As a small crowd looked on, the ceremonial reopening of the Lexington Public Library’s Kentucky Room ended Wednesday with two white- gloved librarians carefully placing in a glass display case a copy of Kentucky’s second-oldest newspaper: the Kentucke Gazette of Aug. 18, 1787.
So where’s a copy of Kentucky’s first newspaper — the Kentucke Gazette of Aug. 11, 1787? 
That’s a good question.
“I just have to think somebody, somewhere has one in their attic or an old trunk,” said Library director Kathleen Imhoff. “And I hope if somebody ever finds one, they’ll let us know.”
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Lexington was one of the major cities in what was then the West. Several local newspapers sprang up soon after John Bradford began publishing his then-weekly Gazette.
The library has a substantial collection of old Lexington newspapers, including the most complete archives of the Gazette. Except for that first issue.
One story holds that somebody, many years ago, was looking at the library’s copy of the first Gazette, let it get too close to a coal stove and — poof! But that may just be a story, said Jan Marshall, the library’s assistant manager in charge of the reference department.
No other copies of that first issue of the Gazette, which measured about 8 x 10 inches and probably contained four pages, are known to exist.
The Kentucky Room reopened Wednesday after an extensive renovation made necessary by a water leak that flooded the library on Feb. 21, 2007. Of course, the room containing the library’s most precious books and manuscripts was the most heavily damaged. But quick, tireless work by the library staff enabled everything to be salvaged — even waterlogged books that had to be sent off to Chicago to be freeze-dried.
All it needs now is a copy of Kentucky’s first newspaper.
