City of Danville

Danville became a part of the Commonwealth when Kentucky became a state in 1792. Danville, “The City of Firsts," was the location of the first Courthouse in Kentucky (1785), the first U.S. Post Office west of the Alleghenies (1792), the first Capital of Kentucky (1785), and the first Political Club in the West (1786). In 1809, Danville's own Dr. Ephraim McDowell became the first physician in the world to successfully remove an ovarian tumor. Jane Todd Crawford. Danville was also the location of the first college in the West (1783) and the first law school in the West (1799). The first state-supported School for the Deaf opened in Danville in 1823. Among the “firsts” in Danville was the development of education for blacks. Danville was the site of the first black home school in Boyle County. The school was taught by Willis Russell, a teacher listed in the 1850 census. The first kindergarten for blacks was established by the City Federation of Women's Clubs. In 1881, John W. Bate established Danville's first public school for blacks. "We will never bring disgrace on this our City by an act of dishonesty or cowardice. We will fight for the ideals and Sacred Things of the City both alone and with many. We will revere and obey the City's laws, and will do our best to incite a like reverence and respect in those above us who are prone to annul them or set them at naught. We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public's sense of civic duty. Thus, in all these ways, we will transmit this City not only, not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us." - The Athenian Oath