Brucetown (Lexington, KY)

Located on the northeast side of Lexington in what was a low field, the community of Brucetown was established by W. W. Bruce in 1865. The land was subdivided and provided for the homes of African Americans employed by Bruce; Brucetown was adjacent to Bruce's hemp factory. In 1878, a white mob killed three African American men in Brucetown; the murdered men were suspected of having knowledge of the murder of a white man killed two weeks prior. The three dead men were Tom Turner, who was shot, and Edward Claxton and John Davis, both of whom were hanged; a man named Stivers had been hanged earlier for the crime. In 2001, the ninth Brucetown Day celebration was held on Dakota Street in Lexington, sponsored by the Brucetown Neighborhood Association. For more information and maps 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; "Negro Urban Clusters in the Postbellum South," Geographical Review, vol. 61, issue 3 (July 1977), pp. 310-321; "Mob Violence in Kentucky," The New York Times, 01/18/1878, p. 1; and "Brucetown plans annual festival," Lexington Herald-Leader, 08/08/2001, Bluegrass Communities section, p. 2.