On June 20, 1876, a meeting was held in Louisville to make arrangements to celebrate July 4. William T. Lewis was appointed to prepare for the celebration a "Centennial History of Winston County." After the exercises a motion was made and adopted to give Lewis more time to complete his history. Lewis completed the history and it was published in the Louisville Winston County Index. The last installment, No. 68, appeared in the issue of March 26, 1880 (vol. 3, no. 12). The unbound manuscript contains 224 pages, more than one-half of which pertains to the War between the States. The manuscript is accompanied by a typed copy of the first 28 chapters (126 pages).