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Stories of Lexington's history told through the Kentucky Room archives.
Fayette County, Kentucky, has changed enormously since it was created in 1792. This collection contains government documents for the city of Lexington, for Fayette County, and for the merged Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, as well as funeral notices, club directories, scrapbooks, image collections and a history of Lexington Public Library.
Join us for a walking tour of Downtown Lexington’s historic sites. 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 1.1 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/
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The Daily Argonaut began in 1895 and seems to have ceased publication in 1899. This collection includes scattered issues from 1895, 1896, 1897 and 1898.
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The Independent Gazetteer was founded and printed by James Charless in 1803, with ads appearing in the Kentucky Gazette about its upcoming publication. The first issue was printed March 29, 1803. The paper was later sold to Robert Kay and then to T. Anderson. This collection contains issues from 1803 and 1804, though the paper may have been published through 1809.
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Program features the activities and accomplishments of the previous year’s Empress and Emperor while providing the layout of the current year’s coronation proceedings. Features advertisements for local businesses and photographs of the royal line and candidates.
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This collection of letters to and from portrait artist Sudduth Goff (1887-1965) is part of the library's Duncan-Goff scrapbook collection.
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This half of the record book contains burial records for St. Paul Catholic Church parishioners.
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This letter collection was collected by Judge Kenneth Lyons. The earliest date of the letters is 1862, from Bourbon and Nicholas Counties, Kentucky. Some letters are fragments.
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Letters to and from Father William T. Punch (1874-1933). Father Punch was instrumental in building the 3rd St. Peter Catholic Church on Barr Street in Lexington, KY.
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This collection consists of Black community news published under the headline “Colored Churches,” “In Colored Circles,” or “Colored Notes”; and other articles of social interest, including marriages, public events, and obituaries.
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The 1906-07 Lexington cross directory contains residential and business information for the city, arranged both alphabetically and by street, with a business listing by category. It also contains city officials and departments, and basic historical and landmark information. The advertising section is printed on yellow paper.
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Compiled by Cyrus Parker Jones, a man formerly enslaved by the Parker family, these funeral notices cover 667 funerals of individuals in Lexington, including seven free blacks. The funeral notices cover the years 1806-1886. Jones donated his collection to a trustee of the Lexington Public Library prior to his death in 1887, who then added some notices and donated the collection to the Lexington Public Library in 1900.
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Etta Evans Gilmore was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, on February 4, 1885, to Robert Evans and Matilda Fawns. She married Henry Steele Gilmore, a Bath County physician, around 1906. Their son Robert was born in 1906 and daughter Lorena in 1910. She died on December 2, 1959, in Owingsville, Bath County, Kentucky, and was buried in the Hillsboro Cemetery in Fleming County.
She lived in Bath County for the last 51 years of her life, and was active in her churches and in her role as a doctor’s wife. The diaries that she wrote touched on the many people and activities in her life. After her death in 1959 and her husband’s death in 1973, the family donated the diaries to the Bath County Memorial Library’s local history collection.
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The diary (ca. 1899) of Katherine Pettit, details her settlement work for the Kentucky Confederation of Women's Clubs, made yearly trips to Hazard during this period and was a central figure in establishing the Hindman (Kentucky) Settlement School in 1902. Activities described here include teaching, reading, cooking, and hygiene. The diary also includes daily entries (August 3-September 13) detailing Pettit's travel from Lexington and Hazard with fellow settlement workers, her encounters with Hazard and mountain families, and the general scope of her work. Also includes a manuscript map of her camp.
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The Daily Lexington Atlas ran from late 1847 through early 1849 and was Lexington’s first daily paper, and the first to publish information from the telegraph lines. It is described by William Perrin in his 1882 History of Fayette County Kentucky as a “red-hot Whig and fiery southern” publication. It contains some articles and editorials that are overtly racist, as the editors favored slavery, then emancipation only if the freed African Americans were immediately sent to Liberia. It covers the 1848 presidential election and the local election for Kentucky Governor. Perrin claims the paper had an extensive subscriber list, but had to “give up the ghost after several months disastrous experience” due to the expense of the paper.
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The city report covers the outline of a citizen participation work plan and its connection with neighborhood groups, as well as the results of those meetings and community concerns that took place throughout 1969. It contains neighborhood maps, images of news articles, and and project methodology.
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Friday: 9:30am-6:00pm
Saturday: 9:30am-5:00pm
Sunday: 1:00pm-5:00pm
140 East Main Street
Lexington, KY 40507
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The Elmer L. Foote Collection is a group of 190 lantern slides. They were created by Elmer L. Foote, a Cincinnati photographer and library staff member whose pictures appeared in the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.