About this property
Cadentown School in Lexington, Kentucky was a primary public school for black children in the segregated Fayette County Public Schools from about 1879 to 1922. The building that originally housed Cadentown School, located at 705 Caden Lane, is no longer extant. However, the Rosenwald Fund School (built sometime between 1922 and 1923 in the same general area as the original school building) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Fayette County. The Cadentown School served as an important center for the Cadentown community, a small village situated on about forty acres of land in the eastern part of Fayette County, Kentucky. The village was created by an organized series of land lot purchases from a white farmowner Owen Caden who had purchased the land for the purposes of selling it in 1-8 acre lots to African-Americans and Civil War refugees seeking to start a new life. In addition to private homes, the community built public roadways and buildings, several of which are still standing today: two historic churches, a fraternal order lodge. The Cadentown Baptist Church was the first of the public buildings built by the community in 1879. The congregation offered a portion of its church lot for the construction of a school. By 1914 Kentucky hired five county supervisors, one of which was dedicated to Fayette County, to oversee the work being done in the segregated schools for African-Americans. In addition, Florence G. Anderson was hired to supervise homemaker clubwomen's activities and to develop more rigorous pedagogies in the domestic sciences for teachers in the county "colored schools." John Welden Jewett was a teacher at the Cadentown School during his early career. In 1917 Julius Rosenwald organized the Rosenwald Fund to donate matching funds for the construction of rural model schools for African-Americans. Fayette County and its residents found he required matching funds for the construction of five schools (Uttingertown, Coletown, Avon, Ft. Springs and Douglass School) and one shop (an addition to the Douglass School). Of these six structures, Cadentown School is the only surviving Rosenwald Fund School in Fayette County. The one-teacher community school at Cadentown was built from the plans prepared by the Frankel-Curtis Company, Architects and Engineers of Lexington, Kentucky. Its construction cost $3,000 of which only $500 came from the Rosenwald Fund. When it was completed, the new school opened in 1923 and served the local community until its closure at the end of the school year in 1947. The Cadentown Baptist Church continued to use the school building as an activity center, but when the church moved to a new location in the community, the property and buildings were sold to a private owner.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Cadentown School
This page lists Cadentown School. A full Aubrey report for an address near it pulls together this listing alongside battlefield records, land patents, and every other historical record within a chosen radius:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Questions about this property
When was Cadentown School listed on the National Register?
Cadentown School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 2006.
What type of historic resource is Cadentown School?
Cadentown School is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Cadentown School?
The period of significance for Cadentown School is recorded as the civil_war era, specifically around 1879.
Can I research the history near Cadentown School?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Cadentown School will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
More in Fayette County
Historic places, battles, and census history across Fayette County.
Explore FayetteCounty ›More historic places in Kentucky
Browse all historic places in Kentucky.
View Kentuckyhistoric sites ›Research the history near this site
An Aubrey US report for an address near Cadentown School will include this listing alongside battlefield records and other historical sources within your chosen radius.