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Learn more about Fayette County and our rich history with the Kentucky Room's Digital Archives. Search photo collections, historical newspapers and publications, and community collections with a simple search. New material is continually being scanned and added.

Start your genealogy search with billions of records including census data, vital records, directories, photos and more. Available only to customers inside Lexington Public Library locations. Provided by the Kentucky Virtual Library.

Lexington's school system dates back to the city charter of 1831, and it first school opened in 1834.

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The Hamilton Female College catalogs list the school’s Board of Trustees, faculty, alumnae, graduates that year, directory of students, courses of study, and the members of each department.

Dunbar High School opened in 1923 at 545 North Upper Street as the only all-black high school in Lexington’s city school system.

The Kentucky Almanac was a regional almanac that began printing in 1788, at the office of John Bradford’s Kentucky Gazette in Lexington.

Major Henry Clay McDowell purchased the Ashland Estate from Kentucky University in 1882 with his wife, Anne Smith Clay McDowell, who was a granddaughter of Henry Clay. The McDowells took great care to revive the grounds to their fo

Tina Belle Green Winters Simpler Young (1880-1930), was born in Elmville, Kentucky. Known as Tiny, she was believed to be a sex worker in the 1920s and 30s, and sent $5.00 a week home to support her sister.


The Kentucky Gazette was the first paper established west of the Allegheny Mountains, founded by John and Fielding Bradford. The frontier paper focused on East Coast and International news, though some local announcements can be found.

The Daily Argonaut began in 1895 and seems to have ceased publication in 1899. This collection includes scattered issues from 1896, 1897 and 1898.

The Cochran Chronicle appears to be a neighborhood leaflet created by two school children, Philip Borries and Laurence Kraehe, living on Cochran Road in the Chevy Chase area of Lexington, KY in 1960.
