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Join us for a walking tour of Lexington’s literary history!
Tour Length 1.05 miles
The music clips used in this tour are from “Walking Barefoot on Grass” by Kai Engel, and are used with a CCBY license. It is available here.

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.
Join us for a walking tour of Lexington's Historic Lexington Cemetery. The full tour is available as a single MP3, or you can download individual tracks. For the single MP3, music will play between the stops. You can pause the track while you walk between stops.
This tour covers a walking distance of approximately 1.5 miles.
Please note: You will be walking on paths also used by cars. Please take special care to watch and listen for approaching vehicles.
The music clips used in this tour are from “Walking Barefoot on Grass” by Kai Engel, and are used with a CCBY license. It is available here: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel/

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

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.

Search for obituaries and death notices from newspapers around the country.

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.


In 1917, the Woman’s Club of Central Kentucky hosted a series of speakers giving historical sketches on people and places of local interest.

In 1768, Lewis Craig and other members of the Spotsylvania Baptist Church were arrested for preaching without a license issued by the Church of England. Their case was later defended by Patrick Henry.


While the focus of content in the digital archive is Fayette County, many other counties are represented. This list is in alphabetical order by county name for non-Fayette County content.
Anderson County


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

Old Kentucky Architecture is a comprehensive book by Rexford Newcomb that was published in 1940.
Join us for a walking tour Lexington's Gratz Park Historic District. The full tour is available as a single MP3, or you can download individual tracks. For the single MP3, music will play between the stops. You can pause the track while you walk between stops.
This tour covers a walking distance of 0.4 miles.
The music clips used in this tour are from “Walking Barefoot on Grass” by Kai Engel, and are used with a CCBY license. It is available here: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel/

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

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

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

The Library's digitized collection includes some non-Fayette County directories for businesses, farms and residences.