Category: Places
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Poynterville: Winchester’s First Subdivision
Following the Civil War, ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865 abolished slavery in the United States. Free blacks would experience difficult times in post-war Clark County. The majority of men worked for wages as farm laborers, the women in domestic service, and most families lived in extreme poverty. Comparing the 1860 and 1870…
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McEldowney Building restoration nearing completion
Downtown Winchester is experiencing something of a renaissance with the opening of new restaurants, boutique shops, a microbrewery, and even a distillery. Largely overlooked, however, is one of its biggest restoration projects, the McEldowney Building. The tallest commercial building in the heart of downtown had seen better days when two young investors, Adam Kidd, and…
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The Parking Lots of Winchester, part three
Another Winchester icon was lost when Hickman Street School at the corner of Highland was razed after more than 80 years of service. The school stood on the site of the county’s first educational institution, the Winchester Academy, incorporated in 1798. The old building was replaced by the six-room Hickman Street School in 1890. Ten…
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McMillan’s Spring
McMillan’s Spring is located near the bridge on Old Boonesboro Road a little south of Heather Lane. On the east side of the bridge, a small stream flows into Lower Howard’s Creek through a handsome water gap with two stone posts. The spring lies a short distance up that small stream. Kentucky’s pioneer settlers were…
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The Parking Lots of Winchester, part two
The building (with the arrow pointing to it) at the northwest corner of Wall and Cleveland was erected before 1886. City directories indicate that the Central Kentucky Natural Gas Company occupied this building from 1907 through 1958. The company, incorporated in 1905, serviced customers in Central Kentucky from their natural gas fields in Menifee and…
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Black Hoof
Indian Old Fields is one of the most historic places in Clark County. Geographically situated in the extreme eastern end of the county, it is a 3,500-acre plain of fertile soils perched between Lulbegrud Creek and Upper Howard’s Creek. The area can be reached from Winchester by Highway 15 or the Mountain Parkway. Native Americans…
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The Parking Lots of Winchester, part one
The building that caused the greatest uproar in Winchester when it was razed was the old railroad station on Depot Street. The depot was built in 1907 as a joint passenger station for the C&O and L&N railroads. The Kentucky Heritage Commission declared that the station “is one of the richest and most authentic in…
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The First Town in Clark County
On December 6, 1792 the Kentucky legislature divided parts of Fayette and Bourbon County to form the new county of Clark, named after the famous Revolutionary War hero, George Rogers Clark. Eleven days later, the legislature approved an act establishing the town of Mount Sterling. It may come as a surprise to some, but Winchester,…
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Cultural History of Allen Chapel
Several years before Emancipation, a black congregation formed and began meeting in the basement of the First Methodist Church (white) located at the corner of Lexington Avenue and Wall Alley. In February 1866 the congregation acquired a building lot in the name of the “AME Church of Winchester.” Leaders of the movement were John Allen,…
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The Last Commander of Fort Fremont: Capt. Charles D. Winn
I had never heard of Fort Fremont until last week at yoga class when Vincent and Zella Rosenthal handed me a Friends of Fort Fremont newsletter they brought back from their South Carolina vacation. The fort, erected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1899, formed part of the coastal defenses built during the…