I met Wallace Henderson about 20 years ago because he had an interesting story that I wanted to write. It was about feral cats he fed every morning in several old neighborhoods around downtown Hopkinsville.
Later I became Wallace’s friend because we kept wanting to tell each other more stories, usually at the counter in the back of The Place restaurant on Sixth Street. He and I were lunchtime regulars while The Place was in business from about 2012 to 2019.
I’ve been recalling some of those stories since hearing that Wallace died last week — two months shy of his 90th birthday.
He spent his last years in a local nursing home burdened by Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis. But into his early 80s, Wallace was still driving to his favorite haunts for a meal or a drink with friends.
When it came to sharing stories, Wallace and I each had something the other wanted.
A Hopkinsville native, Wallace was almost 30 years older than me, so he had first-hand knowledge of something I found interesting — local history, especially of people and businesses during the early 20th century.
Apparently what I offered was a job in local journalism, which Wallace seemed to think gave me advance knowledge of many things that interested him. He especially wanted to hear about the news that wasn’t fit to print.
Often, a greeting from Wallace went like this: “Tell me what you couldn’t put in the paper today.”
As a result of our mutual interests in Hopkinsville, we hashed out dozens of local tales over salads and sandwiches.
Sometimes we gossiped and speculated, but most of our story trading was harmless. I know it was worthwhile.
Once Wallace told me about meeting Muhammed Ali’s grandmother, who lived in Hopkinsville. He had been in her Hayes Street home to receive regular payments on her account at the Henderson family’s lumber company.
By far the best story Wallace told was the one about witnessing the Aug. 4, 1940, fire that destroyed Hotel Latham, arguably the grandest building that ever stood in downtown Hopkinsville.
It was a Sunday, two days before Wallace’s fifth birthday. He was taking a nap when his father came home from a golf game and roused him to get dressed and go downtown.
They headed up South Virginia and eventually stopped a couple of blocks from the hotel at the corner of Seventh Street. Wallace remembered the roar of flames consuming the building. He recalled that later there was a crater in the ground when the hotel once stood.
Wallace was one of the last surviving eye-witnesses (if not the last witness) of the Hotel Latham fire.
I’m grateful to have known Wallace. Our time swapping stories, and occasionally gossiping, was time well spent.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
