Goodlowtown, Goodloetown, or Goodloe (Lexington, KY)

Goodlowtown was a community in itself, established around 1871; by 1887 it had grown to include Gunntown and Bradley Street Bottoms. It was the largest Negro residential area in Lexington. The community was located on bottomland that had been used during the Civil War for mule stalls.

The Colored Normal School was located in Goodloetown, with J. G. Hamilson as principal and Miss Mary E. White a teacher, according to the Lexington City Directory, 1873 and 1874.

Today Goodloe is a predominately low-income African American neighborhood partially shielded from view by Thoroughbred Park in downtown Lexington. The area includes portions of DeWeese, Race, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Streets.

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; P. Hobgood, "Constructing Community: an Exhibition of the Voices of Goodloetown," Kaleidoscope: University of Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship, vol. 4 (2006), pp. 39-44; and See also Heather M. Dollins, East End and Davis Bottom: a Study of the Demographic and Landscape Changes of Two Neighborhoods in Lexington, Kentucky (Historic Preservation in the College of Design Masters Project, University of Kentucky), 2011.