Lexington City Administrative Offices are located at 28 West Center Street, Lexington NC 27292.
Phone: 336‑243‑2489.
Neighborhoods
Beginnings [1]]
Lexington had developed as a village long before its establishment as the seat of Davidson County. Local tradition claims that it acquired its name in honor of the pivotal Revolutionary War Battle of Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. The first known appearance of the name of Lexington in Rowan County records, however, was in 1790. A post office was established in the village in 1800, and Lexington was first listed in the 1810 Census with a population of eighty-three. As the nineteenth century progressed, there were numerous complaints from people living in the eastern sections of Rowan County about the inconvenience of having to travel to the county seat of Salisbury to attend court. Thus, between 1819 and 1822, one session of court each quarter was held in Lexington until, in December of 1822, Davidson was formed as a separate county named for the Revolutionary War hero, General William Lee Davidson. After some disagreement between the proposed county seat (to be called "Marion") and the already established village of Lexington, Lexington won out and was ultimately selected as Davidson's county seat. On March 3, 1824, the county purchased a tract of twenty-five acres adjoining the town of Lexington on which to erect the public buildings of the new county. The land was laid off in lots with the courthouse lot in the center and a grid pattern of streets, thus establishing the street plan which survives today in the Uptown Lexington Historic District.