Colored Orphan Industrial Home
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Colored Orphan Industrial Home. Led by Mrs. E. Belle Mitchell Jackson, orphan home opened here 1894. Orphans and other black youth learned to read and write and acquired a trade; also refuge for elderly women. By 1909 home consisted of 18 acres and 2 brick houses. Burned in 1912. A new building dedicated 1913; serves as Robert H. Williams Cultural Center.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Led by Mrs. E. Belle Mitchell Jackson, the Colored Orphan Industrial Home opened in Lexington in 1894 to shelter Black orphans and youth, who learned to read and write and acquired a trade, and it also gave refuge to elderly women. By 1909 the home had grown to 18 acres and two brick houses; after a fire in 1912, a new building was dedicated in 1913. That structure now serves as the Robert H. Williams Cultural Center.
Why it matters
Founded and run by African American women, the home reflects the self-help institutions Black communities built to care for their own during the harsh decades after Reconstruction.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · E. Belle Mitchell Jackson
- · Robert H. Williams
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Myrtle Weldon (1890–1971)
Lexington, KY
Myrtle Weldon spent three decades, beginning in 1924, building Kentucky's Home Economics Extension program from a modest corps of 23 agents into a statewide network of 110. Trained in home economics, she led the effort that founded the Kentucky Federation of Homemakers in 1932. Her work grew from a movement that began in 1914, when the first county agents taught rural families the practical arts of canning, food safety, and preservation.
First Baptist Church
Frankfort, KY
In 1833, at a time when Black and white worshippers still shared a single Frankfort congregation, John Ward and Ziah Black led the founding of a separate Baptist church for the city's African American community. Members met in private homes before raising their first building on land Ward donated, and the present sanctuary rose beginning in 1904. Over the generations the congregation became a training ground for religious, educational, and civic leaders.
First Christian Church of Frankfort
Frankfort, KY
Founded in December 1832 by the noted minister-educator Philip S. Fall, this congregation belonged to the Restoration Movement whose champion, Alexander Campbell, preached from its pulpit. After fire destroyed the church in 1870, philanthropist Emily T. Tubman funded a new building, part of which survives in the sanctuary completed in 1924.
Paul Sawyier Public Library
Frankfort, KY
Frankfort's public library owes its start to Lilian Lindsey, who founded it in 1908; it opened in the McClure Building and was run by the Frankfort Woman's Club until 1965, moving through several homes including the Old State House. In 1955 the Franklin County Homemakers Clubs launched a countywide bookmobile, which merged with the library a decade later. The combined institution was named the Paul Sawyier Public Library in honor of the well-known Kentucky artist, and a new building opened in 2006.