Elm Tree Lane and Kinkeadtown (Lexington, KY)

The west side of Elm Tree Lane was part of the Templeton subdivision in 1889. Around 1914, the east side of the street became Elm Tree Heights. Kinkeadtown was bottomland that included more recently Illinois, Kinkead, and Mosby Streets; it was around the area where Elm Tree Lane intersects with Fourth and Fifth Streets.

The land had been subdivided by abolitionist George B. Kinkead in 1870 and sold exclusively to African Americans. Populated by about 20 families in 1880, it grew to include over 300 residents. The section of Elm Tree Lane and the remainder of Kinkeadtown, between Fourth and Fifth Streets, were purchased by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government in the 1990s. The shotgun and T-plan houses were demolished in preparation for the extension of Rose Street.

For more see J. Kellogg, "The Formation of Black Residential Areas in Lexington, Kentucky, 1865-1887," The Journal of Southern History, vol. 48, issue 1 (Feb. 1982), pp. 21-52.; "Kinkeadtown: Archaeological Investigation of an African-American Neighborhood in Lexington, Kentucky," Archaeological Report 377 by Nancy O'Malley, University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology; Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association (on Facebook); and N. O'Malley, "The pursuit of freedom: the evolution of Kinkeadtown, an African American post-Civil War neighborhood in Lexington, Kentucky," Winterthur Portfolio-A Journal of American Material Culture, vol. 37, issue 4 (Winter 2002), pp. 187-217.