Lexington Public Library

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Digital Archives - Collection - Group
Fayette County History

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.

 

Digital Archives - Collection - Group
Sample directory page

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.

 

Digital Archives - Collection

Lexington's school system dates back to the city charter of 1831, and it first school opened in 1834. From a single building in 1834 with about 100 students, today the Fayette County Public School system has over 40,000 students and 68 schools and programs. Lexington and Fayette County combined districts in 1968, shortly before the city/county government merger in 1974.

Until 1974, Lexington and Fayette County had two separate governing bodies. Lexington itself was founded in 1775 and chartered in 1782 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly, since Kentucky itself did not achieve statehood until 1792. Fayette County was formed in 1780, and spanned what is currently about a third of the state, before achieving its current boundary lines in 1799. 
 
The Lexington Fayette Urban County Government became a consolidated government in 1974. The digitized items in this collection are primarily Lexington city documents or merged city-county documents. The earliest digitized item is Lexington’s 1858 city charter and ordinances. 
 
Digital Archives - Collection

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

The Old Kentucky Architecture book by Rexford Newcomb (1940) contains images, details, and some architectural layouts from all around Kentucky, but the Lexington properties include Llangollen (the Dr. John C. Lewis House), the Benjamin Gratz House, Rose Hill, Hopemont, Eothan, Ashland, Mansfield, Helm Place, Carrick House at Whitehall, Morrison College at Transylvania University, the tomb of Gideon Shryock's father Matthew at the Old Episcopal Burying Grounds, Ingleside (listed here as Ingelside), Loudoun House, Botherum, Walnut Hill Church, and the Sexton's Cottage at the Old Episcopal Burying Grounds. 

The Court-Houses of Lexington by J. Winston Coleman, Jr. (1937) contains photos and history of Fayette County's four courthouses.

The Illustrated Lexington (1919) has a variety of images, but included are some exterior and interior photographs of downtown Lexington businesses and houses.

Bluegrass Houses and Their Traditions by Elizabeth M. Simpson (1932) contains photos of various Fayette and surrouding county properties, with descriptions of the families, buildings, and contents. The properties include Glendower, Castleton, Eothan, Idle Hour, Maxwell Place, Winton, Elmendorf, Clingendaal, Morrison College, La Chaumiere du Prairie, Scarlet Gate, the Meadows, Lindenhouse, Belair, Mount Brilliant, Coldstream, Hopemont, Bodley House, Roberts House, Woodburn House, Botherum, Greentree, Ingleside, Loudoun, Thorn Hill, Rose Hill (Buckner), Elmwood, Sycamore Park, Walnut Hall, Edwards House, Patchen Wilkes, Hurricane Hall, Forkland, the Old Keen Place, Xalapa, the Ward Place, Calumet, Dunreath, Kilmore, Alleghan Hall, Sumner’s Forest, Stoneley, Rose Hill (Talbert), Helm Place, Castlelawn, Dixiana, Bryan Station, Poplar Hill, Mansfield, Fowler’s Garden, Mount Hope, Hollyrood, and Ashland.

Gratz Park (1983) contains illustrations and brief descriptions of the buildings and features of Gratz Park in downtown Lexington.

 

Digital Archives - Collection

The Fayette County Postcard collection contains images of well-known sites in Central Kentucky, such as Keeneland, Transylvania University, Ashland, and many others. The 80 images provide an interesting perspective of Lexington architecture, industry, and culture in the early 20th Century.

Primary Page

The Lexington Public Library’s Digital Archives provide open access to researchers and students to learn more about the rich history of Lexington and Fayette County. It contains a fraction of the Library’s physical holdings, which are housed and available for reference in the Kentucky Room at the Central Library. New material is being digitized and added constantly, so there's always something new to find.

The archives have a simple keyword search, and it is possible to browse the collections by subject, area, or decade. The Lexington Public Library actively reviews and labels materials in our archives with statements that indicate how you may reuse the images, and what sort of permission, if any, you need to do so. Please check the information for each image to determine its legal status.

Digital Archives - Collection
The Bath County Memorial Library was founded in 1949 by the Owingsville Women’s Club, and opened in January, 1950. It expanded into a bookmobile in 1953, and in 1963 moved into the old Farmer’s Bank Building at 24 W. Main St. Community response was high; a 1965 survey showed resident usage at 70%, and the library expanded again in 1996. 
 
Both of those collections are owned by the Bath County Memorial Library, and held in their local history collection.

The Central Kentucky Cemeteries Maps are powered by Google Maps.  Counties include:  Fayette, Bourbon, Clark, Garrard, Harrison, Jessamine, Lincoln, Madison, Mercer, Montgomery, Nicholas, Powell, Scott, and Woodford.

Digital Archives - Collection

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department had its earliest form almost as long as the city itself has existed, when the newly formed city of Lexington would appoint a local physician to investigate reports of certain diseases for quarantine. As early as 1794, Lexington's citizens were getting smallpox inoculations. The city created a Board of Health possibly as early as the 1820s, as a young Lexington experienced cholera outbreaks, typhus, smallpox, and the various growing pains created by more people living and working closer together. In 1938, the Lexington city Board of Health merged with the county’s Board to become the Fayette County Health Department.  

The board minutes for January 1904 – April 1922 provided by the Health Department show the broad range of topics impacting local citizens, and the Health Department’s role in keeping its citizens healthier. Through the decades, the Health Department has tested the local milk supply for tuberculosis, led education and vaccination programs, inspected restaurants, set quarantines to prevent the spread of disease, improved sanitation, and at one point ran the local crematory and eruptive hospital.

Digital Archives - Collection

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

 

Bath County

Boone County

Bourbon County

Boyd County

Boyle County

Breathitt County

Bullitt County

Caldwell County

Calloway County

Christian County

Clark County

Clay County

Floyd County

Franklin County

Garrard County

Graves County

Grayson County

Hardin County

Harlan County

Hopkins County

Jackson County

Jefferson County

Jessamine County

Johnson County

  • Kentucky Mountain Club (Membership includes the following counties: Adair, Bath, Bell, Boyd, Breathitt, Carter, Casey, Clay, Clinton, Cumberland, Elliott, Estill, Fayette, Fleming, Floyd, Greenup, Harlan, Jackson, Johnson, Knott, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, Lee, Leslie, Letcher, Lewis, McCreary, Magoffin, Martin, Menifee, Monroe, Morgan, Owsley, Perry, Pike, Powell, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Rowan, Russell, Wayne, Whitley, and Wolfe)

Knox County

  • Telephone Directory; Barbourville, Brodhead, East Bernstadt, Eubank, Faubush, Flat Lick, Livingston, London, Manchester, Mt. Vernon, Oneida, Science Hill, Shopville, White Lily, Kentucky, 1974

Laurel County

Leslie County

Livingston County

Madison County

Mason County

Meade County

Mercer County

Muhlenberg County

Nelson County

Owsley County

Pulaski County

  • Telephone Directory; Barbourville, Brodhead, East Bernstadt, Eubank, Faubush, Flat Lick, Livingston, London, Manchester, Mt. Vernon, Oneida, Science Hill, Shopville, White Lily, Kentucky, 1974

Robertson County

Rockcastle County

  • Telephone Directory; Barbourville, Brodhead, East Bernstadt, Eubank, Faubush, Flat Lick, Livingston, London, Manchester, Mt. Vernon, Oneida, Science Hill, Shopville, White Lily, Kentucky, 1974

Scott County

​Shelby County

Warren County

Washington County

Wolfe County

Woodford County

 

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Primary Page

Discover unique resources in our Digital Archives that tell the story of Fayette County.  Visit cemeteries throughout Central Kentucky using our cemetery maps.  Contact our resident experts in the Central Library's Kentucky Room with questions.

The Lexington Public Library receives most of its operating funds from an Ad Valorem property tax. By State law, the Library receives five cents for every $100 of assessed property value in Lexington and Fayette County.

Digital Archives - Collection - Group
group of children in Grade 5B at Constitution School
The Community Collections consist of objects shared from local community residents and organizations. Individuals have lent items of local significance to the library to give the larger community awareness and access. The original objects are not owned by the Lexington Public Library. 
 
Submissions for the Community Collections are open. If you are an individual or organization interested in possibly lending items to be digitized by the library, please contact elibrarian@lexpublib.org. We consider item age, location, content, relevance, privacy considerations, and item condition when determining items to add. Content donors must be the legal copyright holders if the item is not in the public domain.
 
Kentucky History Awards Icon noting this collection received the award in 2019.

 

Digital Archives - Collection - Group
historic frankfort kentucky

The Kentucky History collection contains Kentucky-related documents not specifically related to Fayette County.

 

Digital Archives - Collection - Group
Kentucky Images

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

 

Digital Archives - Collection

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. While it served as a social and educational club, its members also provided support during regional emergencies and helped establish tubercular sanitoriums in the eastern Kentucky mountains in the 1930s.

The Kentucky Mountain Club directories contain organizational information about the club’s history, activities, officers, woman’s auxiliary, articles of incorporation, and membership. The membership roster is presented alphabetically, then listed again by county. The directory also contains a scattering of poems, photographs, and business advertisements.

Membership for the club was limited to the following counties: Adair, Bath, Bell, Boyd, Breathitt, Carter, Casey, Clay, Clinton, Cumberland, Elliott, Estill, Fayette, Fleming, Floyd, Greenup, Harlan, Jackson, Johnson, Knott, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, Lee, Leslie, Letcher, Lewis, McCreary, Magoffin, Martin, Menifee, Monroe, Morgan, Owsley, Perry, Pike, Powell, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Rowan, Russell, Wayne, Whitley, and Wolfe Counties.

Digital Archives - Collection
The loose scrapbook pages were given to the library, since the original owner is not known. They contain photos of African American individuals and families, likely from Lexington, with dates ranging from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s. The most commonly repeated name was a young African American woman named Olivia Blythe, or Ollie Blythe.
 
There are two local Lexington civic groups described in the pages, with invitations to a 1942 Collegians Club dinner, and two 1939 and 1941 dance invitations to the S. P. U. Girls, which was a Lexington civic club. It is not currently known what the acronym stands for. The newspaper clippings listed are of unknown provenance, though it is likely that they came from the Louisville Defender
 
The library is classifying these as an orphan work, since the photographer and information on the individuals is unknown. 
 
Digital Archives - Collection

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. 

To free his congregation from what he felt was religious persecution, and to capitalize on the opportunities of available land in the area, Craig formed the Traveling Church and brought his entire congregation through the frontier to Kentucky and established Bryan's Station Baptist Church.  As the church grew too large for one meeting space, it formed David's Fork Baptist Church in Fayette County in 1801. The church built a new space in 1857, where they still hold services. 

The pamphlet is part of the library's collection in the Kentucky Room.

Information from At the Meetinghouse on David's Fork: a History of David's Fork, 1891-2001 by Randy Smith, 2001.

Digital Archives - Collection

The Lexington Musicians' Association is the local chapter of the American Federation of Musicians (Local 554-635) and was chartered in 1910. At the time of its creation it raised some controversy as the first musician labor union in the city. The LMA was affiliated with Lexington's Central Labor Union. 

The directory contains information on Kentucky member musicians, the union rates, and instruments played.

 

Information from "Musicians' Union a Controversy." Lexington Leader 7 November 1910: 2. Microfilm.

Digital Archives - Collection

The Cyrus Parker Jones Funeral Notice collection contains 667 funeral cards of Lexington residents during the years of 1806-1886. Cyrus Parker Jones was once enslaved by the Parker family, and was emancipated upon the death of Elizabeth Parker, Mary Todd Lincoln’s grandmother, in 1849. The notices include deaths of people belonging to prominent families, infants, and at least seven free blacks.

Prior to his death in 1887, Jones donated his collection to a trustee of the Lexington Public Library, James M. Duff. Duff then donated the collection to the Library in 1900. It appears Duff added a few funeral notices to the book himself, and it ends with a notice that the library is closed for Duff's funeral, inserted later by an unknown library staff member. The physical collection is named “Duff’s Funeral Notices”, but we have renamed the digital collection to recognize Cyrus Parker Jones, and accurately reflect the collection’s origin.

The Funeral Notices are searchable by keyword.

Digital Archives - Collection

In 1917, the Woman’s Club of Central Kentucky hosted a series of speakers giving historical sketches on people and places of local interest. Maude Ward Lafferty’s speech in February of 1917 detailed a brief history of Lexington and specifically detailed the Block House on Main and Mill, Lexington’s first house, and the Town Branch Trail running through downtown Lexington. The entirety of the speech was printed in the newspaper, along with relevant maps.

Digital Archives - Collection

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 school was named after African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906­), whose parents had been enslaved in Kentucky. Dunbar was a source of immense pride for many in Lexington; it was ambitious in academics, formidable in athletics, a meeting place for community organizations, and the first of only eight black high schools to ever be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

In 1967, after federal pressure to racially integrate schools, the Fayette County board of education decided to close Dunbar High School. This elicted a substantial outcry from many black Lexingtonians, who saw Dunbar as a community cornerstone, and whose children would be bused longer distances to school. In 1968, the school board promised that the next high school opened in Fayette County would also be Dunbar, which then opened in 1990. After the original closed in 1967, the old Dunbar building remained in use for several years as a junior high school. Most of the building was razed in 1974; what remains of it has been converted into the Dunbar Community Center.

The Dunbar Echo became the student publication, coming out a few times each year. The Lexington Public Library holdings contain the yearbook editions of the publication, which contains information about students, alumni, faculty and teachers, sports, essays, student activities, attendance, budget, and Echo sponsors. There are also black and white photos of some of the students and faculty.

Available yearbooks

Information from:

  • Carpenter, Siona. “New Era Dawns at Dunbar.” Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, KY), Dec. 18, 1989.
  • Carpenter, Siona. “New Dunbar: Honoring Poet or Avoiding Past?” Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, KY), Jan. 24, 1990.
  • “Dunbar (Paul Lawrence) High School.” Lexington History Museum. Accessed February 26, 2018. http://lexhistory.org/wikilex/dunbar-paul-lawrence-high-school.
  • Marx, Jeffrey. “Alumni of Dunbar Want Name Revived in New High School.” Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, KY), Sept. 2, 1987.
  • “Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (Lexington, KY).” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. Accessed February 26, 2018. http://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/1358.​

 

Digital Archives - Collection
The Lexington Public Library opened a Carnegie library in 1905. It incorporated the collections of the former subscription Lexington Library Company (est.1801) and the former Transylvania Library (est.1795). The library became a free library in 1899, shortly before moving locations. When the city outgrew the Carnegie building, the Central Library was built and it opened in 1989.
 
The system contains six branch locations. The largest is the Central Library, located on E. Main St. The Beaumont Branch, located on Fieldstone Way just off Harrodsburg Rd., replaced the Southside Branch in 1997. The Tates Creek Branch, located on Walden Drive, replaced the Lansdowne Branch in 2001. The Village Branch, located on Versailles Rd. at Village Dr., opened in 2004, and is an English-Spanish bilingual branch, with bilingual staff. The Northside Branch, located on Russell Cave Rd., replaced the previous Northside location in 2008. The Eastside Branch, located on Blake James Dr., replaced the Eagle Creek Branch in 2016. 
 
The contents of the library's digital collection contain some images and brochures at various points in library history. The typed library history by Mary K. Bullitt was a part of the library's cornerstone collection, which was buried in 1902, during the construction of the Carnegie building. It was opened in 1989 when the library moved locations. The other images depict the construction of the Central Library from 1987-1989.
 
Digital Archives - Collection

The city reports and ordinances for Lexington contain a wide variety of information about the people, infrastructure, and businesses. 

The Lexington ordinances contain the laws and procedures for local government and departments, as well as local elections. The charter covers the incorporation of the city of Lexington.

The reports for the various city departments vary from year to year, but in general contain the mayor and city officers, and reports for the city clerk, auditor, treasurer, jailer, solicitor, attorney, assessor, license officer, health officer, city physician, fire and police departments, public works, parks, and sometimes special projects, like a temporary smallpox ward or the orphan home. Often the reports include specifics on city streets, and businesses with accounts with Lexington for goods and services.

Digital Archives - Collection

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. The Kentucky Chautauqua began in 1887, to great popularity, and continued through 1903. After Woodland Park was taken over by the city and reconstructed in 1904, new Chautauqua series did take place by the Lexington Chautauqua and later the Redpath circuit Chautauqua.

The Lexington Public Library collection has two programs, detailing the events for the 1892 and 1896 Kentucky Chautauquas.