Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history – some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.
Jan. 9, 1905: A Gatling gun arrives in Lexington to protect the tobacco district from Night Riders, a militant, terrorist group of tobacco farmers who resisted the practices of the American Tobacco Company.
Run by James B. Duke, the company controlled about 90 percent of the tobacco buying in the country and cut the prices paid to farmers so low that many could barely make enough to survive…