Brick Streets and “The Great White Way”

Between 1912 and 1914, Winchester com­plet­ed projects to pave and install street lamps on Main Street.  The brick streets and Great White Way drew statewide and nation­al atten­tion to Winchester, regard­ed then as one of the most pro­gres­sive com­mu­ni­ties in the Commonwealth.  This is the sto­ry of how those endeav­ors came to fruition.

For most of its his­to­ry, Winchester res­i­dents trav­eled on unpaved streets that were at var­i­ous times a dusty nui­sance or mud­dy quag­mire.  The macadam streets, made of crushed, com­pact­ed rock, required con­stant, cost­ly maintenance—spraying with water or oil to keep the dust down or fill­ing in ruts and pot­holes.  Problems esca­lat­ed with the arrival of the automobile.

Cries from down­town mer­chants moved the city coun­cil to pass a brick street ordi­nance (1911).  It called for prop­er­ty own­ers to pay for paving based on their street frontage.  The plan includ­ed paving Main Street from French Avenue to the L&E bridge, as well as the Main cross streets for one block in both direc­tions.  The con­tract for Main Street went to Daniels, Lyste, and Douglas of Anderson, Indiana, on their bid of $35,555.  Paving com­menced in October 1912 and was com­plet­ed in December of that year.

One issue that arose dur­ing con­struc­tion had long-term con­se­quences for the appear­ance of down­town.  The steam plow exca­vat­ing the roadbed between Broadway and Lexington Avenue left the east side of Main much high­er than the street.  The city planned to install four sets of steps to access the side­walk.  Merchants pro­posed an alter­na­tive for deal­ing with the “east side cliff.” They called for one long, con­tin­u­ous stretch of steps par­al­lel­ing the side­walk from Broadway to Lexington Avenue.  These steps remained in place until the present High Side Project, now underway.

A side note:  The Winchester Sun referred to the steps as run­ning “along the East (or high) side of Main street.”  This was the first appear­ance of the term we use today for the “High Side of Main.”  I could not find the term in print again until the year 1980.

City fathers not­ed that the street in front of Union Depot was “in fright­ful con­di­tion.”  They con­vinced the L&N and C&O rail­roads to pave Depot Street with brick.  Today, this is the last sec­tion of brick paving (that I could find) left in Winchester.

For most of its his­to­ry, down­town Winchester was essen­tial­ly dark after the sun went down.  In 1912, for­mer Mayor John Garner pro­posed installing an elec­tric lamp post in front of the People’s State Bank in the Brown-Proctoria Hotel.  He placed an order for a three-globe lamp.  However, upon learn­ing that three globes were the sym­bol for a pawn­bro­ker, he changed the order for a post with a clus­ter of five white globes. 

Soon, the Commercial Club, mer­chants, and prop­er­ty own­ers began advo­cat­ing for a project to light all of Main Street with lamp posts bear­ing the five-globe clus­ter, cre­at­ing what they called a “Great White Way.”  Merchants offered to pay for the light fix­tures if the city would fund their oper­a­tion.  The city agreed.  Wiring was installed on both sides of Main from Lexington Avenue to the depot, and 250 white globes were ordered.

The globes were to be lit with mag­net­ic arc lamps sup­plied by Kentucky Utilities.  Arc lamps, invent­ed by Sir Humphry Davy in 1809, burned more than a hun­dred times brighter than incan­des­cent lamps.  Arc lamps had long been the tech­nol­o­gy of choice for elec­tric street light­ing.  The met­al stan­dards were man­u­fac­tured local­ly at the Love Foundry on East Washington.

The Great White Way had its inau­gur­al test on the night of January 3, 1914.  A great crowd was on hand to wit­ness the event.  The light­ing was greet­ed by much oo-ing and ah-ing, fol­lowed by an ova­tion from the spectators. 

After World War II, the icon­ic lights began to dis­ap­pear.  State offi­cials demand­ed more lumens along Main Street, so the old fix­tures were replaced by mod­ern street lights.  One orig­i­nal lamp post still stands on the north­west cor­ner of the cour­t­house square.  It was donat­ed to the city by descen­dants of James Love.

Five-globe lamps were rein­stalled on Main Street as part of a down­town beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project begun in 1982.  The fol­low­ing November, forty new lamps were light­ed before a parade wit­nessed by a crowd of near­ly ten thou­sand, said to have been the largest gath­er­ing ever in down­town Winchester.

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