Wicked Lexington, Kentucky

Despite its illustrious beginnings as the “Athens of the West,” Lexington has always had a darker side lurking just beneath its glossy sheen. It didn’t take long for the first intellectual hub west of the Alleghenies to quickly morph into a city with the same scandalous inclinations as neighboring Louisville and Cincinnati. Filled with tales of infamous duels, cheating congressmen and much more, Wicked Lexington, Kentucky offers the first collection of the city’s rowdy and raucous history. From Belle Brezing’s infamous brothel of the late 1800s, frequented by some of the city’s most prominent businessmen and whose owner was once pardoned by the governor, to historic sports scandals of the 1900s, local author Fiona Young-Brown tracks Lexington’s penchant for misdeeds from founding to modern times.