BELLEVUE
from less than 400 in 1990 to more than 800 in 2006. In 2003 the congregation initiated a bold program to purchase surrounding property with a view toward building a new worship center sometime in the future. Plans are in place to incorporate parts of the existing historic building into the new one. Alford resigned the Belleview pastorate in January 2006, and the congregation began a search for a new pastor. Capek, Michael. Lively Stones: A Narrative History of Belleview Baptist Church, 1803–2003. Knoxville: Tennessee Valley, 2003.
Michael Capek
BELLEVUE. The city of Bellevue in Campbell Co. was established in 1866 on the banks of the Ohio River. Its somewhat higher elevation and shorter riverfront helped preserve it from much of the periodic flooding that ravaged the neighboring communities of Dayton, Ky., to the east, and Newport, to the west. Bellevue was named after the Newport estate of Revolutionary War hero Gen. James Taylor, a property said to have been named Belleview, that formerly occupied much of the vicinity. The town was incorporated by the Kentucky legislature on March 15, 1870, with a population of 381. Bellevue’s original town plat was limited to what is now the northwest corner of the city. Subdivisions were later added by Albert Seaton Berry, by Henry Timberlake, and by the heirs to the John Williamson estate. Many of the street names had Taylor family associations: Berry, Foote, Washington, Ward, and Van Voast, as well as Taylor. Unlike its two neighboring cities to the east and west, Bellevue developed as a quiet residential community rather than a manufacturing town. Over the next two decades, the town grew slowly, “owing to a stagnant condition caused by limited powers.” Nonetheless, it soon took steps toward permanence. A Methodist Church congregation was founded in 1870 and was followed by the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in 1873. Also in 1873, the city bought a fire engine and built a firehouse. Bellevue became a fourth-class city in 1884 and in the same year annexed the Harris Heirs Addition, which extended its boundary eastward from Washington Ave. to the Dayton city corporation line, O’Fallon Ave. From 1885 to 1891, the total value of Bellevue’s real estate increased from $534,300 to $1,051,850. News accounts praised the city’s “rapid but not hot-bed growth . . . the result of a beautiful and healthful location, and honest management by building owners.” During the late 1880s, St. Anthony Catholic Church was founded, as well as several Protestant church congregations. An 1890s Bellevue city directory listed 56 local businesses: 15 groceries, 4 bakeries, 6 boot makers, 7 confectioneries, 2 livery stables, a blacksmith, 3 millineries, 6 doctors, 7 saloons, a hotel, a gas company, 2 undertakers, and a wagon manufacturer. As Bellevue grew, dozens of narrow, two- or three-story dwellings, most of frame construction, were built along its narrow
streets. Ideally suited to the city’s small lots, they provided middle-class families with the most house for the least cost. Popu lar housing styles of the 1800s and early 1900s included the Italianate, the Queen Anne, the Colonial Revival, the Craftsman, and the bungalow. Local lumberyards, planing mills, brickyards, and stone yards kept Bellevue’s builders well supplied with a wide range of quality materials. The prosperous late 1800s also brought highstyle architecture to the city, some of it designed by Cincinnati architects. In 1884 Balke’s Opera House (demolished in the early 1960s), a handsome commercial Queen Anne edifice designed by George W. Rapp, was opened along Fairfield and Berry Aves. It housed three storefronts, city offices, an auditorium, and lodge rooms; its last days were spent as home to an Eagles hall. In 1885 Buddemeyer, Plympton & Trowbridge designed a one-of-a-kind Fairfield Ave. residence for Edward Johnston, a draftsman for the firm. Built of brick and structural timber framing, it featured a stucco skin, casement windows, and a slate gambrel roof. In 1889 S. E. Desjardins designed a monumental Queen Anne style residence, with Roman arches and chateauesque gables, along Lake St. for distiller George W. Robson. In the early 1890s, a newly formed streetcar company linked Bellevue to Covington, Newport, and Dayton, making it an even more convenient place of residence. By this time, Bellevue’s population had more than doubled and had reached 3,200. Like its neighbor Dayton, Bellevue capitalized on its river location by becoming a recreation center for the Greater Cincinnati area. Three public beaches (see Ohio River Beaches)—the Bellevue Bathing, Primrose, and Riviera beaches—opened by the 1890s, followed in 1902 by the Queen City Beach. Sewage contamination and rising river levels, due to flood control and navigation improvements, eventually brought an end to these popular public attractions; but in 1898, because of its proximity to the beaches, Cincinnati was able to attract the Grand Army of the Republic national convention. During the 1920s, Bellevue expanded in size and population by annexing hilly land to the south. The Bonnie Leslie neighborhood, first developed in the late 19th century, filled with comfortable homes from the 1920s through the 1940s. Bungalow, Tudor Revival, and Colonial Revival styles predominated in this suburban neighborhood. Covert Run Pk., which follows the creek of the same name, saw a bungalow-building boom, with “scores of neat homes” constructed. Flooding, however, proved a vexing problem for the low-lying homes in the picturesque valley. A promotional brochure extolled the city of Bellevue as a “healthy, convenient and attractive place to live,” and the Federal Writers’ Guide to Cincinnati described midcentury Bellevue as being “almost entirely a middle-class suburb.” Beginning in the 1920s, and continuing for more than 40 years, the Grote Manufacturing Company built cabinets and automotive parts at its three-story factory at the corner of Lafayette and Grandview Aves. in Bellevue. For a long time, Grote was the city’s largest employer.
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The flood of 1937 on the Ohio River inundated the Bellevue riverfront and cut the city in two. Sixty years later another flood, which exceeded the river’s 64.7-foot crest, again turned lower Bellevue into a lake. Following construction of I-471 along the eastern border of Newport, the swampy bottomland along Donnermeyer Dr.— known as the “Sixth Street Fill”—was fi lled in to create a strip shopping center called Bellevue Plaza and a small commercial center along Riviera Dr. (see Taylor’s Bottoms). The center serves shoppers from the surrounding area as well as from Cincinnati. By the 1980s Bellevue was in economic decline. The city’s housing stock was deteriorating from deferred maintenance; there was a decline in owneroccupied homes and an increase in low-cost rental housing. Marginal businesses and vacancies were proliferating in the Fairfield Ave. business district. Under the leadership of Mayor Thomas J. Wiethorn, a strong supporter of historic preservation, the city used preservation as a revitalization tool, working in partnership with the Kentucky Heritage Council and the state historic preservation office. Jointly, they fought blight with stronger building-code enforcement, sought grant funds for revitalization, and made ambitious plans for riverfront development; the latter were realized more slowly than the other efforts. One of the city’s first preservation projects was the conversion of the old Bellevue High School, later renamed the Center Street School, into apartments for senior citizens. The complex, which opened in 1986, utilized federal tax credits for the rehabilitation of historic buildings. Preservation tax credits were also used to convert the former St. Anthony School at Poplar and Washington Sts. to elderly housing in 1993. In 1988 two Bellevue historic districts were listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The adjacent Fairfield Ave. and Taylor’s Daughters historic districts took in the city’s historic business district and the residential neighborhood south of “The Avenue.” Over the next three decades, dozens of residential and commercial buildings throughout Bellevue were renovated and restored. The city’s decline was reversed as new residents and businesses were attracted to the city, and the outflow of longtime residents slowed. Property values began climbing steadily. In 1987 the city passed a historic preservation ordinance that regulated exterior alterations and new construction in the overlay zone. The city joined the Kentucky Heritage Council’s Certified Local Government program in 1988 and became a Kentucky Renaissance community in 2001, with grant funds and infrastructure improvements targeted to the Fairfield Ave. business district. In 2004 Bellevue was designated a Preserve America community. Bellevue also sought to enhance its quality of life by creating new parks. The city used a federal Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st century (TEA-21) grant to create Bellevue Beach Park on the riverfront between Foote and Ward Aves. The park featured a small amphitheater and a ball field, as well as benches where visitors could sit and enjoy the panoramic Ohio River view. Smaller green