In 1920, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, vice presidential hopeful, visited Hopkinsville. Children lined the sidewalks at Virginia Park to hear him speak. More than 75 years later, Sarah Dalton Todd keenly remembered being an onlooker. Virginia Park was less than a block’s walk from the Dalton House — so close that the Daltons could see the bandstand from their back windows.
When Roosevelt visited, Virginia Park had become the heartbeat of Hopkinsville public life, and the bright new neighborhood that had emerged along its Seventh Street boundary reflected this. Those who opted to build homes here were the new money and the new movers and shakers of Hopkinsville politics and business. They were tobacconists, contractors, and brick manufacturers. East Seventh Street was beautiful and vibrant.
Designating the East Seventh Street Historic District
The East Seventh Street neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, largely through the efforts of Chris Hall, who moved to Hopkinsville from North Carolina to work for International Paper Co. He and his partner, Tracy Calhoun, owned the Dalton House in the early 1980s. Hall was enthusiastic about the house and the neighborhood’s history. At the time both were listed on the National Register, Hall was just 30 years old.