Dr. Thomas Wendell House

Dr. Thomas T. Wendell practiced medicine in Lexington for half a century and died in 1953, the same year a new building at Eastern State Hospital was named for him.

Best known for being the home of Dr. Thomas T. Wendell, a well-known Black physician, this house was built around 1900 and was first owned and occupied by a white family, that of Thomas and Ida Jones.

The Wendell family moved here in 1907. Dr. Wendell practiced medicine in Lexington for half a century and died in 1953, the same year a new building at Eastern State Hospital was named for him. Wendell had been a staff physician at Eastern State for many years. His death garnered a front page story in the Lexington Herald.

One of Wendell’s daughters, Clara Wendell Stitt, was principal of the all-black Dunbar High School when the school closed in the 1960s.

Images

Map

335 East Third Street, Lexington, Kentucky