Fifth Ward School
building in Louisville, Kentucky, United States
The Fifth Ward School, also known as the Monsarrat School, is a 19th-century, three-story brick building located on 5th and York streets in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Over the years the building has served as a school, a hospital, a dormitory, a library, and a museum, and is currently occupied by apartments. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
History
The original Fifth Ward School was completed in 1854. It burned down the next year, and the architect Isaiah Rogers was contracted to rebuild the school. The result, the current building in modified Renaissance Revival style, was completed in 1857. The school later came to be known as the Monsarrat School, after its first principal, Laura Lucas Monsarrat.
The Fifth Ward School would serve three hundred children annually. During the Civil War it served as a hospital. During World War II, the building became a dormitory for soldiers.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Fifth Ward School” as building in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as building in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q30673266. Authority coordinates are 38.245, -85.760. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1854 and 1857.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Fifth Ward School”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Fifth Ward School primary sources, Fifth Ward School archive and Fifth research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fifth Ward School”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Fifth Ward School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.