VIDBE-Q Volume 68 Issue 1
invited Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, founder and director of the Perkins School for
the Blind in Massachusetts, and his students to Kentucky to make a presentation to
state lawmakers. Howe and his students proved convincing, and on Feb. 5, 1842,
the Kentucky Institution for the Blind was chartered with an appropriation of
$10,000.
The school opened on May 9, 1842, in a rental home on Sixth Street
between Chestnut and Walnut streets in downtown Louisville. After outgrowing
several buildings in the area, a permanent school home was built on Broadway
Avenue in 1845. The building burned in 1851 and the decision was made to move
the school out of the city. A tract of land known as the Frankfort Turnpike Road
(now Frankfort Avenue) was purchased and a new school built on it in 1855. In
1967, that building was razed to make way for a modern facility that would better
serve students with visual impairments.
Other historical and educational highlights from the school's history include:
After the Battle of Perryville, the Federal army medical director ordered the
school to vacate in October 1862 and the building was used as a hospital during the
Civil War. Under pressure by school trustees, the War Department forced hospital
personnel out and students returned on March 17, 1863. The American Printing
House for the Blind (chartered in 1858) began operating in the basement of the
