Ben Williamson Supply Company began in 1886 in Catlettsburg in a two-story building on Front Street. It provided the area with Blacksmith tools, logging equipment, hardware, chain, cross cut saws, and ox shoes. The business assisted in the increase of trade up and down the Catlettsburg area and provided access to goods that were not as readily available. Due to the increased business, it moved to a brand new two-story location in Catlettsburg and hired a traveling salesman.&nbsp;<br><br>The traveling salesman increased the ability to trade further out from Catlettsburg and into the Ashland area, bringing in more customers and more significant sales. By 1912, after Ashland became a dominant industry town, the company moved to their new location downtown. They bought Henderson Hardware, remodeled it, and started selling until they were able to afford a new building again.&nbsp;<br><br><div>&nbsp;In 1921, they constructed the new building on the corner of 16th Street and Greenup Avenue. Their profits increased to the point that they were able to hire sixty employees, fourteen of which were traveling salesmen. They covered three acres of land in downtown Ashland after the purchase of warehouses to increase their supply. It was the second largest hardware store between Pittsburgh and Louisville at its peak. <br></div><div><br></div>

Ben Williamson Supply Company stood as the second largest hardware store between Pittsburgh and Louisville. It started as a small two-story building on Front Street in Catlettsburg in 1886. They provided a variety of tools, and as the business grew, it moved to a larger building in 1907. The owners were able to hire a traveling salesman to increase their market to the area surrounding the Big Sandy River, which included Ashland. They moved the business to Ashland 1912 before building their larger supply store and warehouse in 1921.

Ben Williamson Supply Company

A work in progress, this walking tour starts at Ashland's Central Park and winds its way through the historic downtown with stops at historic landmarks, iconic buildings, and cultural institutions such as the Paramount.

Ashland Kentucky Historical Walking Tour

This walking tour starts at Ashland's Central Park and winds its way through the historic downtown with stops at historic landmarks, iconic buildings, and cultural institutions such as the Paramount.

<b></b>George, Robert, and Robert Poage left Virginia in 1799 on a land grant from Governor James Garrard of Virginia. The land along the Big Sandy River only had a few settlements on it, and the land was cheap to purchase. The Poages went and found a section of land that was suitable for agriculture and building. They cleared the land, and once their farms were founded, they sent word back to Virginia, and the rest of the family started to pack and make their way west.&nbsp;<br><br>The prolific nature of the Poages meant that their families claimed a large swath of land, which caused some contention between other settlers coming to the area. Poorly kept records meant that the families coming into the region had to find a way to settle the land differences between them. By doing so, the Poages increased their holdings in the area and divided among the different branches of the family.&nbsp;<br><br>The Poage Settlement became Poage's Landing, which developed around the industries of agriculture, timber, and pig-iron. They found the iron ore while building their farms and used the first furnace, Argillite, (founded by Richard Deering and Thomas Trimble), to convert ore into usable iron. This led to additional ironmasters opening their own furnaces, and surplus was shipped down the Ohio River for sale.&nbsp;<br><br>Poage's Landing was not the center of industry on this part of the Ohio River; that title belonged to Catlettsburg. When the Lexington Railroad company moved to extend its lines to the area, they were going to bypass Poage's Landing entirely for Catlettsburg. Daniel Weiss, a notable lawyer from Louisa,&nbsp;knew that if the railroad did not come through Poage's Landing, their industry and businesses would suffer. This led him to meet up with several other prominent members of Poage's Landing and create the Kentucky Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company. This development company allowed the purchase of land for a railroad that went to Poage's Landing before Catlettsburg.&nbsp;<br><br><div>After the railroad went through, the town boomed with industry and business and was renamed "Ashland." The house is the oldest in Ashland and was moved to its current location in Ashland Central Park from&nbsp;621 12th Street.</div><div><br></div>

This log cabin belonged to the Poage family, who founded the town of Ashland. Known as Poage Landing before it was renamed, they were the first settlers to reach this spot on the Big Sandy River. The family traveled from Virginia to join the pioneer movement that was heading west. Ashland soon flourished into a thriving town, with industries based around coal, pig iron, and timber. 

Poage Family Home

<p>In the middle of Ashland Central Park, there are six conical shaped Native American burial mounds. The three to six foot tall mounds are arranged in a slightly curved line running northwest to southeast. They average fifteen feet in diameter. The mounds were first documented by well-known Kentucky archaeologists William S. Webb and W.D. Funkhouser in 1932. These mounds were created by a civilization of prehistoric Native Americans known as the Adena Culture.</p>

<p>It is important to note that “Adena” is not the name that these prehistoric Native American called themselves. It is only the term by which archaeologists refer to them based on their material remains and cultural practices. The name “Adena” comes from the estate of Governor Thomas Worthington in Chillicothe, Ohio. On his estate, there was a large mound that was one of the first Adena mounds to be excavated. It is very likely that we will never know what these peoples truly called themselves.</p>

<p>The Adena culture thrived in Southern Ohio, Western West Virginia, and Kentucky from 800 B.C. to around 1000 A.D. The predecessors and ancestors of the Adena peoples, known as the Archaic Culture, were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who subsisted primarily on hunting wild animals and finding plants to eat. They would travel in relatively small groups and live in temporary campsites throughout the year. However, around 800 B.C., these peoples began to become less mobile and created new technologies. Scientists begin to refer this time as the beginning of the Adena Culture. The fact that they were the first people in the region to settle in small villages, cultivate crops, make pottery, establish trade over long distances with other Native Americans, and began creating mounds and other earthworks to bury their dead and use for ceremonies is what differentiates the Adena Culture from their ancestors.</p>

<p>It is believed that the reason the Adena peoples gave up their highly mobile hunting and gathering lifestyle is that they learned how to farm, and they began creating pottery. Adena peoples lived in small villages near their gardens and cultivated a variety of native plants, including squash, sunflower, sumpweed, goosefoot, knotweed, and maygrass. They used the pottery vessels they made to cook these crops and also to store them for future use. Having a stable food source nearby and the ability to store and save food made it possible for the Adena to stay in one place for longer periods of time.</p>

<p>After becoming more sedentary, the Adena began building mounds and earthworks near their villages. These monuments ranged from small conical burial mounds (like the mounds in Ashland's Central Park) to large and elaborate geometric earthworks, which were used for special rituals and ceremonies. There are several more documented mounds and earthworks near Ashland; one of most well-known is the large mound at Candem Park, just outside of Huntington, West Virginia. Hundreds of other Adena mounds and earthworks have been documented over a large geographical region.</p>

<p>In 1974 the mounds in Ashland Central Park were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, a historical marker is located at the site. The mounds are open to the public at all hours. There is a small chain fence surrounding the mounds and visitors are asked to please be respectful and do not climb on the mounds.&nbsp;</p>

In Ashland Central Park, there is a group of six prehistoric Native American burial mounds. Ranging from four to six feet tall, the mounds are arranged in a slightly curved line. They were first documented in 1932. The mounds were created by a group of prehistoric Native American people named the Adena Culture. The Adena Culture, commonly called "the mound-builders", thrived in the region from 800 B.C. to around 100 A.D. They lived in small villages, grew crops, hunted, made pottery, traded goods with other Native Americans, and built sometimes large and intricate mounds and earthworks. 

Adena Mounds at Ashland Central Park

<p>The history of large hotels in Ashland dates back to 1856 when the Aldine opened at 15th and Front Street. The Aldine was first large hotel in the region and had seventy-five guestrooms and one common bathroom for guests to use. Similar to many large hotels in the Border States, the Aldine served as a hospital during the Civil War. By 1896, the aging Aldine had been surpassed by newer and grander hotels such as the Ventura. Although the Aldine closed its doors, the city was once again home to a major hotel in 1930 with the opening of the Henry Clay Hotel.<br></p><p>Constructed in 1856 by the Kentucky Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company, the Aldine included seventy-five rooms and one separate bathroom that was reserved for women. Records indicate that at the time of its opening, the&nbsp;amenities of this bathroom for women were limited without&nbsp;any tile work and no functioning warm water.&nbsp; The hotel improved along with the growth of the city. During the height of its popularity, the Aldine&nbsp;was one of the few locations that could accommodate large numbers of guests, and so it became one of the centers of the town's early social scene.</p><p>During the Civil War, the hotel served a different purpose. When the war came to Kentucky, the Aldine was converted into the Kentucky 18th Brigade hospital in 1861, only five years after the opening of the hotel. The hospital remained open for four years and hired local women to assist the physicians and nurses. This was a part of a larger movement by Union women who helped whenever and however they could during the war in ways that both reinforced and challenged the antebellum notion of gender roles as women performed relief and domestic service but did so outside of the home.&nbsp;The hospital at the Aldine was aided by the women of the&nbsp;Greenup Aid Society, an organization led by local women who&nbsp;washed and cleaned linens and&nbsp;helped create new bedsheets and shirts for the wounded.&nbsp;</p><p>After the end of the Civil War, the Aldine remained operational until 1896 when the Ventura opened its doors for business. The Ventura was a brand-new hotel with one hundred rooms and additional facilities to provide for guests. This marked the decline of Aldine.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

 The Henry Clay hotel became the largest in the city when it opened in 1930. The hotel operated until 1975 and closed similar to many other downtown hotels facing increased competition from interstate hotel chains and declining railroad traffic that also reduced business for downtown hotels that were often located near railroad depots. The former hotel was remodeled and converted to the present apartment complex known as the Henry Clay House. 

Henry Clay Hotel (1930-1975) and Henry Clay House

During the late 1800s, Ashland experienced an&nbsp;economic boom that facilitated the building of the First Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ. The Paoge&nbsp;Settlement, named for the founding family of Ashland, saw its growth from the pig-iron and coal shipping industries. With the expansion of railroads into the settlement, the economic center of downtown Ashland boomed. Where the economy was booming, religion was taking a downturn in the public life of Ashland.<br><br>With the Great Revival in Kentucky, people started to incorporate religion back into their day-to-day lives. There was a significant increase in the different congregations in Ashland, which included an increase in the number of churches. The First Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ, a denomination that was indigenous to Kentucky, organized after several tent meetings. Upon their creation, they used rented spaces to hold their services until the treasurer helped start the process for a more permanent structure.<br><br>Elizabeth Hager (nee White) was the treasurer of&nbsp;the church and suggested her sister Laura White be the architect&nbsp;for the new building. White was considered unusual for her day. She held a degree from the University of Michigan and tried her hand at architecture, painting, and surveying. She was remarkable because she also studied architecture at the Massesschusitts Insitute of Technology and the Sorbonne in France. She designed the church to reflect a Gothic revival that helped it stand out in the flourishing economic district. Although she was not paid, the pastor and the congregation celebrated her work.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>As the church grew, it needed a new facility, causing the church leadership to sell the building to Christian Scientists in 1913. It maintained its operation as a church until their numbers failed to maintain the structure. It was later purchased again and remains in use for smaller businesses and outreach programs.&nbsp;

One of the last remnants of the fashionable neighborhoods of the commercial district of Ashland, the First Christian Church is one of the first churches of Ashland. With its neo-Gothic design, it was the home of the Ashland Disciples of Christ until 1913 when it outgrew the structure. It was designed by Laura White, a Michigan University graduate, and was one of the few buildings designed by a female architect in Ashland. It was a symbol of the economic and religious boom that Ashland experienced in the late 1800s. 

First Christian Church of Ashland

As Ashland and Catlettsburg grew as major cities on the Ohio River,&nbsp;the delivery method of information grew with it. There were multiple newspaper companies between Catlettsburg and Ashland including the Catlettsburg Daily Press, Ashland Daily News, and the Tri-State Independent. The Tri-State Independent was the predecessor of the Daily Independent and operated out of Catlettsburg.&nbsp;<br><br>The paper moved to the Ashland area in 1900 to compete with the Ashland Daily, and it published its first issue in the same year. As the Tri-State Independent grew in popularity, it slowly absorbed both Ashland Daily and the Catlettsburg Daily Press, which led it to become the largest newspaper in the area. In 1912, the newly minted Daily Independent constructed its first building on 17th Street in Ashland. The building doubled in size during the1925 remodel.&nbsp;<br><br><div>The Daily Independent grew with the town and only stopped production once, and that was during the great flood of 1937. The Ohio River made it impossible to even get to the first floor of the building. It maintained printing capacity even after the company was sold to the Dow Jones Inc. It covered more areas, and by the 2000s, it covered the greater Tri-State area.&nbsp; <br></div><div><br></div>

Serving the greater area of Ashland, the Daily Independent had its roots in Catlettsburg. It started as the Tri-State Independent in 1895 in Catlettsburg, before moving to Ashland to compete with the Ashland Daily News. Once it moved to Ashland, it slowly bought out and absorbed the rest of the newspaper companies in the area. It is still the main newspaper for the Ashland area, even after it was bought out by the Dow Jones Inc. 

Ashland Daily Independent

The Old Post Office was built at a time when Ashland was a growing metropolitan area and needed a grand post office that would demonstrate its status as a center of communication and commerce. The post office was built in 1916 and expanded as part of a New Deal work project in the 1930s. Ashland used the post office until the early 1980s when the government began construction on a more modern and efficient post office. <br><br>The post office has held an engineering firm,&nbsp;a bookstore, the Jesse Stuart Foundation, and several other businesses. The building currently houses Steen's Military Museum, which offers exhibits and artifacts related to the military&nbsp;from the French and Indian War to the modern era. Steen has been working on opening a military museum after twenty years of planning and collecting.&nbsp;The Steen family operates the building and the museum, with most items in the museum coming from their extensive collection of firearms and uniforms. The Steen family also provides the historic cannons that can be seen around downtown Ashland through their own cannon foundry.&nbsp;<br><br><div>Along with providing ease of access for visitors to see the military memorabilia, they provide a large venue for local events as well. This adds to the diversity of downtown Ashland by providing a new and historical place to host events and business functions. <br></div><div><br></div>

This historic structure served as the Ashland Post Office until it was replaced by the current post office in the early 1980s. The building was constructed in 1916 and expanded in 1933 as part of a New Deal work program. The newly-expanded facility was dedicated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Following the construction of the city's new post office, the building was sold to an engineering firm and later became the home of a bookstore. The current owner, Marshall Steen, operates a small military history museum here and also rents the building for special events.

Old Post Office and Steen's Military Museum, Ashland

<p>Visitors to the Kentucky Highlands Museum and Discovery Center can explore a 19th-century classroom where they can learn what it was like to be a student in the 1870s. Visitors&nbsp;can also see what it would take to actually see a doctor or have a doctor make a house call. As part of the Country Music Highway, the museum includes exhibits related to the history of folk and country music in Eastern Kentucky.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Beyond the permanent exhibits, the museum hosts a variety of temporary exhibits and thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities and other federal programs that bring historical exhibits to local museums, the museum has also hosted a variety of Smithsonian traveling exhibits.</p><br>

Founded in 1983, the Kentucky Highlands Museum and Discovery Center was created to be a cultural and historical center for the Ashland area. The museum holds a variety of exhibits that preserve and share the history of eastern Kentucky from Native American inhabitants and early explorers and settlers of European heritage to the growth and decline of heavy industry and coal extraction. The museum includes a special area for young children as well as special exhibits and events throughout the year drawn from the museum's collection of artifacts and items loaned to the museum. The organization hopes to create a cultural tourism destination and is part of the Country Music Highway.  

Highlands Museum and Discovery Center 

<p>The significance of this church, beyond being one of the oldest buildings in Boyd County, was its contributions to the education of early Ashland and assisting soldiers during the Civil War. Reverend John Clark Bayless imposed several innovations to the church program such as prayer meetings, Sunday School, regular quarterly communions, and regular collections. It was also under his ministry that the church re-opened the academy established by the second church. It was renamed the Beechgrove Academy and assisted in providing educational services to the community of Ashland. During the Civil War, it aided soldiers in both Kentucky and West Virginia even though they lived in a border state.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The present building is the third building in the sequence of churches. The original church was a log structure built in 1819 and used until 1828. It was the church founded by the Poage family, who would later donate the land that the second church was built on. When it came time to build the third church, they would accept an offer from the Kentucky Iron and Coal Manufacturing Company for a plot of land. The deal was that they would provide land to any church or school that could build a facility under $2,500.</p><div>Construction on the impressive Victorian structure began in 1857. The original building was small, only having two doors that lead inside the and the vestibule consisting of two small aisles and room for an organ. In 1919, they wanted to move forward with enlarging the church to contain an auditorium and classroom locations. During this reconstruction, they also raised money to include the stained-glass windows that exist in the building today. To achieve this goal, they encouraged children to host plays, sell produce, and seek donations to help raise money.</div><div><br></div>

One of the oldest buildings still in use in Boyd County, the First Presbyterian Church remains one of the most prominent churches in Ashland. It was founded by the Poage family in 1819 as a log structure several miles from its current location. The church went through three building phases, which would lead to the current structure in Ashland. It is known for its mid-Victorian structure and stained glass windows. 

First Presbyterian Church

The turn of the century in Ashland coincided with the creation of several theaters in Ashland from vaudeville halls and opera houses of the 19th century to the movie theaters of the 20th century. Dan Norton opened the first moving picture show in Ashland known as Dreamland. The building sat close to Front Street where the bulk of the business came from the local docks on the Ohio River. It closed only after three years, but it started a trend of building new and better theaters. Along with these theaters, production companies were popping up to gain their foothold, including the Columbia Amusement Company. The Columbia Amusement Company specialized in traveling vaudeville and burlesque shows.&nbsp;<br><br>After Dreamland, S.L. Martin opened the Edisonia in 1905 that was located in a farmhouse on the north side of Greenup Avenue. It was one of the first of five theaters owned by the Columbia Amusement Company. In 1921 a new building replaced the farmhouse and hosted additional shows. It inevitably closed in 1932. The next theater to operate out of this building was the Rand Theater&nbsp;in the 1950s.&nbsp;<br><br>In 1906 saw the opening of two new theaters, the Majestic and Broadway. These two were built on 16th Street and Greenup Avenue and were vaudeville houses. The theaters did not stay open for long, but the building remained as a pool hall until 1971. Two other theaters opened after that in 1910, one being the Columbia Theater. This was the second theater owned by the Columbia Amusement Company.<br><br>The Columbia Theater was one of the most popular theaters in Ashland. During the winter season it had vaudeville and road shows playing, and during the summer season, they had movies. The Columbia Theater replaced a saloon that closed when Ashland converted to a dry city in 1910. After the Columbia Theater closed,&nbsp;it was converted to the Henry Howes Plumbing store. At this time, Ashland residents could also attend the&nbsp;Colonial Theater on Winchester Avenue This short-lived business was replaced by the Senic Theater 1911.&nbsp;<br><br>The growth of the south side of Ashland also meant the growth of streetcars which&nbsp;made it possible to bring residents of the city to the downtown area-the hub of the city's streetcars.&nbsp;C.C. Moore built the Lyric theater in 1915. This theater&nbsp;was moved and renamed the Family Theater in 1931. The Modern Theater opened in 1915 and was part of the Columbia Amusement Company until it closed in 1929.&nbsp;<br><br>The tail end of theater building started to emerge with the opening of the Ashland Theater in the Opera House building. At this point, Columbia Amusement Company started to lease out their properties and the last theater before the Paramount Theater was in the Arcadia building. It was called the Capitol Theater and closed in 1979.&nbsp;<br>

With the growth of the city and region during the oil and gas boom at the turn of the century, downtown Ashland was home to numerous theaters. 16th and Greenup became home to two vaudeville theaters, the Majestic and Broadway Theaters, in 1906. At this location in 1910, the Columbia Theater was constructed and offered Hollywood movies until its closure in 1928.

The Columbia Theater (1910-1928) and the Theaters of Downtown Ashland

<p>The Great Depression also changed the plans for the theater. Paramount wanted to abort the project, but the plans were instead picked up by an Ashland-based company, and the theater&nbsp;was leased to Paramount Publix Corporation. The original&nbsp;plan for the Paramount Theatre was reduced in scale in response to the economic&nbsp;crisis, however, and the theater today is about one-third of the size of the original plan.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br></p>

<p>Paramount Publix Corporation had planned to build one “perfect movie house” in every state of the union. Theaters that utilized a similar design to Ashland's Paramount were constructed in Denver; Oakland; Seattle; Aurora, Illinois; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Abilene, Texas; Bristol, Tennessee; Washington; Charlottesville, Virginia; Anderson, Indiana; Austin, Texas; and Springfield, Massachusetts.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The Paramount retired as a movie theatre&nbsp;forty years later in 1971. The Greater Ashland Foundation was created in 1972 and purchased the Paramount to preserve and repurpose the historic building. The organization established a performing arts center and reopened the theater as the “Paramount Arts Center” in that same year. The theater operates as a non-profit organization with symphonies, plays, ballets, and other productions. Local-musician-turned-national-touring-act Billy Ray Cyrus selected the Paramount as the setting for the music video for his 1992 hit "Achy Breaky Heart."</p><p><br></p>

The Paramount Theatre opened its doors on September 5, 1931. At its genesis, Paramount was designed as a house for silent films. Before the construction of the theater was complete, however, "talkies" had arrived, and the theater's managers altered their original plans to accommodate the new "talking pictures." As a result, this was one of the first transitional theaters intentionally built to host sound pictures, and it became a model theater for others all around the country. The theater showed films from Paramount Studios and its first showing, ironically, was for the film Silent. 

Paramount Arts Center

<p>Four years after the founding of Ashland, Reverend Christopher Seals established the St. James AME Church and had a church building constructed on the corner of Carter and 11th streets. At the time, this AME congregation was the first to take advantage of the offer from the Kentucky Iron, Coal and Manufacturing Co. to give land away to any group that would construct a church in Ashland.</p><p>In 1905, the original frame building was moved to the corner of Carter and 12th. Seven years later, a brick and stone church was built adjacent to the frame. Since then, the latter has been demolished.</p><p>Still in operation, the church building is seen as a significant symbol of social accomplishment for the local African-American community. <br></p><p><br></p>

This historic Black church is one of the first buildings constructed in the city of Ashland, aligning with the denomination of African Methodist Episcopal. It was established by Reverend Christopher Seals four years after the founding of Ashland, standing tall still despite wear and time. 

St. James AME Church

The discovery of pig-iron and coal in the Poage's Landing area launched the settlement into an industrial frenzy. Iron furnaces started appearing on the land, and their ability to produce so much in excess led to them shipping the iron down the Ohio River. To ease the transportation of goods to further markets, Poage's Landing wanted access to the railroads. When the discussion of a railroad through Catlettsburg first started, Daniel Weiss voiced his concerns over the Lexington Railroad completely bypassing Poage's Landing.&nbsp;<br><br>This led to the creation of Kentucky&nbsp;Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company. Its creation was the brainchild of Daniel Weiss and several prominent members of Poage's Landing; they purchased the land to build a railroad that went straight to Poage's Landing, then to Catlettsburg. After the approval of the state, they started construction. Once the railroad reached completion, K.I.C and M. Co. sold the remaining land in lots to the people of Poage's Landing. Once Poage's Landing became Ashland, the company provided land to any public building that was constructed for two thousand dollars or less. The growth and structure of Ashland relied heavily&nbsp;on Kentucky Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company.<br><br><div>The Ashland Coal and Iron Company took control of Kentucky Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company during the early years of the 1900s. It secured industry for the people of Ashland and provided the ability to fund the construction of new buildings and offices.&nbsp; <br></div><div><br></div>

The Ashland Coal and Iron Railroad Office and Company Store were major areas of industry for turn-of-the-century Ashland. Taking over the Kentucky Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company, they helped with the transportation and sale of industrial goods such as pig-iron and timber. The Kentucky Iron, Coal, and Manufacturing Company assisted in the growth of industry in Poage Landing and Ashland. With the extension of the railroad through Poage's Landing, they became one of the largest industrial hubs between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. 

Ashland Coal and Iron Railroad Office 

<p>Booker T. Washington School was constructed in 1903 at Seventh Street and Central Avenue. The small brick school was led by principal J. J. Rogers with Effie Carter and another instructor serving as teachers.&nbsp;The Booker T. Washington School grew to serve grades 1-8. The Ashland and Cattlesburg school for Africa American students merged in 1912. Although this may have created hardship for students and parents that had to travel a long distance to attend this school, the increase in students allowed for the creation of more classes.</p><p>In 1922 C. B. Nuchols, a former instructor at the Taylor County Industrial High School for Negroes, became the principal. Nuchols added an industrial department along with a two-year high school curriculum. In order to accommodate the new courses, two additional rooms were added and two more teachers were hired between 1922 and 1923. The first high school graduation was held in 1925. During this time, Catlettsburg students in the 8th grade could go on to high school at Ashland at a cost of $30 per semester.&nbsp;</p><p>In 1927, a teacher/football coach/voice teacher was hired at the Booker T. Washington School. In 1931, the two year high school became a four year high school, one of the 16 approved Negro high schools in eastern Kentucky. There were 179 students at the Booker T. Washington School in 1932, and 28 of the students were in high school. The school housed the school and the&nbsp;public library for African Americans as the main city library also practiced racial segregation.&nbsp;</p>

Now home to a small parking lot, this was once the location of Booker T. Washington School, a segregated school that served the Black community of Ashland prior to the integration of the public school system. The school dates back to 1903. Prior to 1922, when the city created the first high school program for African American students in the area, Black families who wished for their children to continue their education past the 8th grade had no option but to send their children to live with relatives in other cities. During these first two decades, the school expanded from an elementary school to include a two-year high school, and eventually, a regular four-year high school program. 

The school closed in 1962 as the city worked to integrate its facilities eight years after being legally required to end segregation by the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board. In Ashland and other communities throughout the region, most of the public schools remained segregated through the late 1950s if not longer. In Ashland, the end of school segregation came as local residents petitioned for full integration, citing the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision that required an end to racial segregation in public schools.

Ashland Kentucky Historical Walking Tour

Ben Williamson Supply Company

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources