Lawton Court: A Historic Working Class Shotgun Neighborhood Under Threat, Louisville, Kentucky

Historic preservation doesn’t have a very long history in our young country, and the modern preservation movement can be traced back to the mid-19th century and the fight to save the home of the first President, George Washington. Mount Vernon isn’t what one would describe as modest and humble. From that point on, preservation tended to focus on important sites and monuments, many associated with pivotal figures in the nation’s history. More bluntly, historic preservation championed the homes of dead, rich, white men.

As a field, preservation has come a long way. But that doesn’t mean everyone automatically sees an “old” building as a “historic-worthy-of-preservation” building.*  Small houses constructed for the working class? A neighborhood of vernacular shotgun houses from the early 20th century? No matter how evolved we like to think we are, working class neighborhoods bear the brunt of redevelopment and their historic buildings are easily and quickly consigned to rubble – even if there isn’t anything planned to take their place. That pretty much seems to the case with Lawton Court in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lawton Court, Louisville, Kentucky.

Lawton Court is located in the Meriwether Neighborhood in downtown Louisville, and is bordered by  Preston St., Shelby St., and the CSX railroad tracks. Its future is undertrain, as CEPEDA Associates, Inc, an engineering and manufacturing company located adjacent to the shotgun neighborhood, is apparently looking to expand. The company hasn’t submitted any development plans (of which I know)  other than a desire to demolish at least 10 of the Lawton Court houses.  (They are small! They are modest! They can’t be important!)

In case you are a first time visitor, here is a plan of a typical shotgun house. A shotgun house is a type, not a style, and Louisville has one of the highest numbers of historic shotgun houses in the country. Plan drawn by William J. Macintire.

Fortunately, Louisville Metro has a Landmark process, and on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 at 5:30 pm, Lawton Court will be presented as a candidate for landmark status at a Landmarks Commission Meeting.** You can attend the meeting in person at the Old Jail or add your voice of support and attend the meeting virtually.  

Some of the shotgun houses of Lawton Court.

In 1902, the St. James Company announced their plans to develop 20 building lots in an area of town ripe for a man looking to invest and make a tidy profit. The parcel was conveniently located and streetcar lines had just been laid. The plan was to build houses facing an interior courtyard, rather than houses facing the street. A March 6, 1902 article in the Courier-Journal proclaimed the owner’s intentions to make the lots, designed for laboring men, “as handsome as Belgravia.”

The 1902 plat of Lawton Court, showing the lots arranged to either side of the 26-foot wide court, with a grassy center, and sidewalks to either side.

Belgravia Court, as many readers might know, is not a working class neighborhood. But it is a pedestrian court, and a little under a mile to the west of Lawton Court. Belgravia is the sort of place that would hit the most obtuse person over the head as obviously historic and worth being saved. It’s lovely, I admit – I’ve strolled up and down and admired the very fancy, very expensive homes that line the court. Maybe some of the folks who once worked in the gardens and kitchen of Belgravia Court lived down the street at Lawton Court.

The facade of 403 Lawton Court, which was built around 1916. That year, it was the home of Vernon B. Quiggins, a salesman for Hunt, Russell & Company. Although Mr. Quiggins would move to Jefferson Street in a few years, he remained in livestock sales the rest of his life.

The seemingly noble intentions of the developer, to create homes and a space for working class families just as inviting as what upper class families might enjoy, is undermined by the institutional racism of the day. You could enjoy the pedestrian court, and sit on your front porch at the end of a long, tiring day – but only if you were white. (It’s rare to find any neighborhood in Louisville developed between 1900 and 1948 that didn’t have deed restrictions based on skin color, ethnicity, or religious background. )***

This shotgun house at 407 Lawton Court was the home to the Edwards family – nine people in 1920.

Construction took a while to get going – the first houses didn’t go up until 1909. But by 1916, the small pedestrian court was virtually completed. In 1910,  Joseph Thomas Edwards, his wife Mary, and two children (a girl and a boy) are listed as living on Lawton Court  – I think they were renting a house. Edwards was a painter with the L&N Railroad. Three years later, they moved into 407 Lawton Court and became homeowners. By 1916, Joseph was promoted from the paint crew and was serving as a conductor – a good thing, because his family would grow to include seven children in all by 1920. Several of his L &N co-workers were also neighbors.

Another view of the houses of Lawton Court and their court.

Lawton Court is not the only pedestrian court in Louisville – but it is the only pedestrian court developed with shotgun houses and designed for working class residents. It  is a highly unusual and most compelling historic resource (and would be a great candidate for listing in the National Register of Historic Places). Unlike almost every other building in downtown Louisville, these houses are not oriented toward the street. They all face the inner court, a small patch of green and nature in a busy, mixed-use neighborhood. Historically, lumber yards were located on two sides of Lawton Court. A brewery was up the street, and most residents could walk to work, and then come home to a bit of an oasis at night.

The houses of Lawton Court tick all the boxes of trending stories: tiny houses, affordable houses, a walkable neighborhood, and the chance to live a more sustainable life within a manageable footprint. Lawton Court is what we should be saving and promoting. No, these aren’t fancy homes. But they have been the homes of people who helped keep Louisville running – and just as their stories deserve to be told, this wonderful historic pedestrian court should be landmarked and continue to provide much-needed housing in the decades to come.

* I deal with this on a daily basis. Not every building that meets the threshold of historic (50 years or older) is significant nor should it be preserved. Some old buildings are crap, just like a lot of new construction (the latter is often designed to last for 25 years and is abysmally ugly). Buildings that are 50 years or older must be significant on some level (usually defined as local, statewide, or national) and retain integrity. But – the greenest building IS the one that is already built.

**     In 1973, the Louisville Board of Alderman adopted a public preservation policy and created the Historic Landmarks and Preservation Districts Commission. It has been changed and modified several times since then, but the Landmark process is an important preservation tool.

***In 1948 the United States Supreme Court ruled that restrictions based on race were unenforceable, which set into motion the equal access to housing legislation.