

Website Search

Search for obituaries and death notices from newspapers around the country.
description coming soon.
Celebrate Lexington, Kentucky’s 250th anniversary all year long. Join us for programs, galleries, podcasts, and more highlighting our city’s history, heritage, and legacy.

Monday-Thursday: 9:30am-7:00pm
Friday: 9:30am-6:00pm
Saturday: 9:30am-5:00pm
Sunday: 1:00pm-5:00pm
140 East Main Street
Lexington, KY 40507
All the Library Can Be
The library is essential to a thriving community, ensuring equitable access to information, education, and technology for all. We raise funds to support Lexington Public Library programs, services, and special projects that go beyond what public dollars alone can support.
Wonderful podcasts and walking tours have been created by our staff. Please enjoy!

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 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 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

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

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 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 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.

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

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

The Kentucky Mountain Club was founded in 1929 as a social organization for residents of Lexington, Kentucky, who had been born or resided in the counties of eastern Kentucky.

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill has existed outside of Harrodsburg for over 200 years, and is a popular site to visit today.

The Dunn Photograph Collection contains images of Lexington, KY taken in the 1960s and 1980s. Keller J.