The Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series explores themes in Frankfort and Franklin County cultural history - the big, small, and tangential - including the people, places, events, industries, and organizations that shaped our community and environment. The series also includes topics in historic preservation such as architecture, archaeology, public policy, and more.
Registration opens one month prior to each event. For more information, contact Diane Dehoney at (502) 352-2665 x100 or diane@pspl.org.
Sponsored by the Frankfort Heritage Week Coalition and PSPL.
Dr. Richard Taylor
The subject of what is often regarded as Robert Penn Warren's best novel as well as unfinished play by Edgar Alan Poe, the murder of Solomon P. Sharp by Jeroboam Beauchamp in vindication of an alleged affront to virtue in 1825 is a classic tale of misdirected honor involving seduction, revenge, and a suicide pact, a killing that attracted national attention and was followed by a 137-page confession by the perpetrator. It is an instance where the actual facts eclipse almost any array of facts a novelist might imagine.
Dr. Richard Taylor is the author of numerous collections of poetry, to historical novels, and several books relating to Kentucky history, including Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape (2018). A former Kentucky poet laureate, he has received two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as an Al Smith Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. Dr. Taylor received a bachelors and Ph.D. in English from the University of Kentucky and a masters in English and a Juris Doctorate from University of Louisville. Practicing law for a few months, he gave up legal practice, a leave-taking he regards as his gift to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
During graduate school, he taught in high schools across Kentucky with the Poetry-in-the-Schools Program through the Kentucky Arts Council, editing an anthology of student writing called Cloud Bumping. Embarking on a career in education, he taught at Kentucky State University in Frankfort until retiring in 2008. During that time, he taught in the Governor’s School for the Arts as well as serving as director of the Governor’s Scholars Program on two campuses. He also spent a year in Denmark as scholar-teacher in the Fulbright Program, also teaching a graduate course at Kangwon University in South Korea as well as short periods teaching abroad in England and Ireland in a studies-abroad program.
Dr. Taylor has received publication awards from the Kentucky Historical Society and the Thomas D. Clark Medallion for his Elkhorn book as well as receiving a Distinguished Professor Award at KSU. Recently retired after fourteen years from Transylvania University as Keenan Visiting Writer, he is co-founder of Poor Richard’s Books and lives on a small farm outside Frankfort, Kentucky. He was inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame in 2023.
Past Presenters
Julien Icher & John Walker
Gilbert du Motier, better known worldwide as the Marquis de Lafayette, was a military hero of the American Revolution and a visionary architect of democracy, freedom, and human rights.
Russ Hatter
Join Russ Hatter as he introduces his new Franklin County Reference. As requested by Franklin County Fiscal Court, the original report was written to denote what the Capital City Museum contained in their collection concerning the county outside city limits.
Dr. Patrick Lewis
In his 2024 book Benefactors of Posterity, Daniel Gifford explored the motivations and activities of early history advocates and institution-builders who established the Filson Historical Society in Louisville in 1884.
Nicky Hughes
Sitting on a hillside overlooking the Kentucky River and downtown Frankfort, the Old State Arsenal has been a prominent Frankfort landmark since 1850.
Stuart Sanders
When the popular musical Hamilton showcased the celebrated duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, it reminded twenty-first-century Americans that some honor-bound citizens once used negotiated, formal fights as a way to settle differences.
Dr. Douglas Boyd
Craw was a small neighborhood in north Frankfort, Kentucky, on fifty acres of swampy, low-lying land along the Kentucky River. To many neighborhood outsiders, Craw was considered the “bad” part of town, carrying a long list of deeply imbedded historical associations.
Dr. Daniel Gifford
Join Dr. Daniel Gifford as he discusses his latest book, Benefactors of Posterity: The Founding Era of the Filson Historical Society, 1884-1899.
Sylvia Sousa Coffey
One of the most dramatic but little-known episodes in our state history – a seventy-year battle fought nationwide and in every state, finally won with nary a shot fired.
James M. Prichard
Frankfort occupies a unique place in the annals of the Civil War. In 1862, it became the only loyal state capital to be occupied by Confederate forces during the war. In 1864 the capital was attacked by elements of Morgan's raiders in a sharp action in which Governor Thomas E.