As our community begins a new United Way campaign, let us be thankful for the philanthropic vision already made by one local family.
In 1999, William “Graham” Duncan IV (1935-2013,) his wife, Mary Alice Major Duncan (1934-2022), and Graham’s three siblings and spouses, sold a portion of their family farm to Murray State University. The initial sale of their farm on Fort Campbell Boulevard at Lovers Lane has become the cornerstone for several large developments that continue to sustain their personal values. Their overall farm has evolved into the Murray State University regional campus, the MSU Breathitt Veterinary Center, the new Christian County High School, the West Kentucky Veterans Cemetery, the Bruce Convention Center, the Sportsplex, the Holiday Inn, Pennyrile Ford, and the Sheffield Downs Subdivision.
Although no longer standing, the two-story brick home built by the Duncan family in 1897 stood on that site. If you look closely, you will see a settled area behind where the house stood that was once a swimming pool, one of Hopkinsville’s few concrete swimming pools during the 1940s. (My mother remembered swimming in the pool while Graham’s mother, Elizabeth Fort Duncan, (recognized as Hopkinsville’s first “Woman of the Year” in 1951) was her Girl Scout leader.
The Duncan family’s passion to improve education and agriculture practices is generational. Graham’s father (Graham III) was an agronomy professor at the University of Kentucky and the University of Florida. During World War II, the property was farmed with German POWs imprisoned at nearby Fort Campbell. Graham’s mother oftentimes cooked lunch for the POWs and maintained an active correspondence with several POWs when WW II ended. The farm’s last owners were Graham IV and Mary Alice Duncan. Their children, “Bill” Rives and Andrea, were reared on the farm and graduated from Hopkinsville High School. The family concentrated on raising corn, tobacco, soybeans, hemp, cattle, and hogs.
Graham graduated from Hopkinsville High School and Purdue University. He was a first lieutenant in the Air Force, served as an air-traffic controller in Germany during the 1960s, was a farmer, was a leader in the Republican party on the local, state, and national levels, owned an aviation business in Clarksville, and served on the Kentucky Council on Public Education. Mary Alice was the 1952 valedictorian of Hopkinsville High School, attended Sweet Briar College, and graduated from Purdue University. Both were active members in the community, particularly in the arts and at the First Presbyterian Church.
The patriarch of the local Duncan family was William Graham Duncan II (1851-1929), owner and manager of the W.G. Duncan Coal Co. in Muhlenberg County. The company operated coal mines in Western Kentucky from 1903-1957. Danny Guffey, who was a graduate history student at Western Kentucky University in 1973, noted, “The mine was at one time the largest of its kind in Western Kentucky, and for most of its existence, the largest in Muhlenberg County.”
W.G. Duncan was born in Scotland and accompanied his family as a baby to America in 1851, first to Pennsylvania and then to Muhlenberg County. The Duncan coal mines included the Airdrie, Luzerne, and Paradise coal mines. The Paradise Mine continues to be remembered in the song “Paradise,” sung by John Prine and John Denver.
The next time you drive on the Western Kentucky Parkway, look to your right and note the town of Graham, built by the Duncan family. You may also want to stop at the nearby Duncan Cultural Center (Thistle Cottage) in Greenville and the Bard Distillery in Graham. Each of the remaining buildings were built by the Duncan family for the benefit of their employees and their families. Although WW I and II were boom years for their coal company, the company was sold to the Peabody Coal Company in 1957. As several members of the Duncan family had already moved to Hopkinsville, the farm on Fort Campbell Boulevard served as the primary Duncan homeplace from the 1930s to 1990s.
In 1999, Murray State University expressed an interest in locating a regional campus near Hopkinsville and Fort Campbell. Joey Pendleton, a state senator and Murray State employee, initially approached the Duncan family with the idea of selling a portion of their property to Murray State for educational and agricultural purposes. As Graham and Mary Alice Duncan were in their 60s, they were receptive to the idea, and several meetings were held with representatives of Murray State: specifically, Murray State President Kern Alexander and E.W. Dennison, the university’s athletic director. Within a few months, the four Duncan siblings and spouses quietly and without fanfare transferred their property to Murray State University.
Yes, the family received compensation for their farm, but the family did not seek competitive bids for the highest price. Instead, the Duncan family quietly sold 400 acres envisioning a greater community good. To better appreciate the Duncan family’s vision, please stop and read the memorial plaque located in the tree-lined area located between the Murray State building and the new high school. The area we now see and take for granted would have looked entirely different without their philanthropic vision.
Were they alive today, I think the Duncan family would be pleased with how their family farm continues to sustain issues in which they passionately believed: high school education, college education, agricultural research, a veteran’s cemetery, a community forum, and athletics.
As you contemplate your future philanthropic gifts, whether to organizations like the United Way or the Christian County Public Schools Education Foundation, you are encouraged to think like the Duncan family. Think out of the box, think big, and think how your legacy can best be remembered. Truly, the utilization of the Duncan farm epitomizes how visionary philanthropy can positively change the direction of an entire community.
Wynn Radford is a retired insurance executive and a student of history. His research into Hopkinsville issues has resulted in several History on Tap presentations with topics ranging from the Underground Railroad to local military veterans and a federal grand jury probe of Hopkinsville government and police in the 1950s.
