Sunday Continued 4/27/2009

After we left Churchill Downs we drove down into the Old Louisville Historic District which is close to the University of Louisville in Freedom Park for a cache at the Confederate Monument. The Confederate Monument in Louisville is a 70-foot-tall monument adjacent to and surrounded by the University of Louisville Belknap Campus in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Owned by the city of Louisville, the monument commemorates the sacrifice of Confederate veterans. As with many monuments to the Confederacy, some community activists, such as Louisville's Reverend Louis Coleman, have called for the removal of the monument from such a prominent location due to its association with the history of civil rights abuses against African-Americans, however both the city and university oppose such proposals. In 2002, the University announced plans to add civil rights monuments around the statue as part of its redevelopment as "Freedom Park", but funding was not secured until late 2008. Completed in 1895, the Confederate Monument in Louisville was built with funding from the Kentucky Women's Confederate Monument Association, costing $12,000. Its dedication was on May 6, 1895, done so quickly in order to coincide with the 29th Grand Army of the Republic annual reunion.
Initially, the monument was built away from the University's campus at 3rd and Shipp Streets, but was moved in 1954 when the Eastern Parkway viaduct over the campus was built.[4] During the 1920s and 1940s there were plans to remove the monument for road construction, until public sentiment saved it. In fact, in 1947 Louisville mayor Charles P. Farnsley, a fighter for civil rights, took a gun and made a public announcement on his wishes to keep the monument where it was.[5] In 2002 plans were initiated to make it part of a "Freedom Park", with trees transplanted from Civil War battlefields.[6] On November 17, 2008, funding was approved for such a park, with the Kentucky state government using $1.6 million of federal funds and the university spending $403,000. Louisville sculptor Ed Hamilton has been selected to make a civil rights monument to counter the Confederate Monument; Hamilton has already made an Abraham Lincoln memorial statue in Louisville.
It is located at the intersection of 2nd and 3rd Streets. It is the largest Civil War monument in Kentucky. It is built of granite, with the German Ferdinand von Miller-designed Confederate soldiers (an artillerist, a cavalryman, and an infantryman) made of bronze. The base had a diameter 48 feet when first established, but has been reduced. It was originally to be designed by Louisville sculptor Enid Yandell, but the fact that Yandell was a woman caused a scandal, and instead the monument was done by the Muldoon Monument Company. The monument was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997. We found this cache and we were off to the next one.
Next was a cache in very very small cemetery called Fort George right in the middle of a neighborhood in the Old Louisville Historic District. It was bordered by a black wrought iron fence and had on 2 gravesites in it. Fort George was to commemorate the burial ground of George Gray, 1739-1822, a pioneer of our own Kentucky, a captain of the 3rd VA infantry in the Revolutionary War, he eqipped and maintained a company of soldiers at his own expense, and was a friend and neighbor of George Washington. There were only the 2 grave sites there, that of George Gray and his wife Mildred Rootes Gray.
After finding that cache it was time to drive around and see some of the Old Louisville Historic District. Old Louisville is a historic district and neighborhood in central Louisville, Kentucky, USA. It is the third largest such district in the United States, and the largest preservation district featuring almost entirely Victorian architecture. It is also unique in that a majority of its structures are made of brick, and the neighborhood contains the highest concentration of residential homes with stained glass windows in the U.S. Many of the buildings are in the Victorian-era styles of Romanesque, Queen Anne, Italianate, among others; and a large number of blocks have had few or no buildings razed. There are also several 20th century buildings from 15 to 20 stories.
Old Louisville consists of about 48 city blocks and is located north of the University of Louisville's main campus and south of Broadway and Downtown Louisville, in the central portion of the modern city. The neighborhood hosts the renowned St. James Court Art Show on the first weekend in October.
Despite its name, Old Louisville was actually built as a suburb of Louisville starting in the 1870s, nearly a century after Louisville was founded. It was initially called the Southern Extension, and the name Old Louisville did not come until the 1960s. Old Louisville was initially home to some of Louisville's wealthiest residents, but saw a decline in the early and mid-20th century. Following revitalization efforts and gentrification, Old Louisville is currently home to a diverse population with a high concentration of students, young professionals, and Hipsters. We drove around for almost half an hour looking at all the beautiful homes and churches and taking lots of pictures as you can see.