Aaron Shrout: "Lexington and Louisville: A Tale of Two Cities"
"There are so many things I enjoy about the Learning Lab. The opportunity to conduct my own research with material literally from hundreds of years ago, getting to work with such smart and impressive other interns, and our mentor."
-Aaron Shrout
Aaron Shrout is a sophomore studying Economics at the University of Kentucky. His Learning Lab research project utilized the original, handwritten meeting minute book from the Lexington and Ohio Railroad board of directors from 1830 to 1832. The railroad company intended to construct railroad infrastructure that would connect the city of Lexington to Louisville, Cincinnati, and other nearby cities in the 1830s; however, they underestimated the infrastructure costs and ultimately failed before they completed the project.
Reading about the business failure led Aaron to an inquiry into how transportation networks impacted city growth during this time. Could this one failed business venture impact a city nearly 200 years later? Comparing Lexington to its neighboring city of Louisville allowed Aaron the opportunity to track how Louisville, which in 1830 was a smaller city focused on building transportation infrastructure, compared with Lexington, at that time a larger city that experienced delays in building its own transportation network.
Aaron's research to measure the growth of Lexington and Louisville led him to some unlikely sources. He consulted primary sources such as fire insurance maps, city directories, census records, and schedules for enslaved persons. The creation and development of many of the comforts of city living we often take for granted, such as fire departments, roads, hospitals, and schools were all part of the metrics he used to gauge the growth of each city. Each new development formed the unique growth pattern that we inhabit today. The most seminal of all being transportation. This is the story of how Louisville became a large urban city and Lexington developed into a small city, but remain forever rivals.
You can watch Aaron's 5 minute video about his research at this link.
Poster presented at National Conference of Undergraduate Research, 13 April 2021:
Research abstract:
Lexington and Louisville: A Tale of Two Cities’ Growth
The city of Lexington, Kentucky, was once one of the largest and wealthiest settlements west of the Allegheny Mountains. Lexington supported the first university in the western region and earned the nickname “Athens of the West” for its bustling economy and architecture. One of the few elements it lacked was a reliable transportation network to connect it to its rival city of relatively equal size, Louisville, as well as the more established city of Cincinnati and Frankfort, the state capitol. In the early 1800s, transportation meant trains, and city leaders sought to connect their city by creating the Lexington and Ohio Rail Road Company. The company ultimately failed and trains to connect Lexington wouldn’t become a reality for years. In the meantime, Louisville grew exponentially due to its access to transportation via railroads and the Ohio River. Utilizing the unprocessed Lexington and Ohio Rail Road Company Board of Directors Record Book, 1830-1833, from the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center, as well as census data, and available records on trends in population growth, industrialization, available transportation, levels of poverty, and total economic output, research will map how the two cities were affected due to access to transportation. Quantitative analysis will explore how decisions and a company’s failure that happened in the early 1800s altered the size and stature of Lexington today.
Aaron with the Lexington & Ohio Railroad board of directors minutes book at the Learning Lab.
