You can tour the streets of Lexington where famous authors walked

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.

Sometimes, the history of our city lies just beneath our feet.

On April 24, former Lexington Herald-Leader columnist and managing editor Tom Eblen will lead a walk in downtown Lexington to discuss some of the famous writers in the city’s history.

The walk is part of 250Lex, the city’s year-long celebration of Lexington’s founding 250 years ago and coincides with Kentucky Writers Day.

Eblen, who coordinates the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, a joint project of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and the Kentucky Arts Council, created the walking tour in 2021. It focuses on the people and places that had an impact on literature in Lexington – from being a literary inspiration to being a literary writer or publisher.

“A lot of people don’t really realize not only that Lexington is a hotbed for writers now, but that it always has been,” Eblen said. “A lot of great literary figures and a lot of material for great literature came out of Lexington history.”

Among them were Belle Brezing, the Lexington prostitute who was (maybe) the inspiration for Belle Watling in Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind.”

Brezing was a notorious madame in the late 1800s, early 1900s, who operated a few brothels in Lexington, including the one on Eastern Avenue. When she died in 1949, Time Magazine ran an obituary about her.

“Margaret Mitchell’s husband, John Marsh, was from Kentucky and had worked as the police reporter on the Lexington Leader,” Eblen said.

“Part of the routine was that the police reporter would go around and have breakfast at Belle Brezing’s house to pick up all the gossip. So, John Marsh would have been well-acquainted with, in a professional sort of way, Belle Brezing.”

While Mitchell never confirmed Brezing was the basis for Watling, reading the book gives lots of clues that the gutsy prostitute with a heart of gold in “Gone With the Wind” was based on the Kentucky madame, he said.

The tour also includes one of Henry Clay’s law offices. While not a published author, Clay was a great statesman from Lexington, who was known for the speeches he would write.

Other stops along the way include an historical marker to James Lane Allen, one of Lexington’s most famous novelists and short story writers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as a stop near Second and Mill streets where John Bradford, the publisher of the first newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains – the Kentucky Gazette – once lived.

But Lexington’s literary history isn’t over, Eblen said. In the more recent past, Lexington has been home to:

▪ Gayl Jones, one of the outstanding voices in 20th-century African American literature.

▪ Walter Tevis, who wrote “Queen’s Gambit,” “The Color of Money” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”

▪ Robert Penn Warren, author of “All the King’s Men” and “World Enough and Time.”

▪ Nikkie Finney, winner of the 2012 National Book Award for her poetry.

Even now, literary stars like Frank X Walker, Silas House and Crystal Wilkinson continue to put Lexington on the literary map.

The tour starts at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Gratz Park behind the Carnegie Center and will cover the area between Transylvania University and Cheapside.

Eblen said he’ll provide insight into the people, places and things that stand out in the area, including some new things he’s learned since creating the walk in 2021.

The tour is free and open to the public.

Have a question or story idea related to Lexington’s 250-year history? Let us know at 250LexKy@gmail.com

This story was originally published April 23, 2025 at 3:23 PM.