Free My Old Confederate Home by Rusty Williams Page B

inspect each of the properties and report to the board. 28
    By the end of July, with more than forty proposals in hand, the Committee on Visitation reported they wished to “respectfully call attention” to sites in Owensboro, Louisville, Frankfort, Bardstown, Harrodsburg, Hawesville, and Pewee Valley. The committee recommended that the full board physically examine each of the sites. 29
    Thursday, September 4, was a marathon travel and deliberation day for the board of trustees. Nine members boarded the train in Louisville at 6:00 A.M. They met the remaining trustees in Owensboro and were touring the properties there by 8:00 A.M. Back on the train an hour later, they made a brief stopover at Hawesville, then sped off for Frankfort. With barely enough time to walk the four blocks from the rail station to the proposed property and back, the fifteen men then caught the Harrodsburg train, then the shortline to Bardstown. Leaving Bardstown, they connected at Anchorage for the quick ride out to Pewee Valley and returned to a private dining room at the Galt House in Louisville that evening for a final vote. 30
    There was little need for discussion; they had talked on board the train. At that point, the board of trustees had about $10,000 in solid subscriptions, plus the Parr house (which, it was now understood, had a market value closer to $4,500, considerably less than its $7,000 assessed value). From those funds they were required to purchase at least thirty acres of land, build a facility suitable to house at least twenty-five veterans, and furnish the home to be ready for immediate occupancy. Though they might be able to raise more money during the coming year (or enter into some sort of loan arrangement), there was a consensus that the Home should be opened sooner rather than later.
    The board agreed to take multiple ballots, with the site drawing the fewest votes to be eliminated before the next ballot.
    Hawesville was eliminated first. A thirty-acre plot with house and outbuildings was offered for just $5,000 (and the town would pay $3,000 of that). But the land was swampy and the water supply uncertain.
    The Owensboro offer was for a hundred level acres of tillable land, a large house, and outbuildings, all on high ground with a rail line running along the property line. But at $18,000 for the property alone, the cost was greater than the board's purse would allow. Owensboro was the second proposal to be cut.
    Bardstown boosters offered two tracts of land, one of forty acres and the other of eighty. Each tract was offered at $6,000, but a citizens committee raised $4,300 to put toward the purchase price. The properties were attractive and the price was right, but building and furnishing a suitable home on the acreage might take a year or more. Bardstown lost on the next ballot.
    Frankfort's bid was for eighty acres and the old Hendrix place, once a landmark home but now a creaking ghost's mansion overlooking the Kentucky River. The $15,000 price tag, coupled with the cost of renovating the old house, took Frankfort out of the running.
    The final ballot came down to a choice between Pewee Valley and Harrodsburg.
    The Cassell property in Harrodsburg included another landmark home, but this one was in good repair and large enough to house at least thirty residents. The property, home, and outbuildings had a price tag of $10,500, but the merchants of Harrodsburg pledged $3,000 for furnishings and improvements. Rail connections to Harrodsburg were spotty, but the town was close to the geographic center of Kentucky and almost equidistant to Lexington, Frankfort, and Louisville.
    Pewee Valley, a little village of small businesses, modest houses, comfortable summer homes, and a population of about 450, was located just sixteen miles east of Louisville. Property owner Angus Neil Gordon was offering thirty-three acres and the Villa Ridge Inn, a bankrupt luxury resort hotel built years before. The old hotel had seventy-two