Gratz Park

The Heart of Lexington

Retail Price: $59.95

On the surface, Gratz Park looks like a quiet refuge just north of downtown Lexington, Kentucky. Investigate the park more carefully and you will discover stories of slavery, sex, murder, greed, and ghosts. The finest early Kentucky architecture surrounds an open space where once “Dogs and Negroes” were not allowed and the city library had a separate Colored Reading Room. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis both walked there and at different times, both Civil War armies built camps in it.

Explore, learn, and enjoy the history of Gratz Park with Bob Willcutt’s photographs and Jeremy Popkin’s narrative.

About The Author

Jeremy D. Popkin  Jeremy D. Popkin, professor emeritus of history at the University of Kentucky, has written on a number of subjects, including the French and Haitian Revolutions, American Jewish history, and the genre of life-writing. Popkin received his B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and an A.M. degree from Harvard. He is currently doing research for a book about Benjamin Gratz and Lexington in the 19th century and has led the tours of Gratz Park. He has written or edited over 20 books including A New World Beg Learn More about Jeremy D. Popkin

Bob Willcutt

Bob Willcutt has always had an interest in fine art, especially photography where being the photo editor of his high school paper taught him film techniques and developmental editing. He moved from Washington D.C. to Kentucky, earning a BA and MSW at UK. Although he did photography, his main focus was on scholastic and musical pursuits. When he started his own business in 1968 and expanded it in 1979, naming it Willcutt Guitars, he was attracted to the art as well as the musical aspect of guitars. In 1998 he created the website WillcuttGuitars.com and built it around high quality photographs of the world’s most beautiful instruments.

Bob has published Feathers of Fayette, Wild Birds of Lexington, Kentucky in 2018, Henry Clay’s Ashland, A Pictorial Tribute to one of America’s Greatest Statesmen and his Lexington Estate in 2019, The Musical Instrument Collector, originally published in 1977, and reprinted in 1978 and 2020; and Waveland’s Treasures in 2021 which was awarded the Kentucky Historical Society’s Private Press Award and the Bluegrass Trust’s Clay Lancaster Heritage Education Award, The Lex Luthier Articles, and Ward Hall, Kentucky’s Greek Revival Masterpiece in 2023.

His award winning photographs have been published in American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, American Spirit, The Herald-Leader, Tops in Lexington, The Southsider, Chevy Chaser, Jessamine Journal,Kentucky Living, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers, Kentucky State Parks 1924-2024, From Kentucky Collections 2024, and others.

Dr. Popkin has produced a detailed and incisive history of the park. It pushes beyond the received wisdom about the area to show the crucial role of Gratz’s descendants in celebrating Benjamin Gratz as a town father and ensuring the public that the green between Transylvania University and downtown Lexington continues to bear his name. Willcutt’s photography, when paired with Popkin’s narrative, will foster greater appreciation of the history of Gratz Park and its role in Lexington’s past and present. Popkin’s and Willcutt’s publication will compel residents and visitors to engage the history of a specific part of Lexington more deeply; to reflect on how Gratz Park has been a site of inclusion and exclusion throughout its history; and to consider the complex past behind a seemingly prosaic part of the urban landscape. Further, as a publication, the book will have an influence for years to come.

-—Daniel Vivian, College of Design, Department of Historic Preservation University of Kentucky

What will really make the book unique are the photos by Bob Willcutt. His work is professionally executed and extremely beautiful and will provide a new and fascinating way to engage the subject. Speaking from the experience of having written a photographic history of Ashland, I can say with confidence that people connect to that sort of history more readily than others. Bob has also done photographic work on Ashland, Ward Hall, and Waveland State Historic Site that are also very popular and well received. Through Bob’s work, these places are reaching new audiences and existing ones in new ways and these books are a model that will deliver the stories of Gratz Park to a larger audience. As someone who has worked with Bob and Jeremy and seen their work closely, I can say without question that they will bring new life and attention to the important history of the Gratz family and the park.

-—Eric D. Brooks, Curator of Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate

As the author or editor of some twenty books, I know how difficult it is to gather material, put it in a readable format, and illustrate it properly. Yet that process, now, more than ever, needs to be done. Books such as this are more permanent than Instagram; they speak to us. Generations after the authors have passed from this world they represent, as one historian wrote, “an act of creation.”

-—James C. Klotter, The State Historian of Kentucky and Professor Emeritus of History, Georgetown College

As this book beautifully illustrates, Gratz Park is the historic heart of Lexington, the place that best exemplifies the city’s early ambitions for prosperity, education, and culture. Two centuries ago, when Lexington was being called the “Athens of the West”, Gratz Park was its Acropolis.

-—Tom Eblen, former Lexington Herald-Leader managing editor and columnist

Book Details
Author: Jeremy D. Popkin
Illustrator:
Photographer: Bob Willcutt
Pages: 208 pages
Product Dimensions: 9" X 12"
ISBN: 978-1-956027-98-3
Cover Type: Hardcover
Case Quantity:
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