Spreading the news and defending the First Amendment since August 1787

Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.

Lexington was home to the first newspaper published west of Pittsburgh, a newspaper that is still in circulation.

In 1786, as Kentucky leaders looked toward statehood, officials decided the fledgling territory needed a newspaper. During a constitutional convention in Danville, leaders put in place a plan to entice a printer from the East to come to the wilderness to start a paper.

Unfortunately, no one took the bait.

Instead, a surveyor from Virginia named John Bradford said he’d start a newspaper if he could get the contracts to do all the state printing work, as well. The state’s leadership assumed Bradford would start the paper in Danville, where the constitutional conventions were held.

But leaders in Lexington had other ideas. They offered Bradford a free lot in the city and the use of a City Hall cabin to store his printing presses in if he’d start the paper in Lexington.

Thus, the Kentucky Gazette began. According to the paper, it is considered the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. However, the Pittsburgh Gazette, which started in July 1786, also claims that title.

The first edition was Aug. 11, 1787.

For certain, it is the first newspaper published west of Pittsburgh. Original copies of the paper are included in the Library of Congress and in George Washington’s collection of correspondence stored there.

Bradford printed the first issues on animal skin parchment, on a printing press producing only 50 to 60 sheets an hour. At first, the paper focused mostly on news from outside of the area and advertising for businesses within the community.

For instance, on Feb. 6, 1791, the paper’s front page included advertisements for a new store — Tegarden and McCullough — selling dry goods and groceries at the lowest prices, an opening for a gun or silver smith apprentice, and a notice for the return of a watch left on a tree stump on a Lexington street with a reward of $1.

Eventually, the paper moved to three times a week. Bradford moved on to also publish some of the Kentucky General Assembly’s first acts. And the content began to change.

The paper printed letters from Lexington citizens about a variety of issues. Bradford took some of his own most notable articles and published them as a book, “The Voice of the Frontier: John Bradford’s Notes on Kentucky.”

Bradford and his family published the newspaper until 1848. Another Lexington paper used the name from 1866-1910. In 1995, the paper was revived by Lowell Reese, publisher of the Kentucky Roll Call.

Reese operated the newspaper until it was sold in 2007 to Laura Cullen Glasscock, owner of Gravel Switch Publishing Inc., who publishes it out of Frankfort.

Have a question about Lexington’s 250-year history? Or a story idea for us? Contact us at 250LexKy@gmail.com

This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 10:55 AM.