Henry A. Tandy Centennial Park (formerly Cheapside Park)

The square at 251 West Main Street has functioned as Lexington's central public space since the town's founding in 1781, originally laid out as 'Public Square' and later known for most of the 19th and 20th centuries as 'Cheapside.' It served as the main marketplace for produce, livestock, dry goods — and, before the Civil War, for enslaved people. Thousands of enslaved men, women, and children were sold here, many separated from their families and forced into the cotton-and-sugar economies of the Deep South.

A Cheapside Slave Auction Block historical marker, produced through the efforts of the Lexington Alumni Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and the Kentucky Historical Society, was installed on the square to make this history visible. The 'Take Back Cheapside' community campaign, formed in 2017, pressed for further reckoning with the square's history and for the removal of Confederate monuments associated with the courthouse.

In August 2020 the Lexington–Fayette Urban County Council voted to rename the park Henry A. Tandy Centennial Park. Henry Allen Tandy was a Black entrepreneur and mason who was born into slavery and, after emancipation, partnered with Alfred Byrd to form Tandy & Byrd — one of central Kentucky's leading masonry contractors. Their firm laid the brick under the stone facade of the 1898–1900 Old Fayette County Courthouse that stands at the north edge of the square.

Today the park hosts the Lexington Farmers Market, civic events, and Black-history walking tours. The site is adjacent to the Old Fayette County Courthouse / Lexington History Center.