150 years of the Kentucky Derby brought a ton of changes to Churchill Downs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- To understand where we are, you have to get where we've been.

Long before the Twin Spires, many lengths prior to Secretariat, Churchill Downs was a much different place.

"This is a place that started out as farmland basically," said Curator of Collections at the Kentucky Derby Museum, Jessica Whitehead.

Churchill Downs opened in 1875. The barns are located where the architect intended for the grandstands to grow.

"He actually placed them on the side of the track now known as the backside, the exact opposite of the Twin Spires today," Whitehead explained.

They were luxurious, and that word meant something a little different than it does today.

"They even had water closets, so bathrooms for patrons back in the 1870s," said Whitehead.

There was one glaring problem, the sun.

"Which of course, is bad not only for sunburn, but you can't see the races very well," Whitehead added.

In the 1890s, new track leadership swapped the location of the grandstand. That's when the Twin Spires came into play, but they were sort of an afterthought.

"They were something that he added at the end of the design process," explained Whitehead.

The Derby got more popular in the early 1900s.

"Spectators were expanding, and so the facility had to expand," she said.

Meaning more bleachers, more seats, and a Paddock that didn't look like something that sat in your grandmother's backyard were needed.

"The Paddock was a very simple, small wooden structure in the beginning," Whitehead said. "In 1922, 1923, they introduced a new state of the art steel Paddock that placed just behind the twin spires grandstand."

That Paddock stood until 1986, when a new one that stood until a couple years ago, when they were demolished to make room for the swanky, new Paddock.

"In it's construction has really highlighted and revealed the back of the 1895 grandstand and those Twin Spires," Whitehead said.

Moving the Paddock also made room for the museum that houses the memories that got us to 150 years of the Kentucky Derby.

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