Lexington, KY - by james millard | history Columnist
A new exhibit at the Lexington History Museum explores what our town was like in 1910 as its citizens marveled at the newfangled horseless carriage that began to replace horse-drawn carriages and wagons. Near the end of the first decade of the 20th century, some 500 automobiles were zipping about the city at the remarkable top-limit speed of 15 miles per hour. (There being no stop lights, the speed limit at intersections was five miles per hour.)
Downtown 100 years ago was a vastly different place than today. Stores offering merchandise of all kinds lined both sides of Main Street from Georgetown to Rose Streets. No fewer than 19 drug stores and 17 grocers were in or near the downtown area. A strong Jewish merchant class had thrived in Lexington since the late 19th century, spurring a shopping district that served not only the city, but surrounding counties and most of Eastern Kentucky. Downtown also sported three "skyscrapers" that survive to this day.
Getting to and around the city was no problem, even if one could not afford an automobile. Lexington was well served by a network of electric trolleys that ran from the West End on Georgetown Street to Woodland Park, and from the Kentucky Association Track on East Sixth Street at Shropshire Avenue to the Red Mile. The lines along Main Street and Broadway were double-track (a continuous loop from the end points) and a transfer station was located in the middle of Main just south of Cheapside.
By 1910, Lexington was connected by interurban rail to every nearby community of any note, except for Winchester and Richmond. Rail service was also offered by the Southern Railway to both Cincinnati and points south. The Chesapeake & Ohio connected Lexington to the East Coast, the Louisville & Nashville to the west, and the Lexington & Eastern to the mountains of Kentucky.
Rail passengers on the C&O, L&N and L&E called at the three-year-old Union Station on Main just east of the Phoenix Hotel (site of today's Phoenix Park and the Central Library). Those traveling on the Southern disembarked at that road's station on South Broadway (just west of today's railroad overpass). Because all tracks were at street level, with the exception of the viaducts on Jefferson and Harrison (now South Martin Luther King Blvd.), passenger trains stopped at Union Station, as well as long, slow freights, which "split the town."
Lexington was split in more serious ways: along deep racial divides. The city population of 35,000 included 11,000 African Americans. Beyond the city limits, the county population of 13,000 included almost 4,000 blacks. Because of segregation and Jim Crow laws, about a third of the people living in the city and county were underserved. Nearly everything in life was divided between "Whites Only" and "Coloreds." Stores, theatres, transportation, neighborhoods, schools, even parks, were strictly white or black. (The first park for blacks, Douglass Park, opened in 1906.) Water Street west of Union Station was called the "Colored Main Street" because of the number of black merchants located there.
Separate, too, were the city and county schools. The two school systems operated independently, and each were, again, divided along racial lines. In the city, Russell High School and three elementary schools were for black children. A new Lexington High School on the southeast corner of East Short and North Walnut (Martin Luther King Blvd.) that opened the year before,
complete with modern laboratories, was for white children only.
In 1910, Fayette County Schools began consolidating the many one-room school houses that dotted the rural areas. Glendale School, the first new multi-room school operated by the county opened on Spurr Road near Georgetown Pike (site of the former Lin-Lee School). Consolidation required better transportation, in this case, horse-drawn school buses.
State law required compulsory education for children 14 and under. In 1910, nearly 85 percent of all children in the city and county attended school, as did about 60 percent of 15-17 year-olds. There being no county high school, rural students dropped out after eighth grade, or paid tuition to attend the city high school. Sayre Female Academy was one of several private schools. There were two Roman Catholic elementary schools, but no high school.
As usual, politics were the damnedest in Lexington. William "Billy" Klair, often called "King Klair," would be the last of the city's "machine" bosses. His insurance company wrote the city's policies, ensuring his financial clout, which translated to cronyism, patronage jobs and a tight control on local government. Klair was also a force in state politics. Serving in the House of Representatives in 1910, he assured funding for the State University of Kentucky (U.K.), as well as the local schools and civic projects.
Lexington, as most of the state, was firmly in the control of the Democrats. In the fall of 1910, however, a reform slate backed by the Republicans took over city council, made up of councilmen and ward aldermen. The following year, voters would adopt the commission form of government that remained in place until the city and county governments merged in 1974.
Politics were the damnedest in Kentucky, too (no surprise, that). In 1894, the General Assembly granted women the right to vote in school board elections. Because so many black women were voting for Republicans, Klair had the law repealed in 1902. Thus, Kentucky is the only state to grant women the right to vote, then rescind that right.