Immediately after his dismissal from the statehouse project, he left the Columbus area and worked in southwest Ohio and in Kentucky. In the western Kentucky city of Hopkinsville, Kelley made a significant contribution to the built landscape. His projects in the city overlap his tenure on the Ohio Statehouse, beginning with the woman's school Bethel College, completed in 1855. He also erected a home for the Leavell family and a second all-female institution of higher learning, South Kentucky College (1858). He also built a second mental institution, which still stands and houses patients, the Western State Hospital.