Historical Commission Agenda and Packet 2021 07 21

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plans for bringing Louisville out of the coal mining era and into modern times. This decade of change is further explored in the lead articles of two Louisville Historian issues: "The Fifties: Louisville's Transformative Decade" in the Winter 2017 issue and "Modern Times: Louisville in the Fifties, Part Two" in the Spring 2017 issue. Benjamin Emmit Trott (1894-1972) and Laura Trott (1898-1986) constructed the Cabins and as many as six other modest cottages between 1935 and 1940 as a way to bring in additional income from renting them. They had a hauling business and lived on Pine Street to the south of the lots where they built the Cabins. At that time, the most likely renters were coal miners, but the mining industry was winding down in the 1940s (and the last mine in Louisville closed in 1955). Marjorie Downer (1898-1985) purchased the cottage complex on Lee Ave. in 1947. records show that she worked as a teacher and in a printing office as a young wom identified as being a realtor in Louisville newspapers and she managed the rental cabins while living on site herself, at 825 Lee. For part of the time, her mother, Mary Lena Downer, lived with her. It is believed that she rented out the cabins in the complex even into the 1960s. These two Cabins are representative of Louisville's robust short-term housing market, which provided income to many residents and provided inexpensive, modest housing to others. (Additional history of the Cabins is provided in the appendices.) Census an. She was Like many houses and rented structures in The Trott -Downer Cabins in about 2017, as shown in Louisville at the time, the Cabins were small, at the Historic Structure Assessment report. 203 square feet (Cabin 1 from 801 Lee Ave.) and 222 square feet (Cabin 2 from 809 Lee Ave.). (The square footage has been reported slightly differently over the years; the numbers given here are based on the information in the 2017 Historic Structure Assessment.) The architecture is vernacular and, according to the contractor working on restoring them, the construction involved the use of an unusually large number of nails. The exterior walls are made of unpainted vertical half -logs. Each Cabin consists of one front kitchen/living room and one back bedroom, each about ten feet square. The cottages in the complex shared a back yard outhouse, which was replaced (likely in the 1950s) with a shared flush toilet in a small structure behind the homes. According to the Historic Structure Assessment, a single overhead light in each room provided lighting, at least in the later years of occupancy. The Cabins each had cold running water only. They were never expanded, and they retain a high level of integrity and their original appearance (apart from deterioration). A variety of people called these cabins home: families with children, newlyweds, and older people all lived in the Trott -Downer Cabins during their use. Many were working people employed in a variety of types of jobs in the area after the closure of coal mines. These cabins were the site of major life events. In 1939, Carmela Romano Trott, the daughter-in-law of Benjamin and Laura Trott, gave birth to James Patrick Trott in the bedroom of one of the Cabins 3