courthouse
For most, history happens in the past. And, is boring – especially when your high school history teacher is the assistant football coach. At least, mine was. I did not wake up to history until I took my first college freshman American History course under the incomparable Dr. John D. Wright, Jr., at Transylvania College. (The institution did not take on the “university” moniker until 1970 in a failed attempt to establish an InterAmerican School of Business.) Those of you who studied under Dr. Thomas D. Clark at “our sister institution across the tracks” – as my debate coach, retired Army captain Richard Cutshaw, referred to the University of Kentucky, succinctly stating the historic and geographic relationship between Transylvania and UK – can understand the high regard I have for Dr. Wright.
Now, Dr. Wright was not the “Dr. Clark of Transylvania” any more than “Harvard University is the Transylvania of the East.” Both professors and historians existed equally in their own space, at essentially the same time.
It was Dr. Wright who taught me that history is a “story,” but only if it is well told. And, he did so, not just in the classroom, but as author of, among other titles, “Transylvania: Tutor to the West.” Institutional histories, particularly academic institutional histories, are often deadly. But Dr. Wright – having an assist from an exceptional institution that was born in exceptional times (the settlement of the West) with exceptional founders (among them, Thomas Jefferson), survived exceptional hardship (the War Between the States), served as the mother institution for three great schools (UK, the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and the University of Chicago School of Law), and emerged as a national leader in independent higher education – wove that story with wit and charm. While the succession of college presidents can read like the “begats” of the Bible, Dr. Wright made it work.
It’s a good read because Dr. Wright is a good writer. But let me return to my first statement: For most, history happens in the past.
However, as one wag has put it: “History is happening all around us. We just don’t know it, yet.”
In other words, something happened yesterday, this morning, a minute ago, this very instant, that students 150 years hence may well be reading about in their books.
And what will those students think of us as a people? Will they hold this generation in high regard for something we did? Or in shame for what we failed to do? Will we be the next “Greatest Generation”? Not likely. Will we be seen as myopic as my great-great grandfather and namesake, a slave holder and Confederate general? One hundred-fifty years on, many wonder how Thomas Jefferson could have written, “All men are created equal,” requiring a war four-score and seven years later to begin a process of a hundred years to make those words even remotely true.
One hundred-fifty years from now, how will we be judged? In the year 2162, will folks be debating, not our history of slavery from 300 years prior, but our dependence on 19thcentury fossil fuels to power our 21st-century society; fuels that led to an altered landscape and despoiled Gulf? Today, do we debate the Colonial affairs of 1712, or an America torn asunder in 1862?
Closer to home, we have another “history happens now” moment.
That moment centers on the future of the Old Courthouse. On July 13, 2012, the Lexington History Museum was closed to the public after high levels of lead were documented in the dome and basement, as well as measurable levels in other areas. On Sept. 10, the building was closed; temporarily, I would hope – but “temporary” can be defined, at worst, in years.
So, where is the “historic” moment here?
History happens when a moment occurs that affects future generations in some fundamental way. History happens when an idea sparks a movement that, no matter how daunting, engages the hearts and minds of committed zealots who band together and energize others to make great things happen.
I saw this personally when, having moved back to Lexington from Philadelphia in 1993, I became aware of the efforts of Isabel Yates and Jim Rebmann and something called “The Friends of McConnell Springs” to reclaim an overgrown mess in the middle of a light industrial area off Manchester Street that was the naming site of Lexington in 1775. Today, that dream is the crown jewel of Lexington’s city parks, with an education center second to none, thanks to the corporate support of Kentucky American Water Company and the former First Security Bank, among many others. Federal, state and local funds were secured to literally create something out of nothing.
The advantage of the Old Courthouse is we have something to create something so much better. The building is an iconic structure emblematic of urban Lexington as the horse country represents our community’s rural landscape.
The advantage of the Old Courthouse is that it sits at the center of a revitalized downtown social and cultural area.
The advantage of the Old Courthouse is that it is adjacent to the site of visionary adaptive reuse of the former First National Bank building (Kentucky’s first and long-time only skyscraper) as the innovative Hotel 21C.
The Old Courthouse was first “saved” in 1961, and again in 1971, as the interior was dramatically altered from its original 1900 design to assure the structure would survive into the 21st century. Other ideas were ventured along the way that would have drastically altered the exterior. Thankfully, the pristine Richardson Romanesque façade remains in place.
The dome interior, now sealed as “dangerous,” served as the sole source of the original color palette for the magnificently restored Scott County Courthouse, originally designed by the same Cleveland, Ohio, design firm.
In October 2003, Lexington exhibited a vision of creating the home of The Lexington History Museum in the Old Courthouse. That vision remains unfulfilled.
Now what?