A Railroad Town Built Before the Civil War
Midway earned its name from its position on the Lexington & Ohio Railroad, which began laying track between Lexington and Frankfort in 1831; when the first train reached the line's midpoint in 1833, the settlement that had grown up there took the name. R. C. Hewitt, the railroad's civil engineer, laid out the town in 1835 on land bought from John Francisco's farm, and Midway was incorporated in 1846 -- the first Kentucky town established by a railroad.
Old Buildings, Modern Humidity
Roughly 70% of that early townscape was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 as the Midway Historic District, a well-preserved run of 19th- and early-20th-century buildings that includes Midway College, founded in 1849. Buildings from that era carry different moisture challenges than modern construction -- older masonry and wood-frame walls, tighter attic spaces, and crawl spaces or shallow basements that were never built with a vapor barrier in mind.
Project Paths
What to Check Before Remediating Mold in a Midway Home
A mold plan for a Midway property built in that historic window has to work with what is already there -- period materials, existing ventilation, and however the crawl space or attic has handled a century and a half of Kentucky humidity.