March 15, 2025
Henry Clay High School, 1948
The former Henry Clay High School in August 1948. Lexington’s oldest public high school opened on Main Street in 1928. In 1970, the school moved to its current location on Fontaine Road. The former high school now houses the main offices of the Fayette County Public Schools system. Herald-Leader Archive Photo.
The Who in concert, 1980
At 6:20 p.m. July 11, 1980, the Rupp Arena gates opened for a concert by The Who. It was the British rock group’s first show in the area since a December 1979 performance in Cincinnati, where 11 young people died while trying to get into Riverfront Coliseum. A first-come, first-seated policy, or festival seating, was blamed as a factor in the deaths. Rupp Arena sells concerts on a reserved-seating basis, but officials wanted to make sure safety was a priority. Ten Lexington fire officials, at least four undercover police narcotics officers and an estimated 150 off-duty police and private security officers watched for trouble from the 21,000 fans in attendance. No injuries were reported, but 40 people were arrested on a variety of drug charges. Tickets for the show cost $8 to $12. Photo by Christy Porter | Staff
Rupp Arena construction, 1974
Aerial photo of downtown Lexington on Nov. 23, 1974. Main Street runs vertically in the middle of the photo. Rupp Arena is shown under construction near the lower right corner.
Computer shopping, 1994
Jim and Rachel Daniels of Frankfort got some help from Best Buy staffer Noah Cyboron while shopping for a new computer on Oct. 4, 1994. Note the price for the machine they were looking at: $1,296, plus $228 for the monitor. Photo by Drew Fritz
Lexington police officers, 1951
From left, Lexington police officers Lloyd Lindsay, Claude Ginter, William Foster and Bryan Henry. Published in the Herald-Leader on Jan. 14, 1951. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
‘Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane’ in Hazard, 1981
Actor James Best, best known for playing the giggling and inept Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard, shook hands with Travis Goff, 6, of Jackson, on Sept. 19, 1981, during Perry County’s Black Gold Festival in Hazard. Travis was on the shoulders of his cousin James Darren Williams, 16, also of Jackson. Best and three other characters from the TV show — Sorrell Booke as Boss Hogg, Catherine Back as Daisy Duke and Rick Hurst as Cletus — were grand marshals in a parade and helped dedicate Hazard’s new $1 million city hall. Organizers estimated the crowd to be 30,000 to 40,000 people. While in Hazard, Best met up with a brother he had not seen in 50 years. Best was born in the Western Kentucky coal-mining community of Powderly, near Central City in Muhlenberg County. One of nine children, he was adopted from an Indiana orphanage at age 4 after his mother died. Through the years, he had lost contact with many of his siblings. Best died April 6, 2015 from complications of pneumonia. He was 88. Photo by David Perry | Staff
Keeneland expansion, 1953
A steel skeleton of the new addition to the grandstand at Keeneland shows the effect the addition will have on the size and seating capacity of the grandstand. Published in the Lexington Herald on July 24, 1953. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
Kentucky basketball’s Louie Dampier, 1966
Kentucky guard Louie Dampier drove for a layup past Duke center Bob Riedy on March 18, 1966, during the NCAA Final Four in College Park, Md. Dampier’s team-high 23 points helped lead the Cats over the Blue Devils, 83-79. The next day, Kentucky lost the title game to Texas Western. Dampier, whose 1,575 career points rank him 12th all-time at UK, was named April 6, 2015, one of the 2015 inductees into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
Stamping Ground tornado, 1974
This aerial view of Stamping Ground showed the damage after a tornado nearly leveled the Scott County town on April 3 and 4, 1974. It was part of the greatest tornado outbreak in U.S. history, stretching from the Deep South to the Great Lakes. A weather system that included 148 tornadoes spanned 18 hours and struck 13 states. Officials said 315 people were killed and 6,100 were injured. The total damage reached a half-billion dollars. 77 people were killed in Kentucky. Stamping Ground was the hardest-hit community in Central Kentucky, but no one in the town died. Herald-Leader Archive Photo
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