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Lexington, the seat of Fayette county, was named in 1775
for the Battle of Lexington (Massachusetts) by explorers
camped at McConnell Springs near the Town Branch of
South Elkhorn Creek, west of what is now downtown
Lexington. Permanent settlers began arriving in 1779 and
the town was officially established by the Virginia
Assembly in 1782. The Lexington post office opened in
1794 and the town was incorporated in 1831.
In 1974 the city and county governments merged to
form the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. An
Urban Services Area boundary separates the urban center
of the county from the surrounding rural area. The
population of Lexington in 2000 was 260,512.
Lexington is the home of the University of Kentucky,
Lexington Community College, Central Kentucky Technical
College, Lexington Theological Seminary, and
Transylvania University.
Horse Mania on the streets of Lexington.
The old Fayette County
Courthouse in Lexington was completed about
1898. It was the fifth courthouse, the fourth on
the site, and is now home to the Lexington
History Museum. |
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Lexington's new courthouses were
completed in 2001 and 2002. |
From Timothy Flint's Recollections of the Last
Ten Years (1826)
Lexington is situated in the centre of what the
Kentuckians affirm to be the finest body of land in the
world. I believe no country can show finer upland; and
for a great distance from the town, plantation adjoins
plantation, in all directions... There is a balance in
conveniences and defects, appended to all earthly
paradises. But when the first emigrants entered this
country, in its surface so gently waving, with such easy
undulation, so many clear limestone springs and
branches, so thickly covered with cane, with pawpaw, and
a hundred species of flowering trees and shrubs, among
which fed innumerable herds of deer, and buffaloes, and
other game, as well as wild turkeys and other wild fowl,
and the delightful aspect of the country directly
contrasted with the sterile region of North Carolina,
which they had left, no wonder that it appeared to them
a paradise...
Lexington is a singularly neat and pleasant town, on
a little stream that meanders through it. It is not so
large and flourishing as Cincinnati, but has an air of
leisure and opulence, that distinguishes it from the
busy bustle and occupation of that town. In the circles
where I visited, literature was most commonly the topic
of conversation. The window-seats presented the blank
covers of the new and most interesting publications. The
best modern works had been generally read. The
university, which has become so famous, was, even then,
taking a higher standing, than the other seminaries in
the western country. There was generally an air of ease
and politeness in the social intercourse of the
inhabitants of this town, which evinced the cultivation
of taste and good feeling. In effect, Lexington has
taken the tone of a literary place, and may be fitly
called the Athens of the West...
I shall have occasion elsewhere, to remark upon the
moving or migratory character of the western people
generally, and of this state in particular. Though they
have generally good houses, they might almost as well,
like the Tartars, dwell in tents. Everything shifts
under your eye. The present occupants sell, pack up,
depart. Strangers replace them. Before they have gained
the confidence of their neighbours they hear of a better
place, pack up, and follow their precursors.
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