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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.

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.

Lexington, Kentucky (March 9, 2022) – Lexington Public Library and Lexington Public Library Foundation are honored to announce that the Marksbury Family Foundation has committed the lead gift for the capital campaign to rebuild the library branch at the corner of Versailles Road and Village Drive. In recognition of their generosity, the new facility will be named the Marksbury Family Branch when it opens in 2024.

Fayette County's buildings contain a great deal of history about the region and its inhabitants.
Lexington, Kentucky (January 17, 2024) – Lexington Public Library is proud to announce the Grand Opening of the Marksbury Family Branch of the Lexington Public Library.
Festivities include a Media Day event on Friday, March 8 from 8:30-10am and a Grand Opening Celebration on Saturday, March 9 (more details coming soon). The current Village Branch will remain open through 6pm on Friday, February 23.

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).
Join us for a walking tour of Lexington Public Library's historic downtown locations! 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.
Please note: We prioritized the ease of the walk rather than the chronological order of the library locations.
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.
Join us for a walking tour of downtown Lexington's most notorious places! 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.
Please Note: Some Listener's Discretion is advised.
This tour covers a walking distance of 1.43 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.


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



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.

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

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

Elmer L. Foote served as official photographer of the Cincinnati Public Library for many years, and produced photographs that appeared in the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune during the early years of the twentieth century.

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.

Mountain Ballads for Social Singing contains 15 songs selected for the Vesper Hour gatherings at Berea College.

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.

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

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

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

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