Old Latonia
Making A Film That Gave Me A New Perspective On Community
When I was growing up in Latonia, Ky in the 1970s/80s, I, much to my displeasure, used to go shopping at the Value City Department Store with my mother and three brothers. Often times, we’d walk the few blocks to the store in the summer. Of course, being a boy who’d rather be playing ball, I had zero interest in participating in the discount shopping experience.
But if it meant that we’d stop for ice balls at the candy shop on the way home, I’d cross my arms and deal with it for a few hours.
I recall one particular trip to Value City where I asked my mother about the large, panoramic photo that hung above the service desk. It was of a horse racing track. I found it odd that a department store would display a black and white photo of an old track, so I asked my mother what it was. She told me it was the Latonia Race Track and that it used to be right where we were standing. The Kentucky Derby had always been a special occasion for me as a kid because it fell on or around my birthday, and we always watched it together as a family, so I was intrigued. My mother also told me that her father had a job there and attended races when he was a young man. Even as a little boy, I was proud to have that personal connection. Although I never met him, and he once wished to get me horse when he found out he was going to be a grandfather, knowing I was in a spot where he may have once roamed was pretty cool even for a nine or ten year old Latonia lad.
When I moved back to the area as a young man in the early 1990s, I went back to that Value City on the former grounds of the track several times with my wife and kids, As time marched on, and the store was closed, the Latonia Race Course was just another historical footnote that I found interesting. In the early 2000s when I began to collect historical clippings on projects I had hoped to make films about, Latonia kept coming up. The more I dug, the more intriguing it became. I began to see how special the track was. I went to that shopping center parking lot one day and imagined the roar of 60,000 fans and the thundering sounds of running horses surrounding me. It was akin to a “Field of Dreams” moment.
“If you make the film, they will watch.”
When I originally set out to tell the story, it was to be a “date by date” historical film about every race and detailed explanation of who, what, when, and why. It was a sprawling 6 hours. Ken Burns, eat your heart out.
And then I came across a diary. And my film completely changed directions.
James Robertson was an employee of the track and was there for some pretty amazing events. He witnessed dozens of Latonia Derby races, saw Orville Wright and famous race car drivers during auto races, and even came within a few feet, along with his son, from FDR when he packed the grandstand for a speech in 1938. Telling the story through his eyes and hitting on the historical points along the way gave the film humanity. It was more than just a place to bet on the horses. It was a community of people that made the city and the track a special place.
I remember that sense of community of growing up in Latonia.
I wish we could get that sense back.
You can view my film here.
Cam Miller