Fayette County History

The history of Fayette County is a little short, but quite interesting. Fayette County was, along with Jefferson and Lincoln, one of the first three counties of Kentucky. Of course, at that time, Fayette County was not technically a county of Kentucky because Kentucky was, itself, a county – Kentucky used to be Kentucky County, Virginia. The Virginia Act of 1780 divided Kentucky County into three smaller counties, thus forming the counties of Jefferson, Lincoln and Fayette (named for Marquis de Lafayette, a French military officer who played a significant part in the American Revolution). Back then, the territory of Fayette was considerably larger with territories north and east of the Kentucky River. Presently, most of that area have become thirty-seven different, individual counties, having been reduced to a much smaller area back in 1799.

But perhaps one of the most significant event in the history of Fayette County would be when it forged a coextensive government with its own county seat, the City of Lexington (incidentally, the only city in the county, effectively turning Lexington-Fayette into a city-county) back in 1974, on New Year’s Day. Lexington was named for the town of Lexington in Massachusetts, where a band of colonists reportedly defeated the Kingdom of Britain in battle. Lexington was originally a campsite set up by a group of frontiersmen. It later evolved into one of the wealthiest and most cultured towns in the area. Today, it is possibly the most diversified and progressive cities in the region.