Museum campus
The Museum campus doesn't just hold Louisville's history. It is part of that history. People have lived and worked in these historic buildings for over 100 years. The three main buildings are on the Louisville Register of Historic Places, and the Jacoe Store is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jacoe Store
You enter the campus through the Jacoe Store, our main building. Eliseo and Ann Jacoe ran it as a grocery store from the 1920s to the 1950s, where residents shopped for imported Italian goods. Today its collections help you picture life as an early Louisville coal miner and the role downtown businesses played in the community.
From here, staff and volunteers can lead you on a tour of the other two houses.
Tomeo House
The Tomeo House shows what family life was like during the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. The seven-member Rossi family lived in this three-room house between 1924 and 1941.
Jordinelli House
Inside, you'll find a six-foot by six-foot replica of downtown Louisville as it looked between 1895 and 1920. Longtime resident Dick Del Pizzo built the model and donated it to the Museum. You can read how and why he made it in the Summer 2014 Louisville Historian.
Trott-Downer Cabins
The Trott-Downer Cabins are two small historic cottages the City saved to preserve and share. They sit near Miners Field, a short distance from the main campus. Once restored, they will open for special tours and programs led by Museum staff.
A bit of history
The cabins were built at 801 and 809 Lee Avenue between 1935 and 1940 as rental cottages. Benjamin Emmit Trott (1894 to 1972) and Laura Trott (1898 to 1986) built them, along with as many as six others, to earn extra income from rent. Their most likely renters were coal miners, but mining was winding down in the 1940s. Marjorie Downer (1898 to 1985) bought the complex in 1947 and managed the rentals while living on site, likely into the 1960s. Together the cabins reflect Louisville's busy rental housing market, which gave some residents income and others affordable homes.
The buildings
Each cabin is small: 203 square feet (Cabin 1) and 222 square feet (Cabin 2). They were built in a vernacular style, meaning a simple local style rather than a formal design. The outer walls are unpainted vertical half-logs, and each cabin has a front kitchen and living room with a back bedroom. They were never expanded and keep their original look, apart from age and wear.
How they got here
- 2017: Donated to the City of Louisville
- 2018: Moved from Lee Avenue to offsite storage
- 2019: Named Historic Landmarks in November, with a relocation plan set by the City, Historic Preservation Commission, and Museum
- 2020: City hired Wattle & Daub Contractors and Stewart Architecture for the move and restoration
- 2021: Site near Miners Field prepared
- 2022: Cabins moved to the site near Miners Field
For more, read the 2017 Historical Report on the Cabins at 825 Lee by former Museum Coordinator Bridget Bacon.