 |
 |
On October 13, 1949, Meadowthorpe Subdivision, Section
1, consisting of 158 1ots, was approved by the Planning and Zoning
Commission. H.R. Taylor was the owner, and it contained three
streets running perpendicular to Leestown Road: Glendale and
Hillsboro Avenues and Boiling Springs Drive. The name
Meadowthorpe, preceded
the subdivision by a hundred years . It was the name of a well-known
stock farm owned by Jacob Hostetter. A two-story Greek revival house
was built on the property around 1849. After his death in 1886, the
farm was sold to William H. Cheppu.
A story in the Lexington Transcript, 1891, referred to him as
a well known bookmaker. On April 28, 1892, in order to payoff an
overdraft of $32,000, he sold it to Col. James E. Pepper, owner of
the Pepper Distillery. At that time there were 222 acres on the
north side of Leestown Pike. The price of $275 per acre was the
highest that had ever been received for a bluegrass farm.
If Pepper had followed through on his original intentions, a
magnificent castle , would have been built on the property.
Instead, he remodeled and enlarged the existing house, and
added a new front gable inscribed with the name, date Meadowthorpe
1892. A picture of
the home today is displayed in the main dining room of McDonald’s
restaurant located at 1620 Leestown Road.
In 1898 the
estate was deeded to Pepper's wife, but after his accidental death
in 1906 it was acquired by Dr. Samuel H. Halley, president/general
manager of Fayette
Tobacco Warehouse. He and his family lived there at least through
the 1920's. Their home
was the scene of many gala parties. The first
airport serving Lexington was located on this property, the hanger
was located at what is now Boiling Springs Drive, between lots 200
and 204. It opened in
the summer of 1927 with World War I ace Ted Kincannon as manager.
Charles A. Lindbergh, famous for his non-stop flight from Long
Island to Paris, France, in May 19, 1927.
Mr. Lindbergh made arrangements with Kincannon to land there
on March 28, 1928, with the stipulation that his arrival be kept
secret. A 17 -year-old boy, Melvin Rhorer, was recruited to mark the
field with a 100-foot limestone circle so it could be seen from the
air. Melvin spent the
night in the plane to guard it, while Lindbergh visited a friend,
Dr. Scott D. Breckinridge. The secret leaked out, next morning close
to 3,000 people watched the plane take off. Since the field was only
a level pasture surrounded by trees and telephone wires, that was
not an easy feat even for Lindbergh. Halley Field
continued to be used for a while after a municipal airport (the
fIrst in Kentucky) was built on Newtown Pike, but it was abandoned
in 1934. Swope Loughridge, manager of Halley Field in 1929, says
that the rent there was $100 a month, and the Newtown Pike location
was considerably cheaper . The Halley family had ties to the 500 acre farm on the
opposite side of Leestown Road, where the Meadowthorpe Shopping
Center occupied by Winn Dixie was constructed in 1989. Mr. Rufus
Lisle, a prominent farmer who bred and raced thoroughbreds, acquired
the property which he named "Lisland" about 1870. The
original house burned in 1899, eight years after his death. His
widow replaced it with the house which was owned by the Lisle Family
until the development of the shopping center.
Famous winning horse Macbeth II was apart of the Lisland
stabbles. The Sharkey
family owned land on all sides of the present Leestown-Route 4
inter- change, including the land now occupied by Meadowthorpe
Elementary School. Barns were on the site of the present Evans house
at 281 Taylor Drive. The two unmarried Sharkey sisters lived in a
large house. A smaller house behind with a tin roof, was occupied by
three Sharkey bachelor brothers. Most of the house was torn down for
the highway interchange, the brothers insisted that their new house
which replaced it, also should have a tin roof. During the 1930's
they sold and delivered milk to families in the area. Glenn Greathouse
remembers sitting on a stone fence at his home on Leestown Road
watching it being widened to two lanes in the early 1930's starting
with the Southern Railroad overhead viaduct. His family later lived
at the corner of Leestown and Viley Pike. Curtis
Willmott's, Boiling Springs Farm adjoined Meadowthorpe Farm and
extended all the way to Greendale Road. The farm was later sold to
his brothers, John and George Willmott. When Hugh Taylor bought
John's acreage, there was a pond at what is now the intersection of
Forbes and Boiling Springs. When the subdivision was established,
nothing was supposed to be constructed on that site.
Prof. L.J. Horlacher of U. K., warned his daughter, Helen
Evans, “it is not good to build houses over springs”.
Mr. Taylor enjoyed fishing in that pond,
and on one occasion gave Horace and Lucille Gray a fresh mess
of catfish that he had caught there. The Taylors
were later persuaded to convert John Willmott's farm into a country
club, which was named Boiling Springs. It later became Spring
Valley, and then Spring Lake. Until the club was actually
chartered, H.R. and Leona
Taylor lived in the main residence on the farm. Later the Taylors
occupied the Meadowthorpe mansion for a number of years. H.R.Taylor
worked the Meadowthorpe land as farm land, Mark Penrod was farm
manager. When the land began to be sold for building lots in 1949, a
logical name choice for the first street was Boiling Springs. Construction
and laying of streets began in 1949, with attention being given to
the principle that good housing should be back some distance from
the highway. Trees were preserved as far as possible, and more
planted from Hillenmeyer's Nursery. Some street signs, of poured
concrete, still stand. All houses were to be built of brick, but
exceptions for a few to be built of field stone, and detached wood
garages at each house were built for the cost of $150.00. The first house,
built from stones of Meadowthorpe Farm's fences, is at 212 Boiling
Springs Drive. The second house, at 220 Boiling Springs, went to
Frank Pieratt. The third house, 208, was built in 1950 and sold to
O.H. "Shine" and Maureen Mauser. Kitty and James W.
"Bud" Thornton, who was Hugh Taylor's bookkeeper, moved
into 245 Boiling Springs that same year. It was still rural living. All the mailboxes were on Leestown Road, the nearest grocery store was at Broadway and Short Streets. The landscape was still one of bams, pigeons, cows, and other livestock. In fact, Mrs. Mauser tells how her daughter Winnie, home with the measles the following spring, amused herself by counting the pigs she could see from her bedroom window. The stripping room of the barn which once stood at 281 Taylor Drive is still in use as a garage at 285 Taylor. |
The History of Meadowthorpe
(Continued)