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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 Daily Lexington Atlas ran from December 11, 1847 through November 20, 1848 and was Lexington’s first daily paper, and the first to publish information from the telegraph lines.

The True American was an anti-slavery newspaper started by Cassius Marcellus Clay in June 1845.


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 Black Community News Collection compiles searchable newspaper articles and ads for local Black community events, schools, social gatherings, church events, obituaries, and wedding announcements in older local newspapers in the librar

The Reporter was published from March 1808-September 1817, by William W. Worsley. It was a Republican paper (Jeffersonian Democratic Republican - liberal at the time).

The Kentucky Pioneer Genealogy and Records Magazine published various articles about early Kentucky history as a quarterly publication from 1979-1985, then annually 1986-1988.

The Fayette County Images contains photographs of Lexington and Fayette County Kentucky.

The Kentucky Images collection contains postcards, photographs and slides of people, architecture, and locations in Kentucky and Appalachia.

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.


The Cyrus Parker Jones Funeral Notice collection contains 667 funeral cards of Lexington residents during the years of 1806-1886.

The city reports and ordinances for Lexington contain a wide variety of information about the people, infrastructure, and businesses.

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





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

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

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