THE HISTORY OF BIG SPRING from its earliest beginnings as the location of Falling Springs, Versailles’ first name, to the Bottoms, a historic Black community, to its becoming a public park was told by local historians Tim Middleton and Sioux Finney at the Woodford County Library on Thursday, April 24. The Woodford County Fiscal Court, City of Versailles, Huntertown Community Interpretive Park, Jack Jouett House Historic Site and the Woodford County Historical Society sponsored the event. (Photo by Scott White)
BIG SPRING BOTTOMS DAY was celebrated annually on the third Sunday of May at First Baptist Church, and the congregation would walk down to the original site of the church in what is now Big Spring Park. Pictured in this 1972 photo are church members who were baptized at the church in the Bottoms. From left, front row: Shelley Coleman, Mattie Collins, Rev. Keeton, Mary E. Gill, Mrs. M.C. Turner, Mrs. Emma Simpson, Eliza Cooper, M.C. Wakefield, Henry Mitchell. Second row: Rev. Gus Williams, Mrs. Hattie Clark, Allie Mae Gilmore, Louise Million, Eddie M. Scarce, Betsy Taylor, Arnetta Collins. Third row: Lena Williams, Sally Lee, Sam Burns, Mrs. Russell Coleman, Rev. E. O Givens, John A. Howard, Mrs. Nellie Spicer, Zack Collins, Mrs. Alice Kirtley and Moses Johnson (Photo by Jim Curtis from the Sun archives)
By Scott White
Managing Editor
In just a few weeks, the ongoing renovation of Big Spring Park will be complete and unveiled to the community . . . and children who’ve gone without it since late last summer will throng the new playgrounds, families will again picnic, stroll the walking paths and play on the new great lawn.
However, this is only the park’s current iteration.
Thanks to the hard work of local historians Sioux Finney and Tim Middleton, the beginnings of the complete story of what is now Big Spring Park are being told.
Though Finney says there is more work to do, the two presented their research in a well-attended program at the main branch of the Woodford County Library on April 24. The presentation was introduced by Woodford County Judge-Executive James Kay as part of the ongoing Black History of Woodford County series.
In the late 18th century, Falling Springs was founded as a frontier settlement around an underground stream emerging from a cave forming the headwaters of Glenns Creek, eventually flowing into the Kentucky River northwest of Millville. The hamlet was renamed Versailles by Captain Marquis Calmes to honor his friend from the Revolutionary War, Gen. Marquis de Lafayette, who, himself, visited here in 1825. The falls soon came to be known as Big Spring.
Though Glenns Creek is dotted with internationally famous distilleries like Woodford Reserve, Castle & Key and Glenns Creek, in 1804 the first distillery was established at Big Spring by John O’Bannon and Elijah Pepper, who in 1812 moved it seven miles downstream and as Finney said, “The rest is history!”
With the foundation of the park’s origin story established, Middleton began telling the story of Big Spring Bottom, also called the “Bottoms” – the low-lying, flood-prone area that is now the park.
According to Finney and Middleton’s research, 70 percent of pioneer families brought enslaved humans with them to Kentucky. The Bottoms housed slaves who worked in the mills and the distillery built there. A story in the Dec 17, 1910, edition of the Lexington Herald, reported that “the house situated in the (Bottoms), built in 1750 was destroyed by fire.” The house was built by Capt. Bartlett Searcy and at the time of the fire in 1910 was owned by a direct descendant of one of Searcy’s slaves.
Middleton explained that by using census data and insurance maps, their research found that by 1850 the Bottoms was nearly 100 percent a community of enslaved men, women and children . . . In fact, he said 52.9 percent of Woodford County in the 1860s was Black, the highest percentage in Kentucky. Despite this, John Oliver, denoted by the 1850 census as a “free person of color,” and Almstead Steele established a “little Missionary band” of worshipers in a small meeting house in the Bottoms. Thus began a significant thread of the Bottoms, what Middleton called “Founded on Faith”.
In 1867, the State Convention of Colored Baptists in Kentucky officially enrolled the First Baptist Church of Versailles. The church is now on South Main Street, but originally was built in the Bottoms on Water Street in 1871 as a result of the leadership of Rev. Reuben Lee who stayed until 1876.
It was then the leadership of First Baptist went to perhaps, according to Middleton, its most consequential pastor — Rev. Cary Smothers who served from 1876 until his death in 1907. (With great respect to Rev. Dr. Floyd Greene, a force himself in the local and wider church as well as the civic life of Versailles, now in his 39th year as senior pastor.) Smothers grew the membership to 1,500, was described by newspapers and colleagues as “one of the greatest preachers of his time” and his funeral was attended by upwards of 5,000 requiring special trains and cars. The Lexington Herald reported, “Rev. Cary Smothers was a man of high intellect and great force of character, doubtless the most forceful and noted divine of his race in Kentucky.”
Unsurprisingly, the prestigious pulpit soon attracted another great man of faith, Rev. Dr. Rice Butler, who, amongst other accomplishments, oversaw the move of First Baptist from the Bottoms to its current location on South Main Street in 1927, having raised $26,000 in just 10 years. (The equivalent of $480,000 today.)
This was no small feat. In 1900, only six Black families owned their homes in the Bottoms. Nearly all of the buildings were owned by Thomas Granducci, an Italian immigrant who ultimately settled in Versailles.
The population of the Bottoms dwindled from 162 in 1900 to 47 by 1930. Middleton attributed the population decrease to the Great Migration of Blacks from the former slave states to other areas of the country, primarily the Midwest and Northeast to escape the violence inherent in state-sanctioned apartheid and Jim Crowism. Middleton said the impact of the Great Depression on the community was a misnomer, saying, “I don’t know about any Depression, these folks didn’t have anything before it and nothing after.”
A tragic event marred the community in 1932, a few years after First Baptist moved to Main Street. The red-brick church built by the congregation in 1871 burned to the ground, according to the Sun, “under mysterious circumstances” in which “sparks and embers, carried by the wind, fell in a shower on Main Street. By morning light, . . . it had only parts of its great walls still standing. This landmark, and home of great and influential pastors, was lost to a fire.”
At the time of the fire, the church building was owned by Mack Brown, a Black funeral home director, who only had a $250 insurance policy covering the loss.
During all of this time, the church was the center of celebrations and community activities while in the Bottoms. In 1926, Middleton reported it held a mass ceremony in which dozens of common-law married couples were wed in the church. For decades since the move, First Baptist has held an annual “Big Spring Day” celebration at the site of the old church.
The presentation made clear Big Spring and the Bottoms were a testament to the resiliency, independence and faithfulness of Black history in Woodford County, but it also tells the severe hardships and onerousness that the white controlled society imposed. Segregation was alive and well in Versailles, and would continue into the 1960s and Big Spring did not escape its insidiousness as described poignantly by Middleton.
According to Finney, the economic wreckage of the Depression hit the area hard. The Bottoms had become nearly abandoned, its homes dilapidated and it was a center for criminal activity abutting downtown. Local government and white businessmen decided to do something about it.
As reported by the Sun on Sept. 22, 1938, the Versailles Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club met with Versailles Mayor McCauley and the City Council to begin turning the Bottoms “into a community park and recreation area.” The white groups would buy out the current owners (none of the owners were Black), and the city agreed to accept the land as a “gift” and be responsible for its maintenance and operation as a public park. The park was dedicated on July 4, 1940, according to Finney.
But an unreported fact described by Middleton that was revealed in his interview with Rev. Lewis Polk of Midway — the park was segregated until the 1960s.
“A place once home to an historic African American community became a park where Black children were not permitted to play,” Middleton said.
As proof that this history project is ongoing, during the event Sarah Hellard shared that her husband, George Hellard, was the recreation director at the park in the 1950s having been appointed by the mayor at that time, during which one day a week was “colored day” and Black Versaillians could use the park.
There is still history to be discovered and shared about the land on which Big Sink Park sits.
“Tim and I wanted to present this tonight so everybody understands as we get ready to (re-open) that we want to honor this history of what Big Springs and Big Springs Bottoms was and tell the full story,” Finney said. “This is the beginning of this process.”
Finney said in addition to an early Twentieth Century insurance map of Big Springs, which has been set in the plaza of the park, there will be placard signage telling this story in the park.