Sippin’ Stick & Pokes, Forty Acres and a Mule in Algonquin, KET Doc Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia, and More
Good Monday morning,
It’s mid-July and the museum business on Main is hoppin’!
I was humbled last week during our bi-monthly staff meeting as several of our Frazier team members reported on the various components of our business. Paid membership is at an all-time high, summer camps for the kiddos are at capacity, and recent results on attendance and museum store sales are better than ever.
Our new exhibition, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, is getting rave reviews, and our tours and tastings are entertaining more and more guests every day. We created our tastings, including a Craft Your Own Old Fashioned Cocktail Experience, because our distillery partners on Main are at capacity and Bourbon tourists are looking for additional options. You can read more about them here.
As president, I’m so satisfied to see our team’s hard work paying off! But, I’m also fully aware that the only museum we are trying to be better than is the museum we were yesterday. So, we forge ahead!
Today’s Frazier Weekly features a guest contribution from Katheryn Higgins about a fun activation our team organized with about forty kiddos in West Louisville. You’ll get a taste of Forty Acres and a Mule’s soul food in our “West Louisville Eats” installment and read a preview of a special membership screening of The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia.
Festivalgoers sample beer in the VIP Gateway Garden at the inaugural Summer Beer Fest at Frazier, August 7, 2021. Credit: Kendrick Jones.
But first up, our Summer Beer Fest is just three weeks out and there are only 100 VIP tickets remaining. Museum access, air-conditioning, indoor plumbing, and additional Gateway Garden tastings are just a few of the perks.
Proceeds from the event will support our exhibitions and educational programs, including free or reduced admissions for Title 1 students, our “Let’s Talk: Bridging the Divide” program series, summer camps, family days, and live storytelling.
Below, Stephen Yates and our good friends from the Louisville Ale Trail talk beer fest over Kettle Sour beers. Yep, that’s a thing!
I hope you enjoy.
Andy Treinen
President & CEO
Frazier History Museum
This Week in the Museum
Sippin’ With Stephen: Stick & Pokes With Louisville Ale Trail
As the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, the Frazier History Museum shares stories of the people, places, and producers of the Kentucky Bourbon industry. To learn more, visit our Kentucky Bourbon Trail® Welcome Center or tour our Spirit of Kentucky® exhibition.—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist
This month’s episode of Sippin’ With Stephen takes a sudsy turn to help promote the second annual Summer Beer Fest at Frazier with my good friends from the Louisville Ale Trail. My guests are John Ronayne, owner and operator of Bluegrass Homebrew Supply; Michael Moeller, PR man of Louisville Ale Trail; and David Satterly, co-founder and partner of Louisville Ale Trail. Summer Beer Fest at Frazier will take place Saturday, August 6, from 5 to 8 p.m., with VIP access from 4 to 8 p.m. Please go to fraziermuseum.org/beer-fest to purchase tickets.
In today’s episode, we taste a beer called Stick & Poke. The product of a collaborative effort between Atrium and Scout & Scholar breweries, the Stick & Poke is a Rum Runner–inspired kettle sour beer. It’s conditioned on pineapple, blackberry, banana, and key lime, then aged to perfection in rum barrels.
We’re looking forward to seeing folks at the Beer Fest on August 6! On top of a fantastic selection of beer and food, there will be live music performed on the rooftop balcony of the Frazier’s Gateway Garden! Mick Sullivan, my colleague and cameraman extraordinaire for Sippin’ With Stephen, and his band Squeezebot will perform, as will iconic Louisville band Nervous Melvin and the Mistakes. You don’t want to miss this epic event on Main Street!
Stephen Yates
Community & Corporate Sales Manager
Curator’s Corner: Fehr’s, Falls City, and Oertels Beer Artifacts
The Frazier’s upcoming Summer Beer Fest celebrates the rich and vibrant beer heritage in Louisville. The city’s beer history dates back to 1808 when Elisha Applegate opened Louisville’s first brewery. The brewing industry grew rapidly with the arrival of English and Scottish immigrants in the 1830s and German immigrants in the 1840s. By the late 1800s, beer production in Louisville grew from about 50,000 barrels to over 500,000 barrels by 1902.
Three of the largest and most popular breweries in the city, Fehr’s, Falls City, and Oertels, were all founded during this time of rapid expansion. All three of these brands were able to survive Prohibition by selling soft drinks, ice, and a low-alcohol beer know as near beer. When Prohibition ended in 1933, all three brands prospered and beer production in Kentucky reached a peak of 2.25 million barrels in 1954. In the late 1950s, increased distribution and marketing of national brands sent local breweries into decline. Fehr’s closed its doors in 1964, Oertels in 1967, and Falls City in 1978.
If you purchase a VIP ticket to Summer Beer Fest at Frazier, which takes place on Saturday, August 6, you’ll get the opportunity to see some super cool objects related to these famous Louisville brands.
An 1883 Fehr’s medal. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
A 1950s Falls City bait bucket. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
An Oertels tray that dates to c. 1935. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
First, we have a Fehr’s First-place Medal for Best Beer at the Southern Exposition in 1883.
Second, we have an incredibly interesting Falls City bait bucket from the 1950s.
Third, we have an Oertels tray, c. 1935, that was probably used to serve drinks or tip one’s bartender.
Be sure to stop by and visit me and collections manager Tish Boyer at our table in the VIP section. There, you can see these and other items and learn a little about Louisville’s beer history.
Cheers!
Amanda Briede
Curator
Museum Store: Sock It to Me
Beer mug and beer pong socks sold in the Frazier’s Museum Store and online. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
We have the perfect socks for the beer lover in your life—and the obvious footwear for Summer Beer Fest at Frazier! Buy online at the Frazier’s Museum Store.
West of Ninth Eats: Forty Acres and a Mule in Algonquin
Graphic for West of Ninth Eats. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
As part of our West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation exhibition, we wanted to go west and explore, taking time to visit local restaurants, coffee shops, and breweries. Each month, we showcase a place our staff members have visited. We hope you will visit, too!
Exterior of Forty Acres and a Mule in Algonquin, July 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Forty Acres and a Mule owner Ronnie Sarver, July 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
You can’t help but notice the name of this restaurant in the Algonquin neighborhood: Forty Acres and a Mule.
That reference in history dates back to the Civil War, when General William T. Sherman set aside land along the Southeast coast to help newly freed slaves: “Each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground.”
The plan would become known as “forty acres and a mule,” a promise that wasn’t kept after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and President Andrew Johnson returned the land to its former Confederate owners.
Meats at Forty Acres and a Mule, July 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Vegetables at Forty Acres and a Mule, July 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Ronnie Sarver, who has owned the restaurant since 2008, knew the name would draw people in, and it has. His home cooking is what draws them back, time and time again.
We’re talking everything from fried and baked chicken to meatloaf, Salisbury steak, mac and cheese, and just about every veggie you can name.
While I was there, a new customer came in from Elizabethtown, saying he made the trip after a recommendation.
Another customer who entered, a regular, was partial to the meatloaf. The owner greeting him by name, knowing what he wanted, even throwing in a piece of cake.
Aside from the generous portions and good food, that feeling of family is another key ingredient to the longevity of this restaurant.
Sarver’s parents owned a restaurant back in the day called the Oak Street Eat Shop.
His mom told him, “You can be a doctor or a chef; you take care of people either way.”
Carryout container with food from Forty Acres and a Mule, July 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Carryout container with food from Forty Acres and a Mule, July 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
And Sarver sure took care of me, fixing me a sampler of both meats and vegetables, and his cornbread, which was consumed on the ride back to the Frazier! (Yes, I shared with co-workers!)
I am now partial to the meatloaf as well and will be back because of the food, and because Ronnie Sarver treats you like family, and I was sure drawn in.
He told me how he has made his own way and still reaching, a promise kept, unlike the one that was broken all those years ago after the Civil War.
Forty Acres and a Mule is takeout and catering, and is open Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 7 p.m.
The food is worth the trip, but meeting Ronnie Sarver is icing on the cake.
Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement
Russell Resident Brings Greenspace to Historic Block of West Chestnut
Russell greenspace located at 2613 West Chestnut Street in the Russell neighborhood of Louisville, July 12, 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Mural painting at the Russell greenspace, July 12, 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Mural painting at the Russell greenspace, July 12, 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
What a beautiful day in the neighborhood this past week! The Frazier History Museum teamed up with artist Victor Sweatt to finish painting murals he had created as part of our West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation exhibition. We were able to take two of those panels off the wall and transport them to a wonderful greenspace in the Russell neighborhood, at the invitation of the owner, Katheryn Higgins. We then invited summer campers from nearby MOLO Village to pick up paintbrushes, and let their creative juices flow! It’s exactly what Higgins had envisioned for that space, a historic space from which her family home is just a few doors down. Here’s Katheryn with the rest of her family story, and why this space is part of their legacy.—Rachel Platt, Director of Community Engagement
2613 West Chestnut is a greenspace located in the historic Russell neighborhood. It sits in the block of the residence of one of the original bar owners on Walnut Street, Mr. Childress. The home of Jesse P. Warders, a Kentucky legislator who co-sponsored the bill creating the Kentucky Civil Rights Act, is immediately adjacent, located on the next block. My father, Frederick Higgins, trained Tuskegee airman Lee Archer at Fort Knox. My parents bought their home on September 1, 1946. My family remains here seventy-six years later.
Katheryn D. Higgins’s parents Elnora T. Higgins and Frederick Higgins, undated. Credit: Katheryn D. Higgins.
Katheryn D. Higgins’s parents Elnora T. Higgins and Frederick Higgins, undated. Credit: Katheryn D. Higgins.
The Higgins family home in Louisville, undated. Elnora and Frederick Higgins purchased the home September 1, 1946. Credit: Katheryn D. Higgins.
In honor, respect, and remembrance of my family and neighbors who built the Russell neighborhood, particularly during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, I have developed 2613 as an outdoor visual/performing artspace, greenspace, and gathering space to be enjoyed. Previous events have included a light show, an outdoor art session for young people, a scholarly lecture, a candidate forum, and a community group meeting. Permanent art is on display.
There is a unique opportunity to experience first-hand a vital venue of Louisville’s history. It is available for outdoor gatherings, activities, and forums. Any activity should be appropriate for a residential setting.
Please contact katheryn.higgins@thrivent.com for availability.
Katheryn D. Higgins
Lifelong Resident of Russell Neighborhood
Guest Contributor
Frazier to Screen KET Doc on WPA’s Pack Horse Library Project Sunday
Graphic for The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia. Credit: KET.
The Frazier Museum is showing The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia, a half-hour KET production that tells the courageous story of the women hired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) to travel on horseback to deliver library books and magazines to people in Eastern Kentucky, braving creeks, mountains, and inclement weather along the way.
The screening coincides with the Frazier Book Club’s selection of The Book Woman’s Daughter by author Kim Michele Richardson, newly released in May. The screening will take place at 3:30 p.m., Sunday, July 24, and will be open to the public, free with the cost of admission or membership to the museum.
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia is funded in part by a grant from the Carolyn Tassie Memorial Fund.
Amanda Egan
Membership & Database Administrator
Off the Snead Shelves: Louisville-based Writer Leesa Cross-Smith
Summer is in full swing—and WHEW, it’s been a hot one! It’s the perfect time of year to relax at the beach or by the pool and go full escapist mode with a refreshing new book. This time around, I’m recommending an author who has risen in popularity over the last few years with both her novels and short story collections. Today, we are talking about Kentuckian Leesa Cross-Smith!
Leesa Cross-Smith signing paperback copies of her book This Close To Okay at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 12, 2022. Credit: Leesa Cross-Smith.
Leesa Cross-Smith with her latest novel Half-Blown Rose on the day of its release, May 31, 2022. Credit: Leesa Cross-Smith.
Leesa Cross-Smith is the author of five books: three novels and two short story collections. Her first short story collection, Every Kiss a War, was published in 2014, and her second collection, So We Can Glow, was published in March 2020. So We Can Glow is comprised of forty-two short stories that, according to her website, “expose the glossy and matte hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more.” I read So We Can Glow last month, and it’s definitely a favorite of the year! I devoured this collection in a few short sittings, and found myself continuously impressed with her biting prose and the sense of urgency she was able to cultivate in pieces of such short length.
Her three novels include the titles Whiskey & Ribbons (2018), This Close To Okay (2021), and her most recent release Half-Blown Rose (2022). I am currently working on reading her entire backlist of titles, but I am eager to check out her latest release, which came out a little over a month ago.
Half-Blown Rose is described as “the irresistible story of a woman remaking her life after her husband’s betrayal leads to a year of travel, art, and passion in Paris.” For the full book description, visit Leesa’s website here. If the writing is even half as beautiful as the cover, it’s a win for me!
If you are interested in picking up your own copy, Half-Blown Rose is available at Carmichael’s.
Happy reading and stay cool this summer!
Shelby Durbin
Education & Engagement Specialist
Membership
One-tank Trips: Summer Road Trip Suggestions
Here is what you need to know when you travel this Summer!
Being a Contributor ($106) level member or higher to the Frazier means you have access to over 1,200 museums throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico!
This benefit is called NARM: the North American Reciprocal Museum Association. When you become a member with us, you essentially become a member to all of the art galleries, historical museums, botanical gardens, children’s museums, zoos, and many more institutions that participate within this program.
Traveling to the Northeast? With over twenty participating institutions in Philadelphia, that’s enough to fill a whole week at least!
But let’s talk closer to home. With gas prices on the rise, maybe our summer road trip turned into a one-tank trip. That’s okay! Because with your NARM benefits, you still have access to institutions within areas like Louisville, Franklin, Maysville, Paducah, Lexington, and Bowling Green!
If you find yourself at or near Land Between the Lakes this summer, take your Frazier membership card with you! In Cadiz, Kentucky, there is the wonderful Janice Mason Art Museum, a participating NARM institution*. With a focus on bringing quality art, in all its forms, to the community. JMAM’s programming includes eight to ten exhibits each year by artists from around the local area, the region, and the world, representing a broad variety of media and genre.
The North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Association logo. Credit: NARM.
So save money . . . support your favorite local historical museum (that’s us!), become a member, and you’ll automatically be connected to some of your favorite places to visit, and some that you’ll be able to discover the next time you travel.
We mean it when we say Members Experience More!
Make sure you follow us on social media to find out more about the NARM program and other participating institutions. During the month of July, we will be highlighting different fun facts and one-tank trips to take on our #MembershipMonday posts.
*Certain museums have restrictions. Please check online or with the specific institution for any current restrictions that may be in place.
Amanda Egan
Membership & Database Administrator
