How did a frontier outpost become a thriving town in ‘Kentucky Country’?
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.
May 6, 1782 — While the day Lexington was founded may have happened in 1775, it was a long road from the city being a stop on the way to the frontier to where Lexington is now.
The town of Lexington was officially established in 1782 when it received its formal charter from the Virginia General Assembly. First settled by frontiersmen camped near what would later become McConnell Springs, the town was part of the Virginia Territory.
Well before Kentucky became a state, settlers were coming to the little piece of heaven we now call home.
European settlers had been venturing into the wilderness west of the Allegheny Mountains since 1671, but there’s no evidence French or Spanish explorers moved into lands south of the Ohio River. It wasn’t until 1750 when Thomas Walker and Christopher Gist surveyed the area that was called the Kentucky Country.
By June 1774, James Harrod had founded Harrod’s Town, but the settlement was later abandoned and resettled in March 1775. Within months it was joined by Boone’s Station, Logan’s Fort and Lexington.
Daniel Boone began exploring the region in 1767 and blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap and down to the Kentucky River to reach the heart of what would become Kentucky.
The Virginia General Assembly acted on Dec. 31, 1776, to name an area spanning west of the Big Sandy River, terminating at the North Carolina border (now Tennessee), to the Mississippi River as its own county of Kentucky, with Harrod’s Town (known as Oldtown at the time) named the county seat.
William McConnell’s encampment on a branch of the Elkhorn Creek was growing. Between 1775 and 1779, the threat of Native American attacks delayed the building of a permanent settlement. Eventually, Col. Robert Patterson and 25 companions came from Fort Harrod and erected a blockhouse at what is now Main and Mill Street.
Soon after, cabins and a stockade were built, making the fort more than an encampment on a creek.
A year after the settlement buildings were established, the Virginia General Assembly decided the area was too big and too populated to be one county. In 1780, it abolished the Kentucky County and split it into three separate counties — Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln.
As Lexington had been named after the battle of Lexington, Massachusetts, Fayette County was named after one of the heroes of the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette.
Together, Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln counties, along with the others that came after them, would band together to separate from Virginia and become the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1792.
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 May 12, 2025 at 1:57 PM.