Website Search
A local history exhibit commemorating 250Lex from March 21 to July 13 at the Central Library Gallery, 140 East Main Street. The exhibit includes items from the library’s own Kentucky Room collection as well as loans from the Lexington History Museum, Keeneland, the University of Kentucky, and local residents.
Check here for your school's list of summer assignments.
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 highlighting Lexington's unique role in Abraham Lincoln's life.
Tour Length: 1.42 miles
This tour is adapted from the 2009 Tour created in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth by a partnership between the Lexington Public Library, the Isaac Scott Hathaway Museum, and the Mary Todd Lincoln House.
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.
Discover early 19th-century Lexington in this four-panel traveling exhibit created by the Mary Todd Lincoln House. Images and text illustrate city life, the economy, schools and churches, and arts and leisure during the years Mary Todd lived in Lexington (1818-1839). Text is written for ages 12-up. Free.
Lexington Herald-Leader full text article search beginning from April 25, 1983.
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.
Read the daily electronic edition of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Includes issues from June 8, 2024 to present.
Read the Lexington Herald-Leader in its original printed format, including pictures. New issues are published on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Includes issues from January 1, 2016 to present.
Library meeting rooms are available for individuals, non-profit, for profit, study groups, and community organizations seeking to hold meetings, trainings, and workshops.
Find trusted information in this multimedia encyclopedia for children and young adults in English. Provided by the Kentucky Virtual Library.
Library meeting rooms are available for individuals, non-profit, for profit, study groups, and community organizations seeking to hold meetings, trainings, and workshops. Meeting rooms are free of charge. Sterno and other tools/equipment that have an open flame are prohibited.
Fayette County's local businesses and organizations contain a wealth of information about local residents.
Lexington Public Library is proud to host the 2026 Kentucky History and Genealogy Conference. This conference brings together historians, genealogists, researchers, and enthusiasts to explore the rich history and genealogical heritage of Kentucky.
Subscribe to receive library news in your email inbox.
The Lexington Public Library is pleased to offer teachers, childcare providers, and homeschooling families the "Bucket of Books" service. We can supplement your curriculum with specially-selected books on a particular topic or provide your classroom with specially-selected books for your students' pleasure reading.
Description coming soon.
Description coming soon.
This is a handwritten series of lectures detailing Samuel D. McCullough's memories of his childhood and life in Lexington, Kentucky, accompanied by letters and a photograph of his house.
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.