LEXINGTON — Lexington’s 19th century heritage as a pastoral country village is well documented in this photo taken on West Main Street in 1880.
Most of the buildings in the old image were gone long before anyone living today can remember, so it is difficult to image whether or not they would have been missed.
What is most certainly not missed is that astonishing gutter running down the street, so deep it required a bridge to cross.
When you’re wistfully imagining that those days long gone were somehow more idyllic, just look at this scene and be grateful that a photograph can’t capture the way downtown Lexington smelled on the day they took the picture.
