

Garrard Mills was  constructed in a historically African American neighborhood. While the mill was surveyed and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the buildings around the mill, and indeed, all of Buford Street, have never been documented.

This isn’t surprising. Across Kentucky, systematic racism infected every facet of life throughout the 20th century, including architectural history and preservation efforts. Combined with the casual racism of the time was the feeling that if a building wasn’t imposing or attractive, it wasn’t worth photographing.** (I know of counties where nothing built after 1900 was recorded during county-wide surveys of of historic buildings in the late 1970s and 1980s. That wouldn’t be a problem if county-wide surveys were conducted every few decades or so, but in Kentucky, the one and done rule applies to more than just men’s college basketball.)

West elevation and facade of Garrard Mills.

While a survey of the historic resources around the mill certainly wasn’t required to recognize the historic significance of Garrard Mills, knowing more about the mill operations, its work force, and its neighborhood is valuable contextual material. At the time, it was probably fairly revolutionary for such a utilitarian building like the mill to be noticed and recorded at all – and I am so glad that the value of Garrard Mills was recognized.

Our standards for documentation and research have expanded greatly (thankfully!) in the 40 years since the mill was documented. We look at many aspects of material culture and architecture differently than we did even 20 years ago. Of course, now we are also recording split-level houses built in the 1970s, which is a less than edifying experience.

A circa 1984 photograph of Garrard Mills by Helen Powell from the NRHP files.

And you might ask, why am I so interested in a sad looking old house across from an old mill building? (If you’ve never read any of my posts, you might be pondering this very query.)

No building exists in a vacuum. Knowing the neighborhood and its context tells the full story, even if it is a story that makes people uncomfortable. And my chance encounter with this house may be the only chance its framework of wood and stone is able to convey anything of its past.

Unfortunately, supposition is all I have – and there’s not enough of that to make a compelling story. But I always have my camera.

A cistern and well pump cover – more clues of a vanished history.

Prior to the mill setting up business, this small block of East Buford Street wasn’t even shown on the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. Not because there weren’t any buildings  – the 1879 Beers & Lanagan map shows three dwellings across Buford Street from the eventual site of the mill. One of those, I believe, is the sad house on the hill.

Either the concentration of buildings wasn’t high enough to warrant inclusion, or they were deemed not worth insuring.

Section from the 1879 Beers & Lanagan map.

The block made it onto the 1901 Sanborn map, and by 1908, between the railroad and Buford Street, there are three dwellings and a Negro Lodge Hall. The sad house is next to the Hall, at 121 Buford Street.

Section from the 1908 Sanborn map.

I can’t tell you who lived in the sad house. While the census records for Lancaster do list the street, but the column for house number is infuriatingly blank (this holds true for the census from 1900-1930). But along the entirety of Buford Street, there were 65 African American households. Based on that number, I feel fairly confident in saying this house was the home of an African American family.

The asymmetrical fenestration, with a door/window/window on the first story, and two windows on the second, was the equivalent of flashing lights in my peripheral vision. I’ve encountered this form in many historically Black neighborhoods, including in the Old Wilderness Road Historic District in Danville, Kentucky.

Side elevation and facade.

The majority of households recorded on Buford Street in the 1930 census were renters.  But in the absence of a city directory for Lancaster, deed records will be little help, as they convey information on the property owner, not the residents. Oral history would likely be the only way  to determine who may have lived in this house years and years ago.

Given the current condition of this house, I don’t imagine it has long left before it too is erased from view. As spring creeps into summer, the Virginia creeper and ivy will continue their insidious march across the vinyl siding of the sad house. Any light that filters in from the 2/2 historic wood windows will be blocked by vegetation, and there will be even less reason to give this sad house a second glance.

*Survey form and NRHP nomination for Garrard Mills, GDL-15.

**This wasn’t always the case, and I am not trying to make a gross generalization about racism in preservation efforts nationwide or even across Kentucky. Suffice to say, racism and/or socio-economic bias existed in many forms across the board. Preservation echoed what was happening across the country and many historic, poor neighborhoods were not documented. There were many other factors as well – lack of funds, lack of time, lack of people. Historic preservation is perpetually underfunded and always under attack. Also, everything on this blog is my opinion unless it is a fact supported by official records and/or a footnote.