BRECKINRIDGE, DESHA. Desha Breckinridge, newspaper editor and reformer, was born August 4, 1867, in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of U.S. congressman W.C.P and Issa (Desha) Breckinridge. He attended State College in Lexington and graduated from Princeton University in 1889. After studying law at Columbia University and the University of Virginia, he joined his father's Lexington law firm. In 1897 Breckinridge and his father bought the Lexington Herald, where Breckinridge served as managing editor and, after his father's death in 1904, as editor. A Democrat, Breckinridge was frequently at odds with both parties in championing such causes as regulation of business, child labor laws, improvements in education, prison reform, and women's suffrage. He married Madeline McDowell on November 17, 1898, and, largely through the pages of the Herald, the two became leaders of the Progressive movement in Kentucky. Active in thoroughbred racing, Breckinridge by 1922 was ranked as one of the top twenty horsemen in the country. In 1906 Breckinridge was instrumental in creating a state racing commission, under which pari-mutuel betting replaced bookmaking. Madeline Breckinridge died in 1920, and, on July 27, 1929, the widower married Mary Frazer LeBus. Breckinridge died on February 18, 1935, and was buried in Lexington Cemetery. See James Klotter, The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760-1981 (Lexington, Ky., 1986).
