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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 United States Army Armor School began in 1940 as the Armored Force School and Replacement Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Read articles from magazines and journals, learn a new language, or locate a newspaper article. These resources can't be found with a search engine but are available for free with your library card.

The library has a variety of directories and yearbooks with local information. In the library's current digital collection, there is a selection of residential and street directories, yearbooks, school directories, and organizational directories. These are all fully word-searchable.
Wonderful podcasts and walking tours have been created by our staff. Please enjoy!

Old Kentucky Architecture is a comprehensive book by Rexford Newcomb that was published in 1940.

The Morton School Number 1, Lexington’s first public city school in 1834, was originally built on the corner of Walnut (later Martin Luther King Dr.) and Short Street.

Fayette County's local businesses and organizations contain a wealth of information about local residents.


Fayette County's buildings contain a great deal of history about the region and its inhabitants.


The Council of Defense books contain records for Fayette County’s Army soldiers, Navy sailors, Marines, and Army nurses in World War I, and include information regarding the person’s residence, birth place and date, specific units and en

Illustrated Lexington Kentucky contains photographs, demographics, commerce and financial information about Lexington up to 1919.


Old Homes of the Blue Grass is a photographic review of historic homes in Kentucky’s Blue Grass region.

The Kentucky Progress Commission was formed in 1928 in order to draw tourism and business to Kentucky. It was formed by the Kentucky Legislature, and was a 12 person board.

The Kentucky Rally Songs pamphlet contains 42 songs compiled and printed by the state chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, to be used at the many gatherings and rallies that they organized in the late 19th and ea

The Knowles Postcard Collection contains images of notable Kentucky locations, such as Ashland, Keeneland, and Mammoth Cave, as well as county courthouses, farms, schools, and many others.

The Kentucky Room's collections contain Lexington's residential directories going back over 200 years, and are some of the most useful resources for researchers looking for family information, neighborhood histories, and house histories.

The Kentucky Postcard collection contains images of well-known sites in Central Kentucky, such as Keeneland, Transylvania University, Ashland, and many others.

The Kentucky Chautauqua Assembly presented an annual event in Lexington’s Woodland Park with days of programming. Presentations varied from live music and entertainment to lectures and speeches from national figures.


The collection contains non-Fayette County school yearbooks and images, dating from 1878-1968.

The Lexington History Museum began in 1999, and opened its doors in the Old Courthouse in 2003. Its purpose is to educate Fayette County about its rich history, and preserve pieces of that history for future generations.