February 25, 2025
A pre-Christmas visit from Santa Claus highlighted the party given by the Lafayette Y-Teens on Dec. 20, 1948, for children at the Colored Orphan Industrial Home on Georgetown Street. The orphanage was founded in 1892 and became a cultural center in 1988, when children were no longer residents. Kneeling, Bobbie Lewis and Gordon Smith. Standing from left, William Cook, Betty McDowell, Henrietta Lewis and James Smith. Published in the Lexington Herald on Dec. 22, 1948. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
University of Kentucky center Melvin Turpin, left, who totaled 18 points and a game-high nine rebounds, tried to fake University of Louisville center Charles Jones during the first “Dream Game” in recent history between the two schools on March 26, 1983, at the NCAA Mideast Regional in Knoxville. The Wildcats fell 80-68 after being outscored 18-6 in overtime. Photo by Charles Bertram | Staff
Workers placed one of the last beams supporting a walkway leading from the second floors of Victorian Square to the Lexington Center on July 17, 1993. Parts of Main and Vine streets were closed during the overnight hours as the 96-foot, 43,000-pound beam was put in position. The pedway opened later in the fall, giving pedestrians the ability to to walk through a complete circuit of enclosed passageways linking the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Festival Market, Victorian Square and the Lexington Center. Photo by Mark Cornelison | Staff
Postal clerk Scott Johnson, left, and carrier William B. Keightley, center, received “superior accomplishment” awards from Tom Bradley, superintendent of the Gardenside branch post office, in December 1969. The award was for a contribution or performance that was over and above normal work requirements for an extended period. Keightley, the longtime Kentucky basketball equipment manager, who died March 31, 2008, would have turned 90 years old today. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
Col. Harland Sanders, the founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, lay in state before his funeral on Dec. 20, 1980, at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Alumni Chapel in Louisville. An estimated 1,000 mourners attended the funeral. Sanders, who died at age 90, was buried in his characteristic white suit and black western string tie in Cave Hill Cemetery in Lousiville. Sanders died of pneumonia at Jewish Hospital in Louisville. Photo by Charles Bertram | Staff
Third-graders Jason DeNoyelles, left, and Damion Reid showed their collection of “Return of the Jedi” cards at Ashland Elementary School on May 15, 1984. Jason had been collecting for about two years and had about 100 cards. Damion had 185 cards and had started collecting a year before, when he lived in New York. He was trying to find a Death Star card and had bought several packages of cards, but that one wasn’t in them. He said he planned to keep the cards. “When I’m about 20, they’ll be worth a lot,” he said. The latest installment of the “Star Wars” series, “Rogue One,” opens in Lexington theaters this weekend. Photo by John C. Wyatt | Staff
Christmas shoppers filled the S.S. Kresge store in downtown Lexington on Dec. 9, 1948. S.S. Kresge, a Detroit-based company, brought its 5 and 10 cent stores to Lexington in 1912. The downtown store was at 250 West Main Street, across from Cheapside Park. The store closed in 1967 and is now the site of the Lexington Financial Center, more commonly known as the “Big Blue Building.” The S.S. Kresge Co. was renamed Kmart Corp. in 1977. Click here to see another photo from the store, this time of people shopping for Valentines. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
To make way for a parking lot for the new civic center, many houses in the South Hill neighborhood were demolished, but this house, which had stood on Kilmore Court, was moved to 138 Montmullin Street in Pralltown on Sept. 13, 1977. The house seen here was making its way along Maxwell Street, approaching Broadway. Once it was placed on Montmullin, the owner planned to remodel and sell it. The moving project involved the local government, the Pralltown Neighborhood Committee and the Presbyterian Housing Corp. In January 1976, the Urban County Council reaffirmed its decision to level most of the houses south of High Street to make way for a 16-acre surface parking lot for Rupp Arena and Lexington Center, which opened in October 1977. The decision would make way for more than 2,000 parking spaces in the low-income residential area of South Hill. Despite a public movement to save the neighborhood, the majority of the houses were torn down by early 1978. Photo by John C. Wyatt | Staff