Chapter I of the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky

The Enquirer/Meggan Booker

Introduction Index

_ A _ B _ C _ D _ E _ F _ G _ H _ I _ J _ K _ L _ M _ N _ O _ P _ Q _ R _ S _ T _ U _ V _ W _ Y _ Z _

INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) in the past had a strong presence in Northern Kentucky, where it sponsored many charitable events...

I

(cont’d on pg. 477)

The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky Contents Introduction, Foreword, Acknowledgments and Guide for Readers Chapters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z Index, Bibliography, Illustration Credits

Edited by Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Republished for the World Wide Web by NKY.com and Enquirer Media

A Project of the Thomas D. Clark Foundation, Inc. Mark A. Neikirk, President Sherry Jelsma, Vice President

Dave Adkisson, Treasurer Melanie J. Kilpatrick, Secretary

Thomas R. Brumley, Immediate Past President Michael J. Hammons, Past President

Dave Adkisson, Frankfort Jane Beshear, Frankfort Thomas R. Brumley, Lexington John S. Carroll, Lexington Sara W. Combs, Stanton

Board of Directors Michael J. Hammons, Park Hills Sherry Jelsma, Shelbyville Martha C. Johnson, Melbourne Mark A. Neikirk, Highland Heights Alice Stevens Sparks, Crescent Springs

Robert Ted Steinbock, Louisville Mrya Leigh Tobin, New York City James M. Wiseman, Erlanger

Editorial Staff Editors in Chief: Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool Associate Editors: David Hatter, John Schlipp, David E. Schroeder, Robert Stevie, Michael R. Sweeney, John W. Thieret (deceased), Thomas S. Ward, Jack Wessling Topical Editors: Agriculture: Lynn David & James Wallace; Art: Rebecca Bilbo; Biography: Michael R. Sweeney; Business & Commerce: John Boh; Counties & Towns: David E. Schroeder; Ethnology: Theodore H. H. Harris; Government, Law, & Politics: John Schlipp; Literature: Danny Miller (Deceased); Medicine: Dennis B. Worthen; Military: James A. Ramage; Music, Media, & Entertainment: John Schlipp; Religion: Thomas S. Ward & Alex Hyrcza; Sports & Recreation: James C. Claypool; Transportation Joseph F. Gastright (Deceased); Women: Karen Mcdaniel.

Maps: Jeff Levy at the Gyula Pauer Center for Cartography & GIS, University of Kentucky.

Copyright © 2009 by The University Press of Kentucky, 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, KY 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com.

Print editions: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Encyclopedia of northern Kentucky / edited by Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool. p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8131-2565-7 (hardcover : acid-free paper) ISBN 978-0-8131-2585-5 (limited leather edition) 1. Kentucky, Northern— Encyclopedias. 2. Kentucky— Encyclopedias. I. Tenkotte, Paul A. II. Claypool, James C. F451.E55 2009 976.9'3003—dc22 2009027969

ICEHOUSES. A number of Northern Kentucky icehouses made and sold ice in the 19th and 20th centuries. Before electric refrigeration became widely available, ice played an important role in daily life. Loaded into iceboxes, it was used to preserve food. An icebox was a wooden box that had some resemblance to a present-day refrigerator; it could be as large as a refrigerator or even larger and was well insulated so that the 50-to-75-pound block of ice in a compartment at the top would keep the contents cold. As the ice melted, the water dripped into a pan at the bottom of the icebox. The pan had to be checked and emptied regularly in order to avoid an overflow.

In the early 1900s, well before World War I, the ice for iceboxes came from frozen lakes. During cold weather crews with horses pulling large saws would cut blocks of ice from the lakes. That ice was kept until needed in large storage buildings with thick walls insulated with sawdust.

As electricity became more readily available, ice was manufactured by icehouses, in 300-pound blocks, and kept in storage rooms. The manufacturing portion of the icehouse had large rooms whose floors were a grid of wooden blocks set on a steel frame. Under each wooden block was an ice can that was about 22 inches long, 12 inches wide, and four feet tall. The ice cans were fi lled with water and set in a brine solution. Large compressors circulated ammonia through a network of pipes that ran throughout the brine solution, chilling the brine enough to freeze the water in the cans.

The compressors were cooled with water by the following process. Water was pumped to the top of a cooling tower on top of the ice-manufacturing building. The cooling tower could be as tall as a two-story building. The hot water splashed down through a series of panels that cooled it before it

Ice Wagon.

was returned to cool the compressors again. To keep the ice clear, air was blown through the water as it froze. After the block was about 90 percent frozen, the water and impurities were suctioned out and clean water was put in the resulting cavity and allowed to freeze solid. Th is process was called coring the ice. Each of the wooden blocks had a metal loop in the center, by which workers could lift the lid with a hook and check on the progress of the ice block underneath. Because few households needed such a large block of ice, the ice was cut by a scoring machine with saw blades into sections that could be broken into 25-to-50-pound blocks.

The “snow” produced as a by-product of cutting ice was a treat for children during the hot summer months. The smaller blocks could also go into a crusher to produce crushed ice. The storage rooms where the ice was kept were well insulated and could have thick, hollow walls made of cork and fi lled with sawdust. A large storage room might be several stories high and hold hundreds of 300-pound blocks.

For home use, the iceman delivered these smaller blocks of ice weighing 25 to 50 pounds each. Early on, the iceman used a horse-drawn wagon. He would carry the ice into the customer’s house using a set of ice tongs shaped like a figure 8 with a handle at the top and two sharp points on the bottom; the tongs could open and then close on the ice, gripping it securely. When the iceman had to transport a large block of ice, he would grip the block with the tongs and put it on his back to carry it. Trucks were later used to deliver ice, but the work of the iceman did not change. He still used the tongs and his back to transport the ice.

One company that provided both coal and ice during the 1900s was the Latonia Ice & Fuel Company in Latonia. Two brothers, Joe and Phil Mueller, began the company around 1902, and articles of incorporation were fi led on September 1, 1908.

At first the Muellers cut their ice from a spring-fed lake that was located where the present Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky bus barn is on Madison Pike in Latonia. They later built an icemanufacturing plant on Eugenia Ave. in Latonia, adjacent to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad tracks that ran down to Latonia Ave.; there

they sold both ice and coal. When the plant was running at full capacity, it could produce almost 100 blocks of ice, 300 pounds each, in 24 hours.

After Joe’s death in 1938, Phil continued the business. Latonia Ice & Fuel provided ice not only to individual homes and businesses but also for Fruit Growers Express railcars full of produce being shipped to market. By means of a winch, the railcars were positioned on the tracks that ran alongside the large storage room. Inside the storage room, an elevator brought the 300-pound blocks of ice up to the level of the top of the railcars, so that the ice could be moved onto platforms and loaded into the railcars from the top. Each railcar held approximately 160 to 180 of the 300-pound blocks. In the mid-1950s, refrigerated railcars were perfected and their use was phased in gradually over the next six or seven years, eliminating the need for iced railcars.

Phil Mueller died in 1954, and his family continued to operate the business. After the downturn in the demand for ice and coal, Latonia Ice & Fuel turned to selling and servicing Gravely tractors and Toro lawn equipment. The Latonia Ice & Fuel Company complex took up an entire city block, and in the early 1960s the property where the icemanufacturing plant and the coal yard was located was sold to the Green Trucking Company. The Gravely-Toro business continued to operate across the street from the former icehouse in the building that had been the truck garage. In August 1966 a fire destroyed most of the former icehouse building. Finally, after 60 years, the Latonia Ice & Fuel Company closed in 1968 and the remainder of the property was sold. Part of the original icehouse still stands and is used by the Covington Independent School District as a maintenance garage for school buses. The National Billiard Company now occupies the former truck garage.

Dusing Brothers Ice (now Dusing Brothers Ice Manufacturing Inc.), along U.S. 25, the Dixie Highway in Elsmere, was begun in 1928 by brothers Ben and Frank Dusing, and the operation remains in the same location today. They homedelivered ice and supplied ice to trucks that traveled along the Dixie Highway carry ing perishable food items. They iced the trucks by blowing crushed ice into them. Dusing Brothers still manufactures ice, but they also operate mechanical ice-making machines that need only to be turned on to produce ice quickly and with less manpower. However, these machines, prone to mechanical breakdown, are far less reliable than the old methods. During the 1950s and 1960s, in times of peak demand for Latonia Ice & Fuel, trucks would make trips from Latonia to the Dusing Brothers icehouse for 300-pound blocks of ice in order to have enough ice for the Fruit Growers Express railroad cars.

The Penn family of Newport ran a similar icehouse along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad on that city’s east side, at E. Ninth St. and Linden Ave. Called the City Ice and Fuel Company, it ceased operations in 1959, and the building began to be used by the Pharo Trucking Company in August 1966.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CATHOLIC CHURCH, NEWPORT Centennial Committee, City of Elsmere Centennial Celebration, 1896–1996. Elsmere, Ky.: Centennial Committee, 1996.

“Latonia Ice & Fuel (Articles of Incorporation Filed),” KP, August 26, 1908, 2.

“Phil Mueller Rites Set for Thursday,” KP, June 1, 1954, 1.

Russell, Burl. “Fire Destroys Plant as Owner Awaits Surgery,” KP, August 27, 1966, 1.

Mary Jo Hardcorn

IDLEWILD. Idlewild is located just off I-275 at Ky. Rts. 20 (the old Burlington-Petersburg Turnpike) and 338 (Idlewild Rd.) in northwestern Boone Co. The name of the community started as Gainesville, since much of the land was owned by the county’s influential Gaines family. When a post office was established in the community in 1886, the name was Utzinger; then in 1900 the current name, Idlewild, was adopted.

In the late 1800s, the town had a general store, three blacksmith shops, and several businesses.

There was a carriage shop, operated by Fred Pfalzgraf, a charter member of the Wells Fargo stage route, which delivered mail from Petersburg to Bromley. Along the delivery route, delivery persons would switch horses in Idlewild, Hebron, and Constance, on the way to Bromley.

During the early 1900s, a public school for black children was located near Idlewild; one of several in the county, it served 10 pupils and provided the students with bus ser vice. There was also a school for whites, a one-room brick building that was later consolidated with that at Hebron. That former school building still stands as a private residence.

During the 1940s, Scothorn Motors and the Scothorn General Store made up Idelwild’s business district. The car dealership’s building is currently a body shop, but the appliance building is vacant and the old general store is just a shell.

Boone Co. Historic Preservation Review Board. Historic Structures of Boone County, Kentucky.

Burlington, Ky.: Boone Co. Historic Preservation Review Board, 2002.

Reis, Jim. “Tiny Unincorporated Towns Abound in Boone,” KP, December 9, 1985, 4K.

Nancy J. Tretter

IMMACULATA

ACADEMY. Immaculata Academy opened in Newport on W. Fifth St. in 1857. It was a coeducational Catholic school run by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, who also operated La Salette Academy in Covington. It the early years, the sisters lived in Covington and traveled to Newport, daily crossing the Licking River by rowboat. With benefactors such as Michael V. Daly and his wife, the parents of Mrs. Peter O’Shaughnessy, Immaculata Academy grew and flourished. In 1883 enrollment was 130; in 1919 it was 210. But because a new physical plant was needed, and because there was a desire in Campbell Co. to consolidate Catholic secondary education in separate boys’ and girls’ high schools, Immaculata Academy closed its doors in August 1932, after operating for 75

years. Many of its students transferred to La Salette Academy. In September 1934, a new high school for boys, Newport (Central) Catholic High School, occupied the former Immaculata Academy space.

“1932 Class Will Be Last at Immaculata,” KP, May 30, 1932, 1.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CATHOLIC CHURCH, NEWPORT. The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church was established in Newport in 1855, to provide ser vices for Englishspeaking Catholics in the city. Corpus Christi Catholic Church, the first Catholic congregation in Newport, had been operating since 1845, primarily serving the German-speaking residents of Newport. In March 1855 a lot was purchased along Madison St. (present-day Fift h St.) for the construction of the Immaculate Conception Church building. Bishop George Carrell laid its cornerstone on April 15, 1855, and the structure was dedicated on December 23, 1855.

The first pastor was John Force, who served until 1857, when Patrick Guilfoyle (1817–1892), a native of Kilkenny, Ireland, was appointed pastor.

Under Guilfoyle’s guidance, Immaculate Conception parish flourished. In 1857 the parishioners financed the construction of a one-story brick school building for boys. That same year, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (Ky.) arrived in Newport and opened a school for girls on York St. The sisters also established a private school near the church, which they named Immaculata Academy. A three-story academy building was constructed in 1864 under the direction of Mary David Wagner S.C.N. Over time, Immaculata Academy evolved into a grade 1–12 school enrolling both male and female students.

In the years following the Civil War, population growth in Newport necessitated the construction of a new church for the Immaculate Conception congregation. The cornerstone of this church, designed by the Piket architectural firm (see Louis Piket) was laid in 1869, and the new Gothic Revival church building was dedicated in 1873. Before the facade of the new building was completed, however, the parish suffered a complete fi nancial failure. For many years, Guilfoyle, who believed that all Catholic families should own a home, had purchased lots in Newport, built houses, and sold or rented them to his parishioners. His activities resulted in the construction of perhaps 500 homes in the city. When a massive economic depression during the 1870s brought the construction of homes to a halt, the parish did not have enough funds to pay the debt that Guilfoyle had incurred. Only large donations from two parishioners, Peter O’Shaughnessy and James Walsh, saved the parish’s property from being lost (see Walsh Distillery; Newport Home Ownership).

In July 1877 Bishop Augustus M. Toebbe sent James Bent to Immaculate Conception as pastor.

In that same year, the facade of the new church was finally completed. In June 1878 James McNerney became pastor. He oversaw the construction of a

473

brick, three-story school building in 1893. He also arranged for the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth to take over the education of the boys, who up to this time had been taught by lay teachers. About this same time, the parish’s elementary school was declared a free school; that is, no tuition was charged.

A new rectory was completed in 1897 adjacent to the church.

During the pastorate of James L. Gorey (1915– 1927), new Gothic marble high and side altars were placed in the church. The old wooden altars were donated to the St. Paul Catholic Church in Florence, Ky. Other improvements included a new pulpit and confessionals and the frescoing of the interior.

The 1930s proved a challenging decade for the people of Immaculate Conception Parish. The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth announced the closing of Immaculata Academy in 1932. The academy’s buildings had suffered greatly over the years from persistent flooding and were no longer suitable for school purposes, but the expense of rehabilitating them or building new facilities was considered too high. During its last year of operation, the academy enrolled 180 pupils. The defining event in parish life during the 1930s, however, was the flood of 1937. Water reached a height of 11 feet inside the church, completely destroying the floors, the pews, and many other furnishings. Floodwaters also did considerable damage to the parish school and the rectory. The lower West End of Newport suffered greatly because of the flood. Many residents sold their homes and moved to higher ground in the city or to one of the new suburban communities of Campbell Co. Newport’s lower West End was becoming increasingly non-Catholic. Urban renewal projects in the city had led to the destruction of many single-family homes. By 1964, 20 blocks of downtown Newport had been cleared. Membership at Immaculate Conception Church began to decline significantly. Located on low ground near the Ohio and Licking rivers, Immaculate Conception parish buildings suffered repeated flooding over the years. In 1967 the Kentucky state fire marshal declared the school building unsafe, and the parish elementary school closed the following year. Immaculate Conception Church itself was officially closed on July 31, 1969. The historic church, school, and rectory were demolished to make way for the construction of a Shell gasoline ser vice station; the lot, at the southeast corner of Fift h and Central Sts., is currently vacant.

“Academy to Close after 75 Years,” KP, May 30, 1932, 1.

Golden Jubilee of the Rev. James McNerney Rector of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Newport, Ky. Newport, Ky.: Immaculate Conception parish, 1915.

McGill, Anna Blanche. The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky. New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1917.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

David E. Schroeder

474 IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CATHOLIC CHURCH, STEPSTONE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CATHOLIC CHURCH, STEPSTONE. German Catholics initiated the small St. Joseph Catholic Church at Four Mile Creek in Campbell Co. in 1846. Soon after establishing it as a parish in 1855, Bishop George A. Carrell appointed Rev. Lawrence Spitzelberger as the second pastor. In 1858 Spitzelberger began attending to the needs of another group of eight German Catholic families at Stepstone Creek in northeastern Pendleton Co., near a landing that made the spot accessible by boat. Under Spitzelberger’s guidance, the small German community built a little church in 1861 and named it Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. It served as a mission of St. Joseph Catholic Church until it was transferred to the care of Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Twelve Mile (now California). The small wooden church remains as a mission of Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church. Although the church building has never had heat or electricity, it is still used for Mass twice a year.

Reder, Diane. “Jubilee Cross Visits Sts. Peter and Paul,” Messenger, February 4, 2000, 6.

Ryan, Paul E. History of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky. Covington, Ky.: Diocese of Covington, 1954.

Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Thomas S. Ward

IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY CATHOLIC CHURCH. The new Immaculate Heart of Mary Church building, dedicated in 1993, is located off Ky. Rt. 18, near the geographical center of Boone Co. It was once a church with a small congregation that met in a sanctuary on Limaburg Rd. near Hebron and served a much more rural community, but today the church building and its membership are in the suburbs. The first church had a membership of some 70 families. In 2002 the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish counted 1,546 households.

Originally, Bishop William T. Mulloy on October 1, 1954, named Immaculate Heart of Mary a mission of St. Boniface Catholic Church in Ludlow (see Saints Boniface and James Catholic Church); then in October 1955 it became a mission of a new parish called Mary Queen of Heaven under Rev. Paul Ciangetti. In 1954 the Diocese of Covington (see Roman Catholics) counted 60 Catholic families in the Hebron area.

John Weghorn, a member of St. Paul Catholic Church, Florence, Ky., donated 15 acres for the building of a church. Arrangements were made to celebrate Sunday Mass with the Passionist nuns on Donaldson Hwy. in adjoining Erlanger. To alleviate overcrowding at the Passionist chapel in Erlanger, the Immaculate Heart of Mary congregation reserved space in a former restaurant to celebrate weekly Mass. But because of an apparent act of religious bigotry, they relocated to the basement of a private home. With the future of the local

parish still in doubt, a petition with 66 signatures from the congregation at Hebron reiterated the need for a church and a nearby school for the safety of Catholic students. Finally, Bishop Mulloy approved having Father Ciangetti entertain construction proposals.

In August 1956 the ground was broken for the new sanctuary building, and on Sunday, August 11, 1957, the bishop blessed the newly completed church. A year later, members requested parish status and a school from the bishop. In 1960 Richard Ackerman, the Covington Diocese’s new bishop, established the parish of Immaculate Heart of Mary, assigning Father Otto Hering as pastor.

In January 1961 Father Hering announced that Immaculate Heart of Mary parish would build its own elementary school with five classrooms and “temporary” quarters for five teaching sisters. The school building opened in January 1962 with about 75 students. In 1970 the parish consisted of 138 families, 76 students in the school, 85 in public elementary school, and 2 religious and 2 lay teachers, with 4 classrooms in use. During the late 1970s, Bishop Ackerman approved spending $102,500 for a convent and a rectory and for remodeling to provide another classroom, a principal’s office, a lounge, and storage space.

By 1981, 800 parishioners per week attended the one Saturday and four Sunday masses. Accordingly, the diocese approved adding a 135-seat wing to the church, extending from the right side of the sanctuary.

As early as 1967, Father Herring had complained that the nearby airport’s “new landing and take-off patterns are bringing the planes within a hundred yards or less of our church buildings.”

On October 21, 1991, the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport Board voted to purchase all of the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish properties for $1.65 million plus another $20,000 for moving expenses. The parish’s new Steering Committee negotiated with the airport, developed a wish list, selected a site for relocation, and hired an architect. The new site chosen was on 15 acres of farmland near Burlington. In November the parish began fundraising.

With a cost estimate of $2,950,000 and $820,000 in pledges, ground was broken for the parish’s new facilities on March 22, 1992. On August 29, 1993, Bishop William A. Hughes, Pastor Louis Holtz, Deacon Arthur Jansson, and former pastors John Kroger and Paul Ciangetti dedicated the new building, which had cost more than 4 million dollars.

In 1997 the parish council was considering building a new church and converting the present church into school facilities, an endeavor that would have cost several millions of dollars. However, the projected large indebtedness for these projects swayed the parish instead to build eight additional classrooms at a cost of less than a million dollars. The new classrooms provided the school with two classrooms for each grade. Today, Immaculate Heart of Mary parish is one of the

largest in the Diocese of Covington, as is its elementary school.

“Hebron Parish Sold to Airport Board,” Messenger, October 27, 1991, 1.

“Immaculate Heart of Mary Multi-Purpose Building Dedication,” Messenger, August 27, 1993, 2A. “Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish 50th Anniversary,” Messenger, supplement, December 16, 2005.

“Immaculate Heart of Mary to Build in Burlington,” Messenger, December 8, 1991, 1.

John Boh

IMMANUEL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST. During the late 1880s, a group of Reformed Church people settled in the small Kenton Co. town of Mullinsville. In 1890 the name of the community was changed to Bromley, and it was incorporated as a sixth-class city. Several years later, two religious groups, the Reformed and the Campbellites, began holding German-language ser vices in the same meeting hall, one on Sunday mornings and the other on Sunday afternoons. On March 11, 1894, 30 members of the Reformed group held a meeting at which they formally organized the German Reformed Church of Bromley, Ky. Shortly thereafter, they purchased lot 95, at the northeast corner of Boone and Harris Sts., and began building their first sanctuary. The cornerstone was laid on July 15, 1894, and the structure was completed in September of that year. Many of the members were farmers, who came to church by horse and wagon, so a barn was built at the rear of the property to house the animals during ser vices.

Because of the anti- German hysteria that arose during World War I, the church name was changed in 1918 to the Immanuel Reformed Church of Bromley. Religious ser vices began to be conducted in English rather than German. In 1920 a 20-member choir was formed, directed, until 1932, by the pastor, Rev. William E. Miller. In 1922 the barn was torn down and replaced by an educational building that provided Sunday school classrooms. In June of the same year, the church purchased two lots adjacent to the church property, and the present sanctuary was later built on them.

The Ladies’ Aid Society played a major role in raising the funds needed for construction. In 1934 Immanuel and most other Reformed churches merged with the Evangelical Church and the organization’s name was changed again, this time to the Immanuel Evangelical and Reformed Church.

During the Ohio River flood of 1937, the congregation removed the pews from the church, and many of the members stored their belongings there until the floodwaters receded. The local drugstore also moved into the church lecture room, from which it dispensed medicine to area residents.

On February 17, 1957, Immanuel hired Rev. Raymond Kuhlenschmidt as its first full-time pastor. A parsonage was also purchased for his use, on Amsterdam Rd. in Park Hills. Later that year, the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Christian Church merged, necessitating yet another name change, this time to the Immanuel United Church of Christ. The old sanctuary was torn

IN DE PEN DENCE

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down in 1959 and replaced by the present modern building. A bell tower was added in 1967, in which members installed the bell from their old church.

An educational wing, with a pastor’s study, a nursery, a choir room, Sunday School classrooms, lavatories, and a kitchenette, was built in 1983. Through the generosity of dedicated members, the church was debt-free when a dedication ceremony was held in June 1984.

“Immanuel United Church of Christ,” Ludlow News Enterprise, May 10, 1989, 3.

Immanuel United Church of Christ. 100 Years of Ser vice, 1894–1994. Anniversary booklet. Bromley, Ky.: Immanuel United Church of Christ, 1994.

“Immanuel United Church of Christ Photos,” KP, December 10, 1959, 14K.

IMMANUEL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. This church came about as one of the results of the German revolutions of the 1840s, when large numbers of Germans fled their homeland and came to the United States. A large number of these immigrants were drawn to the Ohio Valley because it reminded them of the Rhine River Valley in Germany. Many chose to settle in Newport and Covington. In 1848 a small group of German Protestants began holding church services in the home of Frederick Dohrmann, at 100 Robbins St. in Covington. Though not originally affi liated with any larger church organization, these worshippers were known as the German Methodist Episcopal Church. Ser vices were conducted in German. The church’s first full-time pastor was Dr. Christian Vogel, who assumed the position in 1849. As the congregation grew, the church purchased a frame house at 717–719 Craig St. in which to hold ser vices. A Sunday school was organized in 1853, by which time church membership had grown to 160. Within a few years, a larger building was needed, so in 1866 a lot was purchased on the southeast corner of 10th and Russell. The cornerstone of the new church was laid in 1869, and the first floor was dedicated in 1870. The upper sanctuary was dedicated on February 20, 1876. The edifice, designed by architect F. Armstrong, was described as being one of the finest church buildings in the city. It also contained one of the region’s best pipe organs, which facilitated the creation of a music program, including a choir.

In 1886 a house at 79 W. 10th St., adjacent to the church building, was purchased to be used as a parsonage. In 1889 the congregation joined the Epworth League of Methodist Churches. About 1916 an addition was added to the church, but that was soon outgrown, and the parsonage became the Sunday school building. Because of anti-German sentiments during the World War I, the church’s name was changed to the Immanuel Methodist Episcopal Church and German-language ser vices were gradually discontinued. In 1929 a site was purchased at Madison and Robbins, with the intention of building a new 600-seat facility. However, before construction began, church leaders rethought their decision. Attendance had begun to

Immanuel Methodist Church, 10th and Russell Sts., Covington.

fall as older members died and many younger ones began a flight to the suburbs. It was decided that a location outside the city would best serve the needs of the congregation. Many sites were considered, and eventually an 11-acre one at the corner of Dixie Highway and Arcadia Ln. in Lakeside Park, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Zimmerman, was obtained in the late 1940s. A new building, which took several years to complete, was started in 1949; the congregation officially moved from Covington to Lakeside Park in September 1950, worshipping in the basement of the unfinished building. The cornerstone of the new sanctuary was laid in June 1955, and the sanctuary opened in May 1956. An educational annex was constructed in 1964, a new Wicks organ was installed in 1973, and a $3.2 million Wesley Hall addition was dedicated in 1998. The church continues to be a healthy and vibrant organization, drawing its members from many Northern Kentucky communities. It hosts a number of community groups, including the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, a basketball league, and self-help groups. Now named Immanuel United Methodist Church, it is one of the largest

Protestant churches in Northern Kentucky. In 2005 the church took over the responsibility of operating the closed First United Methodist Church in Covington, converting it into its Grace satellite campus. In the same year, the church merged with New Hope United Methodist Church in Southgate and continued to operate the New Hope campus at 22 William Blatt Ave. In addition, Immanuel conducts a large outreach program for Latinos.

Immanuel United Methodist Church. www.immanu elumc.org/history.htm (accessed December 19, 2007).

Linn, Molly. “Closing Not End of Church,” KP, June 11, 2005, 3K. Reis, Jim. “Heritage Celebrated. Immanuel Marks 150th Milestone,” KP, September 13, 1999, 4K.

INDEPENDENCE. Independence, one of two county seats in Kenton Co., ranks among Northern Kentucky’s largest and fastest-growing cities.

Primarily a residential city, Independence covers about 23 square miles and stretches across the middle third of Kenton Co. between the Boone

476 IN DE PEN DENCE and Campbell county borders. Through annexation and real estate development, the population of Independence grew almost 10-fold from 1970 to 2000. With its suburban present and rural past, Independence touches on two major themes in Northern Kentucky history: the interplay between rural and urban interests and the post–World War II population shift from the region’s river cities toward the interior of the state.

Unlike most Northern Kentucky cities, the origins of Independence were political, not commercial. The Kentucky statute that created Kenton Co. in 1840 required a central location for the county seat. John McCollum donated land at the presentday intersection of Madison Pike (Ky. Rt. 17) and McCullum Rd. for the Kenton Co. Courthouse. A Greek Revival–style courthouse was erected on the site. Incorporated in 1842, the small community surrounding the new courthouse named itself Independence to commemorate the independence of Kenton Co. from Campbell Co. Residents of Covington, the new county’s center of population, long bemoaned the inconvenience of traveling to Independence to transact legal business. Several times from Kenton Co.’s birth through the early 1900s, Covington business and political leaders attempted to move the county seat to Covington. An 1848 Covington Journal editorial pleaded Covington’s case: “It seems a very plain matter. Independence is now the Seat of Justice for the county. This is a village of half a dozen houses, twelve miles in the interior, without business, or indeed, anything else, to draw people there. On the other hand, Covington has now a population of ten thousand, which is rapidly increasing; and here, from the nature of things, nearly all of the Court business originates; here the parties, witnesses and counsel reside. In addition to this, the people of all parts of the county come to this place . . . to trade, or attend to other business, and hence it would not be a matter of inconvenience for them to attend the courts here.”

The Kenton county seat controversy lingered for decades. By 1860 a dual-county-seat system had developed that split the county in two, with Covington and Independence as the county seats for its northern and southern portions, respectively. The Kentucky legislature, on occasion, considered moving the Kenton county seat. In 1867 and again in 1905, Kenton Co. voters decided to keep Independence as a county seat. Victorious Democrats interpreted the 1905 decision as repudiation by virtuous rural voters of the corrupt Republican Party machine that ran Covington.

During its first 100 years, Independence changed little from the quiet village described by the Covington Journal. Independence was a farming community, with businesses such as hotels and law offices to support courthouse traffic. A few county officials, for example Judge Lafayette Shaw, had summer residences or farms in Independence, but they also maintained homes in Covington.

Commerce stagnated in 19th-century Independence, in part because it lacked mass transit.

The Louisville, Cincinnati, and Lexington Railroad, built through the Banklick Creek valley

in 1869, had an Independence depot, but more than a mile of hilly terrain separated it from the city. A stagecoach line also operated between Covington and Independence, but a one-way trip took more than two hours. Small wonder that proponents for Covington as the Kenton county seat contended that it was easier for most people in rural areas to get to Covington than to Independence because more railroads and turnpikes led to Covington.

Despite its relative isolation, Independence teemed with activity when it hosted county court days and other political meetings. These events drew local farmers to town to socialize and sell their products. The political party conventions held in Independence were annual highlights.

Many of Northern Kentucky’s leading 19thcentury politicians, including John G. Carlisle, John White Stevenson, and James W. Bryan, received their nominations for higher office in Independence.

But not all interruptions to the city’s tranquility were welcome. During the Civil War, at the height of the frenzy stirred by a Confederate advance on Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati, a Confederate force numbering about 1,500 briefly occupied the town in September 1862 and helped themselves to food and other supplies. A few years later, armed Confederate sympathizers harassed the pro-Union men in Independence and wreaked general havoc.

The apex of Independence’s quiet country village life probably came in October 1912 with the dedication there of a new Kenton Co. Courthouse.

A large crowd attended the ceremonies for the new courthouse, a Beaux Arts structure that cost $35,000 to build. The festivities included speeches from civic leaders, music, and simmering pots of burgoo–a staple of Kentucky political celebrations.

Once common, gatherings like this had all but ceased in Independence when party nominating conventions yielded to primary elections during the 1890s.

Although the city was diminishing in political importance, the rise of the automobile kept Independence integrated with the rest of Northern Kentucky. For instance, increased car ownership in the 1920s and improved rural roads enabled Independence’s baseball teams to play in Northern Kentucky leagues that had entries scattered throughout the region. School consolidation, made possible by school buses, also brought people to Independence. Even so, as late as the 1950s Independence remained underdeveloped. The city’s population hovered at about 300 residents.

During the 1960s Independence began transforming from a quiet country town to a booming residential city. Annexations, starting with the area surrounding the Cherokee Shopping Plaza on Taylor Mill Rd. (Ky. Rt. 16), spurred the city’s expansion. By the early 1970s, Independence had grown to five square miles with a population of nearly 2,000. Additional annexations during the 1970s increased the city’s area to 12 square miles and quadrupled its population by the end of the decade. Independence added still more territory in

the early 1980s by its merger with the City of Ridgeview Heights and by other annexations to the west. Most annexations arose from the lobbying efforts of residents of unincorporated areas who wished to join Independence rather than risk absorption into the expanding Covington with its higher tax rates. In other situations, as in Ridgeview Heights, residents favored annexation because Independence could offer ser vices at a much lower cost.

Rapid growth in Independence also transformed its city government. As late as 1960, Independence offered minimal ser vices to its inhabitants. The city government occupied offices in the Kenton Co. Courthouse. Its police force consisted of only a marshal and a part-time patrol officer.

Residents had to use cisterns for their water and had no sewers for waste treatment. This lack of services thwarted annexation attempts by Independence during the 1950s. Because of the city’s growth in the 1970s, Independence purchased a building to house city offices, expanded the police department to two full-time officers and six parttimers, built two firehouses for the city’s 80-member volunteer fire department, and began the construction of sewage and water systems. Annexations brought a fivefold increase in tax revenue without increasing the tax rate. The revenue windfall and disciplined spending–sometimes to the consternation of those impatient for improvements in city services—kept Independence operating at a surplus while permitting gradual infrastructure upgrading.

Independence continued to grow throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Housing developments started to replace the family farms that surrounded downtown Independence. Annexation was the price new subdivisions had to pay if they wanted to tap into Independence’s sewer and water lines. The population of Independence almost doubled between 1980 and 2000.

Independence’s most impressive growth may still be on the horizon. A housing boom brought by low interest rates has helped make Independence the fastest-growing city in Northern Kentucky, with an estimated 27 percent population increase between 2000 and 2005. The widening of Madison Pike (Ky. Rt. 17), Turkeyfoot Rd. (Ky. Rt. 1303), Ky. Rt. 536, and Taylor Mill Rd. (Ky. Rt. 16) will improve the city’s already enviable access to Northern Kentucky interstate highways and should attract even more development. With new and renovated schools, a new library, abundant parks, and Kenton Co.’s largest public golf course all within its city limits, Independence offers many attractions for families. In addition, a major retail area is emerging at the intersection of Madison Pike and Harris Pike with expectations of more such areas to come. Already Northern Kentucky’s largest city in terms of land mass, Independence has the potential to become the region’s most populous city.

Projections indicate that Independence’s population could grow to between 40,000 and 60,000.

The population of Independence was 1,715 in 1970; 7,998 in 1980; 10,444 in 1990; and 14,982 in 2000.

IN DE PEN DENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS

477

“Independence Has Changed Very Little,” KE, July 4, 1958, 1.

“19,065 . . . and Counting—Independence’s Day,” KP, July 1, 2006, 1A. U.S. Census Bureau. “American Fact Finder. Data Set. Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF1) 100-Percent Data. Custom Table,” www.census.gov (accessed July 31, 2006).

“Who Runs Independence?” KE, September 10, 1979, 2A.

Greg Perkins

INDEPENDENCE HIGH SCHOOL. Established in February 1910, Independence High School was the first county public high school in Kenton Co. The sweeping 1908 Sullivan Law, which revamped Kentucky’s public school system, included a requirement that each county have at least one public high school. To comply with the legislation, the Kenton Co. School Board took over a small two-room private high school in Independence that was conducted by Charles V. Lucy.

Plans immediately commenced to erect a new county-administered high school at Independence, the county seat. Completed in 1912 at a cost of $10,000, the two-story brick Independence High School housed both elementary and high school students in its eight rooms. Later additions to the school included an auditorium and expanded classroom space. Independence High School closed in 1938 with the opening of the nearby Simon Kenton High School; however, its facility continued to be used as an elementary school until 1954. The former Independence High School building, located at 5209 Madison Pike, remains an enduring landmark in Independence and continues to serve the community with its mix of residential, office, and retail space.

Caywood, James A. “A Brief Sketch of the Development of the Kenton County School System,” January 14, 1958, Kenton Co. Schools, Fort Wright, Ky. Kleber, John E., ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia.

Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1992.

Greg Perkins

INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) in the past had a strong presence in Northern Kentucky, where it sponsored many charitable enterprises. The I.O.O.F. has its roots in 18th-century Great Britain; in North America it was chartered in 1819. Although it was originally a fraternal organization, with a ladies auxiliary called the Daughters of Rebekah, today both men and women can be members of the I.O.O.F. Like the Masons of the 18th-century Enlightenment, the I.O.O.F. lodges practiced religious tolerance, requiring only that their members believe in a supreme being. Also similar to the Masons, the I.O.O.F. featured several levels, each composed of degrees. The first level, or Lodge, had three degrees (friendship, love, and truth); the second level was Encampment, with the three degrees of Patriarch, Golden Rule, and Royal Purple; and the third level, the Patriarchs Militant, or Canton, had one degree, the Chevalier. Known as the “The Three-Link

Odd Fellows Ringgold Lodge, Market St., Maysville.

Fraternity”—for its tri-linked chain logo with the letters F, L, and T (for friendship, love, and truth)— the Odd Fellows were considered “odd” in their early days because of their practice of giving charity without expecting anything in return. The I.O.O.F. provided sickness, death, and other benefits for its dues-paying members and contributed to widows and orphans, the Booth Memorial Hospital, and many other worthy causes.

Many Odd Fellows lodges operated in Northern Kentucky, in the communities of Atwood, Augusta, Bellevue, Big Bone, Butler, Carrollton, Corinth, Covington (multiple lodges), Dayton, Florence, Foster, Gardnersville, Ghent, Glencoe, Grants Lick, Hebron, Independence, Johnsville, Jonesville, Knoxville, Latonia, Ludlow, Maysville, Mount Zion, Napoleon, New Liberty, Newport (multiple lodges), Owenton, Petersburg, Warsaw, and Williamstown.

In addition, there are I.O.O.F. cemeteries in Burlington, Carrollton, Corinth, and Jonesville and three in Owen Co. In the 19th century, the I.O.O.F. owned a picnic grove called the Odd Fellows Grove situated on Waterworks Rd. in Campbell Co.; in 1905, the land was sold to the Woodlawn Land Company, which became part of the later city of Woodlawn.

At least four lodges in Northern Kentucky were founded for African Americans: the Crispus Attucks Lodge in Covington, the Maysville Star Lodge, the Dunbar Lodge in Newport, and a lodge in New Liberty. The hall where the Crispus Attucks lodge met is still standing in Covington, on the southwest corner of two intersecting alleys in the block bounded by Fourth, Fifth, and Scott Sts. and Madison Ave. Rebekah lodges for women operated in Augusta, Bellevue, Carrollton, Covington, Jonesville, Newport (multiple lodges), and Owenton.

Lodges are still operating in Carrollton, Jonesville, Maysville, and Owenton.

Some of the I.O.O.F. lodges built elaborate halls, usually renting the first floor to retail establishments and themselves occupying one or more floors above. The most noteworthy buildings in-

cluded the Odd Fellows Hall on the northeast corner of Fifth St. and Madison Ave. in Covington; the Browinski Lodge, on the corner of Third and Main Sts., and the later I.O.O.F. Hall on Seminary St., both in Carrollton; the Odd Fellows’ Hall (built 1889; demolished 1971) on the northeast corner of Elm and Butler Sts. in Ludlow; two buildings in Maysville; the Odd Fellows Hall on Seminary St. in Owenton; and the three-story I.O.O.F. building at 115 N. Main St. in Williamstown (built 1911).

Maysville’s DeKalb Lodge No. 12 and Ringgold No. 27 built a three-story hall on the south side of Second St. between Market and Sutton Sts. in 1877– 1878; the third floor featured a library and lodge rooms. In 1915 the Ringgold Lodge dedicated a new three-story hall on Market St. (still standing).

Designed by the noted architectural firm of Weber Brothers, it features a terra cotta front. The three-story Odd Fellow’s Building in Covington, dating from 1856, featured a unique second-floor ballroom-auditorium seating 800, unobstructed by columns and suspended by metal rods hanging from above. The third floor contained lodge rooms.

The auditorium was used for many civic events, and in 1900 the body of assassinated Governor William Goebel (1900) lay in state there. The Odd Fellows sold the building in 1923, and in the 1940s and 1950s the auditorium was used as a roller rink. In 1930 the Washington I.O.O.F. lodge of Covington built a new three-story headquarters at 808–810 Scott St. In 2001 Tony Milburn and Damian and Kelly Sells purchased the old 1856 Odd Fellows Hall at Fift h and Madison, with plans to restore it to its original splendor. A massive fire on May 21, 2002, however, destroyed the inner shell of the building. The owners saved the historic outer walls and built a new five-story office structure inside.

“Building Ready: Odd Fellows Dedicate New $65,000 Structure,” KP, October 25, 1930, 1.

Conrad, John B., ed. History of Grant County. Williamstown, Ky.: Grant Co. Historical Society, 1992.

478 INGLES, MARY Emery, George Neil. A Young Man’s Benefit: The Inde pendent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness Insurance in the United States and Canada, 1860–1929. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ.

Press, 1999.

“Fire Ravages Historic Hall,” KP, May 21, 2002, 1K. Independent Order of Odd Fellows. http://dev.ioof .org/aboutus.html (accessed August 16, 2008).

Kentucky Gateway Museum, Maysville, Ky. Vertical fi les.

“Odd Fellows Hall Sold,” KP, March 5, 1923, 1.

Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows: Held at Lexington, Kentucky, October 14 and 15, 1941. Frankfort, Ky.: Roberts, 1941.

The Spirit of a Greater Maysville and Mason County.

Maysville, Ky.: Daily Independent, 1930.

Warminski, Margo. Historic Structures of Boone County. Burlington, Ky.: Boone Co. Historic Preservation Board, 2002.

“Will Be Dedicated in May,” KTS, February 16, 1915, 14.

Paul A. Tenkotte

INGLES, MARY (b. 1732, Philadelphia, Pa.; d.

1815, Montgomery Co., Va.). Mary Draper Ingles was the daughter of Irish immigrants George and Elenor Hardin Draper. The Draper family moved to the western frontier, near what is today Blacksburg, Va., in 1748. There, they helped to create a pioneer settlement that was known as Draper’s Meadow.

In 1750 Mary Draper married William Ingles and later gave birth to two sons. On July 8, 1755, a band of Shawnee Indian warriors (see American Indians) raided the settlement, scalping and killing several settlers, including Mary’s mother. The Shawnees took Mary along with her children, her sisterin-law, and a neighbor as hostages. The captives were forced to trek through uncharted territory and reportedly were the first white people to traverse this terrain. Eventually, they arrived at a Shawnee village located in the Ohio Territory on the banks of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers. Mary was separated from her sons there. While in captivity, Mary was taken to Big Bone Lick in modern Boone Co., Ky., to help the Indians make salt. She became the first white person to make salt west of Kanawha River and the first white woman to enter territory now included in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Mary’s opportunity to flee came about when the Shawnees gave her permission to forage the woods for nuts and wild grapes. During one of these gathering expeditions, Mary and another captive escaped from the Indians and made their way through the wilderness on foot, enduring incredible hardships along the way. They used the Ohio, Kanawha, and New rivers to guide them throughout their journey. After traveling more than 800 miles, they finally arrived in Virginia, and Mary was reunited with her husband, whose efforts to find her had been unsuccessful. William and Mary Ingles had four more children and settled in Montgomery Co., Va., where they operated a ferry across the New River. William died in 1782.

Mary continued to live in the log house that her husband had built until her death in 1815. She was buried at the Ingles Homestead in Radford, Va. Mary’s ordeal has inspired numerous books, mov-

ies, and living-history programs, and many historical monuments pay homage to this courageous woman; the Mary Ingles Highway in Northern Kentucky is named in her honor.

Furbee, Mary Rodd. Outrageous Women of Colonial America. New York: Wiley, ca. 2001.

———. Shawnee Captive: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles. Greensboro, N.C.: Morgan Reynolds, ca.

2001.

Hale, John Peter. History of the Great Kanawha Valley. Madison, Wis.: Brant, Fuller, 1891.

———. Trans-Allegheny Pioneers: Historical Sketches of the First White Settlements West of the Alleghenies, 1748 and After, Wonderful Experiences of Hardships and Heroism of Those Who First Braved the Dangers of the Inhospitable Wilderness, and the Savage Tribes That Then Inhabited It. 1886. Reprint, Charleston, W.Va.: Kanawha Valley, 1931.

Ingles, John. Escape from Indian Captivity: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles and Son Thomas Ingles, as told by John Ingles, Sr. Ed. Roberta Ingles Steele and Andrew Lewis Ingles. Radford, Va., 1969.

Robin Caraway

INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE CENTER. The federal Internal Revenue Ser vice (IRS) has had a physical presence in Covington since at least 1907, when President Theodore Roosevelt (1901– 1909) appointed attorney Maurice L. Galvin as the local revenue collector. Former Covington mayor Ron Turner (1987) has often remarked that the city’s employment turnaround started with the arrival of the modern IRS Center in the 1960s. Located in a multiblock area just to the west of Madison Ave. and north of Fourth St., its first one-level building, with an interior courtyard, was designed by local architect Carl Bankemper. The Dugan and Meyers Construction Company of Cincinnati began work in late 1965, and the new $4.5 million IRS Center opened for its first group of 300 employees on May 12, 1967, with plans to employ 3,300 by the end of that year. The formal dedication of the building took place in August 1967. The purpose of the center was to ser vice some 12 million taxpayers, and it soon became one of the 10 IRS databanks across the nation. Within two months after opening, IRS officials were already talking about further expansion in Covington. The operation soon became one of the major employers in Northern Kentucky.

The IRS Center, beginning on a 14.5-acre site, solved a large urban-renewal problem for the City of Covington, while bringing more people into town and increased payroll taxes into the city’s coffers, at a time when both were sorely needed.

The building contained a cafeteria and three canteen areas, with stonework throughout. In 1989 the IRS added a daycare facility for the children of its employees. In 1990 planning began for the new Gateway Center Building, across Madison Ave. to the east, into which the IRS expanded in 1993. In 2000 the focus of the center changed as it moved to working with small-business taxpayers.

Hopkins, Karen. “Beauty Complements Comfort in IRS Center,” KP, May 10, 1967, 8K.

“IRS Here Has 20th Birthday,” KP, August 19, 1987, 6K. Paeth, Greg. “IRS Asks City to Expand,” KP, October 3, 1974, 1K. “Tops in Jobs,” KP, October 1, 1983, 1K. Wagner, Arlo T. “Plan 2 Acre Expansion of IRS Center by 1975,” KP, May 16, 1967, 1K.

INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS. See Expressways.

INTERURBANS. Several interurban lines were planned but never built in Northern Kentucky.

Nationally, interurban railroad transportation during the first two decades of the 20th century, promoted as a means to move people and goods quickly between cities, was a fi nancial disaster.

Interurban railroads were touted as a replacement for the steam railroad. They used electricity drawn from overhead wires to power cleanrunning, smokeless motors. Interurban cars were the size of steam railroad cars but looked like urban streetcars.

Interurban lines were usually built parallel to existing steam operations and often over the public right-of-way. Owing to their frequent, often hourly, ser vice, they stripped steam railroads of much of their passenger business where they competed side by side. Interurbans also claimed a portion of the less-than-carload package business, just as modern overnight air freight companies have done today. By 1916 more than 15,500 miles of interurban line were in ser vice across the nation.

The interurban system’s downfall was the development of all-weather highways. Most interurbans ran adjacent to or on existing roads and used local streets to penetrate into the downtowns of cities. This competition between the interurban car and the private truck or automobile was settled in favor of the trucks and automobiles.

Cincinnati, at one time, boasted eight interurban lines; in Kentucky six interurban lines were built statewide, but all had stopped running by 1939; none operated in Northern Kentucky. Although the Northern Kentucky Area saw no interurban lines built, some were proposed. The basic goal of these plans was to tie Northern Kentucky to Louisville and Lexington. Two of the proposals were to extend the Louisville and Indianapolis (L&I) from LaGrange to Covington and to extend the Kentucky Traction Terminal Company (KT&T) from Paris to Covington and Newport.

Between 1910 and 1920, separate charters were granted by the Kentucky legislature to four companies to build interurban lines within Northern Kentucky. The Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington & Maysville Traction Company was proposed to link Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, and Maysville together with interurban track. However, despite some initial news media releases, the company never undertook to build anything. It appears that the company was set up as speculation to sell its franchises to investors who might themselves build an interurban line.

The Newport & Alexandria Electric Traction Company (N&AET) proposed running lines between Newport and Alexandria and, once this

IRISH AMERICANS

route was completed, to continue to Falmouth.

News releases speculated that the KT&T would build north to Cynthiana from Paris and that either the KT&T or the N&AET would then close the gap between Falmouth and Cynthiana. A preliminary survey of the route was undertaken by the N&AET, and 1.3 miles of single track was built in 1916 from the end of the Green Line streetcar line in S. Fort Thomas southward along Alexandria Pk. and Main St. in Highland Heights. This rump line, subsidized by the Highland Heights Land Company, was operated by the Green Line until 1924. It was far more a streetcar operation than an interurban one.

The Covington & Big Bone Company (C&BB) proposed to connect Covington and Big Bone Lick. The promoters envisioned developing a spa and an amusement park at Big Bone Lick that would attract amusement seekers and give rise to suburban housing developments. The C&BB may be best described as a real estate speculation proposal. Pacific Electric, located in Los Angeles, was a prototype for this type of real estate venture. It involved building a rail line into the country that would allow easy access to the city of origin and then developing residential areas along its path.

Outside of some promotional meetings, no start was made on building the C&BB line.

The promoters of the Ohio Valley Traction Company (OVT) proposed to tie Covington with Carrollton, Ky., and Madison, Ind. The route would use a ferry to cross the Ohio River at Madison until a bridge could be built. The promoters also held out the carrot that the L&I would extend its line eastward from LaGrange to meet up with the OVT. This line never progressed beyond plans on paper.

Bogart, Charles H. “A Survey of Kentucky’s Traction Interlude.” National Railway Bulletin 67, no. 2 (2002): 18–27.

Due, John F., and George W. Hilton. The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1960.

Middleton, William D. The Interurban Era. Milwaukee, Wis.: Kalmbach Books, 1961.

Charles H. Bogart

IRISH AMERICANS. The Irish were one of the largest groups to settle in Northern Kentucky. They did so in two distinct waves: the first consisted of Scots-Irish people, who were principally Protestant, and the second of Irish Catholics. The ScotsIrish originally hailed from the lowlands of Scotland, and following the systematic conquest of Ireland by Queen Elizabeth I of England (ruled 1558–1603), they settled in Ulster, the northern province of Ireland. Rising rents, drought, and English prejudice against their Presbyterian roots (see Presbyterians) were an impetus for hundreds of thousands of Scots-Irish to immigrate to the colonies in North America before the Revolutionary War and to the United States afterward.

Settling in Pennsylvania and the southern mountains (see Appalachians), many made their way to Northern Kentucky in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, for example, Thomas Kennedy, whose father was a Presbyterian from Ulster.

The second and largest wave of Irish immigration, mainly Roman Catholics, was propelled by a number of causes. The Penal Laws against Catholics in Ireland, the failure of revolts against the British, the enclosure of farmland for herding, the displacement of cottage industries by cheaper British manufacturing, the Great Famine (1845–1850), and subsequent potato failures in the 1870s and 1880s all contributed to the “push factors” motivating millions to leave. “Pull factors” in the United States included economic opportunity, democracy, and religious freedom. Irish immigration to the United States and other places worldwide, as well as other political and economic conditions in Ireland, so impacted the population of Ireland that it literally was halved, from 8.5 million in 1841 to 4.25 million in 1926.

The Great Famine attracted attention throughout the world. According to the Licking Valley Register, the citizens of Covington collected $161 in August 1847 for the “destitute of Ireland.” More importantly, Covington, Newport, Maysville, and other locations within Northern Kentucky provided employment opportunities for Irish immigrants. As early as 1839, the Covington Western Globe reported that Irish workers, whom it called the “ ‘salt of the earth’ for public works,” were employed among the construction crews of the Covington and Lexington Turnpike and later on the Covington and Lexington Railroad. But jobs for men in construction were not the only employment opportunities. Sometimes this Irish immigration assumed a form unlike that of other earlier and later immigrant groups, in that a mother or eldest daughter often was sent to the United States first. She would obtain employment, usually as a domestic servant, would save money, and then would send for the next oldest daughter, and then the next, until later the husband and the sons joined the family in America. This was the case with an Irish mother of seven children who, the Covington Journal narrated in 1851, immigrated to Covington, became a laundress, saved money, and sent for her eldest and second daughters; finally she sent for her husband, three sons, and two youngest daughters.

The Irish of the Great Famine and afterward were, as a rule, devoutly religious. St. Mary Catholic Church in Covington (founded 1833 and renamed the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption) served their needs, as did the Englishspeaking congregations of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Newport (established 1855), St. Patrick Catholic Church in Covington (organized 1872), St. Anthony Catholic Church in Bellevue (founded 1889), and St. James Catholic Church in Ludlow (founded 1886) (see Saints Boniface and James Catholic Church). The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Ky., an Englishspeaking sisterhood, taught many of the Irish children in Northern Kentucky and also established two schools of their own, La Salette Academy in Covington and Immaculata Academy in Newport. Irish American priests, such as Rev. Patrick Guilfoyle (1817–1892) of Immaculate Conception Church and Rev. Thomas McGrady of St. An-

479

thony, were well beloved by their congregations.

Guilfoyle believed that every family should be able to own a home, so he invested church funds in building about 500 affordably priced houses in Newport. Unfortunately, because of an economic downturn in the 1870s, his dream was ended.

In addition to their religious institutions, the Irish established a number of fraternal and political organizations. These included the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which had chapters in Covington and Newport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the National Land League (Parnell Branch, No. 1, Newport); and the Fenians (the Irish Republican Brotherhood) of the second half of the 19th century. An estimated 150 Fenians from Covington and Newport joined the 1866 failed invasion of British Canada. The Friends of Irish Freedom, whose members purchased Republic of Ireland Bonds, founded Covington, Newport, and Ludlow branches in 1920.

Irish culture gained American admirers throughout the latter half of the 19th century. One of the most famous Irish visitors to the area was Rev. Theobald Mathew (1790–1856), the “Irish Apostle of Temperance.” Mathew toured the United States from 1849 to 1851 and administered a “total abstinence pledge” to 600,000 American Catholics and Protestants; he spoke in Covington on June 29, 1851. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) increased in popularity in late19th-century Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

For example, in March 1877, there were two metropolitan-based processions, one on Saturday that wound its way through Cincinnati and then across the bridge to Newport and its streets before returning to Cincinnati (see L&N Bridge). A Sunday procession also began in Cincinnati, but it traveled over the John A. Roebling Bridge to Covington, through the streets of Covington, and back to Cincinnati. The festivities continued throughout the week in Cincinnati, with a musical program at Hibernia Hall featuring Northern Kentucky violinist Joseph Tosso, of Mexican heritage, playing a medley of Irish tunes entitled “Souvenirs of Erin.”

The fertile economic soil of Northern Kentucky provided many opportunities for Irish immigrants and their descendants to achieve prominence in business, political, religious, and cultural circles. Examples include industrialists and philanthropists Peter O’Shaughnessy (1843–1926) and James Walsh (1818–1890) and his son Nicholas Walsh (1855–1915) (see Walsh Distillery), judges Walter Cleary (1854–1916) and Michael Shine (1850–1930), politicians Thomas Donnelly (1870–1955) and August “Gus” Sheehan (1917– 2000), author Mary McNamara (1865–1938), songwriter Haven Gillespie (1888–1975), singers Rosemary Clooney (1928–2002) and Betty Clooney (1931–1976), television personality and author Nick Clooney (1934–), actor George Clooney (1961–), and philanthropist Helen Theissen (1906–2005).

Currently, Northern Kentucky has an active Irish American organization entitled the Fenians of Northern Kentucky Inc., whose objectives are

480 IRON AND STEEL MANUFACTURING “to foster the ideals and perpetuate the history and traditions of the Irish People” and “to promote Irish culture through the following—music, dance, literature, food, language, genealogy, theater, sports, foreign exchange programs, [and] architecture.”

Since 1997, in conjunction with Thomas More College, the Fenians of Northern Kentucky have sponsored an annual lecture series, Tapestry of Irish History and Culture. In addition, Thomas More College has had an active “sister-school” relationship with Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, since 1998.

Cullen, Kevin. “Irish Tradition Not Forgotten in German Main Strasse,” KE, March 13, 1983, B1.

“For the Register,” LVR, August 13, 1847, 3.

Harris, Gen Ann. “Walsh Family Returns Home to the Cathedral.” Cathedral Chimes, Autumn 1997, 1.

“An Interesting Incident,” CJ, April 5, 1851, 2.

Miller, Kerby, and Paul Wagner. Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America. Washington, D.C.: Elliott and Clark, 1994.

“Notice,” Western Globe, September 20, 1839, 2.

Reis, Jim. “The Fenian Movement: Local IrishAmericans Recruited for Ill-Fated Invasion of Canada,” KP, March 15, 2004, 4K. Sweeney, Michael R. “The O’Shaughnessy and Walsh Families.” Cathedral Chimes, Winter 2005, 1–2.

Tenkotte, Paul A. “Thomas More College International Studies: Historical Overview, 1990–1998,” 1998, Thomas More College, Crestview Hills, Ky. Tenkotte, Paul A., David E. Schroeder, and Thomas S. Ward. To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky: The Diocese of Covington, 1853–2003. Forthcoming.

Webb, James. Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.

Paul A. Tenkotte

IRON AND STEEL MANUFACTURING. Northern Kentucky’s industrial history parallels the national experience. Once, Kentucky had a substantial localized charcoal-fueled iron industry. Later, larger-scale coal-smelting “puddling furnaces” produced iron for bridges and rails. After 1860, the Bessemer air blast furnace process provided steel for widespread structural uses. Rivers carried coal from Pennsylvania, including “bituminous coking coal.” During the manufacturing era, Covington and Newport ranked second and third to Louisville in production of iron and steel in the state. Besides large iron and steel mills, some local foundries specialized in items such as wire nails and “grey iron castings.” Others produced finished items such as wagons, buggies, locomotives, and steam engines. Impressive large steel plants in Owensboro, Ashland, and Newport and smaller casting and forging shops continue to produce iron and steel products.

The number of market products made from iron and steel grew rapidly to meet demands for architectural materials, consumer goods, and railroad construction. In 1831 John McNickel acquired lots in Covington between Madison Ave. and Scott St. at the Ohio River, where he planned to build a factory to roll and split iron and manufacture nails. The 1839–1849 Covington city direc-

tories indicated that the rolling mill had cost $75,000. Employing 120, it was manufacturing about 1,800 tons of iron and nails yearly. In 1844 this firm, called the Covington Rolling Mill and Nail Factory, employed around 100 workers, manufacturing 10 tons of iron into sheet, nails, and bar iron of all sizes daily. On average, the factory consumed 600 bushels of stone coal and 800 of charcoal daily. An 1851 Covington map shows that the Covington factory had expanded to Willow Run Creek and north to 15th St. In 1860 the rolling mill had become the McNickle Rail Iron Works, owned

by Martin, Stephens, and Williams. On September 23, 1865, fire destroyed much of the mill, but only 27 days later, it was back to work producing 45 tons of railroad iron per day. The Covington Journal in 1869 reported that Covington-made rails were being laid between Miamisburg and Carlisle, Ohio.

The mill in Covington, which employed 160 workers, was producing rolled iron, bar iron, sheet iron, boiler plate, firebed iron, railroad chairs, iron rivets, ironware, and fabricated galvanized tubing, totaling $350,000 in value. Its offices were on W. Second St. in Cincinnati, and its plant was near the John A. Roebling Bridge. In 1871 the company sold 550 tons of iron rails at $80 per ton to the Maysville and Lexington Railroad. An illustrated advertisement in 1875 showed the Covington Rail Mill (a new name), with James G. and Robert Kyle as proprietors, as a three-story brick structure with factory barns and belching smokestacks. Sitting on about 4 acres and employing around 130 workers, the firm could produce, according to the ad, about 300 tons of rails per week.

Just five years later, in 1880, the Covington Rail Mill was closed and offered for sale.

George W. Ball (ca. 1809–1873), John McNickle’s brother-in-law, had come from Pennsylvania.

Ball helped to build McNickle’s iron business.

However, in 1854 G. W. Ball, employing 60 workers, operated the Covington Foundry between Third and Fourth and Johnson and Main Sts. and was considering a large expansion in order to meet the demand for stoves. The mill Ball ran in 1856 was called G. W. Ball and Company, as was a plant he had that manufactured stoves and hollowware.

In 1861 the mill was still called George W. Ball and Company, but the other business was named the Kentucky Stove Works.

In conjunction with the Covington and Lexington Railroad, one of the railroad’s developers, Alexander L. Greer, and some of his partners built at Third and Philadelphia Sts. the Covington Locomotive and Manufacturing Works, a complex of factory buildings extending to the Ohio River. Included were a main foundry building, 100 feet square and 40 feet high; the machine shop, four stories high, measuring 160 by 45 feet; an assembly shop, 80 feet square; a blacksmith shop, 250 by 45 feet; and a boiler shop measuring 200 by 60 feet, plus brass and tin founding shops and a large yard. The company commenced making railroad locomotives in 1854, but out-of-state railroads canceled their orders, possibly because of the financial panic of 1854 and resulting delays. Nevertheless, during 1854 and early 1855, the Covington

Locomotive and Manufacturing Works delivered to the Covington and Lexington Railroad four locomotives, named by the railroad the Covington, the Cynthiana, the Paris, and the Lexington.

Under new ownership, the factory, now called the Kentucky Locomotive and Machine Works, built two more locomotives, the M. M. Benton and the Sam J. Walker. However, the panic of 1857 probably hastened the final closing of this locomotive manufacturing firm in Covington.

In 1850 Newport produced 900 tons of iron products; in 1860, 1,550 tons. At the time, Newport had two rolling mills, one operated by Daniel Wolff and the other by men named Swift and Evans. In the next 10 years, the Newport iron industry expanded tremendously, producing 39,500 tons in 1870, with the rolling mill operated by Swift and Evans emerging as the leader. By then Newport was out-producing Louisville, and nationwide only seven states surpassed Kentucky in iron production. But despite constantly favorable reports and having 24 coke ovens, a big crane, and a railroad connection on the rolling mill’s eight-acre site, what had become the Swift Iron and Steel Works had to be sold in 1887. In 1891 Joseph and A. L. Andrews started the Globe Iron Roofing and Corrugating Company in Newport. They also purchased the Newport Rolling Mill (successor to the Swift Iron and Steel Works) to provide steel sheets for galvanizing and corrugating. Surviving various economic crises over the years, the Andrews brothers were able to expand Newport’s steel industry, tie it into several steel-related businesses they owned, and thus help to make Newport into a major steel-manufacturing center. In 1923 the Newport city directory listed companies run by the Andrews family near the Licking River: the Newport Rolling Mill, the Globe Iron Roofing and Corrugating Company, the Newport Foundry Company, the Newport Culvert Company, and the Andrews Steel Mill, one of “the largest steel mills in the south.” Descendants of the Andrews brothers finally sold their interests in 1943, having survived the hard times of the 1930s and, during the 1920s, a violent labor strike involving 1,000 workers. After the sale, the Newport Rolling Mill became Interlake Steel and continued to operate on the outskirts of Newport along the Licking River in Wilder. Later, following an extraordinary effort that secured public and private funding during the 1970s, the company, now a part of the NS Group, was reorganized as Newport Steel and remains in operation today.

The 1851 city map of Covington also showed, in addition to the Covington Rolling Mill and Nail Factory, a second iron mill in Covington, the Licking Iron Works. In 1850–1851 Phillip S. Bush, a retired cashier for the Covington branch of the Northern Bank of Kentucky, and his son John S. Bush opened the Licking Rolling Mill between 11th and 12th Sts., along the Licking River. The Licking Rolling Mill consumed annually 175,000 bushels of coal, 3,000 tons of pig iron, and 1,000 tons of other raw metals in order to produce iron bars, iron sheets, other materials, and hardware.

Between 1851 and 1861, city directories listed the

IRON AND STEEL MANUFACTURING

Licking Iron Works and another firm, known as Thomas Phillips and Son, as being ironworks operators. In 1859 a Cincinnati digest reported that the Licking Rolling Mill was one of 10 rolling mills for the Cincinnati market, although located outside of the city. The digest also noted that the Phillips and Son mill in Covington employed 275, operating all days except Sundays and consuming annually 500,000 bushels of coal. It produced 3,000 tons of “small round and square and hoop iron,” 2,000 tons of “large round and square, railroad chair iron,” 2,000 tons of “fire bed and sheet iron,” 1,000 tons of “boiler iron, heads,” and 8,000 tons of “iron of all descriptions,” averaging $87.50 per ton, with an aggregate value of $700,000. Furthermore, the digest article observed, “The sheet iron made here is annealed on the surface, which renders it apparently equal to the Russia sheets.”

This plant was located on six and one-half acres.

In the antebellum United States, German immigrants brought old-world industry to Covington. At age 20, Ignatius Droege left Germany, where his father owned an iron mill situated on the Ruhr River. After his arrival in Covington in 1849, the Bush and Jordan Licking Rolling Mill hired Droege as a blacksmith. Later in 1861, when a foundry was established in connection with the rolling mill, the new partnership of Phillips and Jordan put Droege in charge. Soon the mill was fabricating iron chains used by Union military forces in the Civil War for naval blockades.

In 1843 Charles Bogenshutz arrived in New Orleans; he moved to Cincinnati in 1856 and soon established a hardware store in Covington on Pike St. between Washington St. and Madison Ave. By 1868 Droege had joined Bogenshutz in a business partnership called the Kentucky Iron Foundry and Machine Shop, which produced well-known brands of heating and cooking stoves popu lar in the “south and southwest.” In 1869 Droege agreed to make iron columns for the new Mother of God Catholic Church building. At his E. 16th St. plant in Covington, he cast the columns, almost 50 feet long, in a “horizontal flask form” in sand molds stiffened with a molasses-based formula. He also engineered the delivery of the columns and their erection at the site of the new church. Droege became a full partner with Bogenshutz in 1873. Ignatius Droege and Company, in Covington at 16th St. near the Licking River, claimed to be able to make “anything that could be cast in iron.”

That same year, a financial panic saw the Licking Rolling Mill go into receivership. In 1877 Droege borrowed money and purchased a half interest in the financially troubled mill. Henry Worthington purchased the other half, to form the Worthington and Droege Iron and Steel Manufacturing Company. After a decade in the stove business, Droege sold his share back to Bogenshutz.

Years later, after some employee “fraud and malfeasance” during the brief presidency of Bogenshutz’s son Lawrence, the Charles Bogenshutz Foundry closed in 1903. Afterward, John Casper Droege purchased the business for $10,500.

In 1881 and 1882, the iron and steel workers struck unsuccessfully, trying for a wage increase to

$33 per week. In 1897 Ignatius Droege retired at age 69, a wealthy man. In 1905 a big fire, thought by some to have been arson, did almost $100,000 damage to the business. Substantial insurance payments helped overcome the losses. In 1906 a fire hit the Kentucky Iron Roofing and Corrugating Company at 12th and Wheeler Sts., a business partnership formed by John Casper Droege and John H. Mersmann in 1902. In 1906 reorganization placed the Licking Rolling Mill, the I. Droege and Sons Foundry, and the I. Droege and Sons Coal Company under one entity, the I. Droege Iron Foundry and Coal Company, with capital valued at $1 million. Company production reached 25,000 tons of bar iron annually, with sales of $500,000 mostly to industry in the “south and southwest,” and a monthly payroll of $3,500, for 350 workers “on average.”

In February 1908 another fire caused some $200,000 in damage, and among the items damaged was a much-valued special “steam hammer” that pounded metal into sheets. Insurance covered little more than 10 percent of the loss. Droege’s sons had also made heavy California gold investments and engaged in other misadventures, squandering capital and goodwill from other stockholders. After litigation, the disgruntled stockholders achieved a reorganization that temporarily relieved the Droeges of control of the company.

However, in June 1908 a federal court in Covington gave it back. The Droeges raised $50,000 and reincorporated as the Licking Rolling Mill. Seeking reemployment at the mill for workers living in Covington, the city voted to give the Licking Rolling Mill a five-year municipal tax exemption. In September 1908 the mill reopened, calling some 300 workers back to work in the midst of a national depression. Ominously, three weeks later the water level in the Licking River dropped so low that production stopped; workers had to lengthen the water supply pipes. In 1911, after the Licking Rolling Mill had declared bankruptcy, a U.S. District Court appointed trustees to handle the company’s business affairs. In 1912 the court approved the sale of the property, the machinery, the tools and appliances, a platform scale in the street, and all the scrap iron on hand for $25,500.

On March 22, 1873, the Covington Journal reported that John Mitchell, James Tranter, and associates had purchased the former Covington hemp-bagging mill property between Philadelphia St. and Willow Run Creek, extending to the Ohio River. There they operated one of the biggest rolling mills “in the west” as the Ohio Valley Steel and Iron Works; they had a warehouse on W. Second St. in Cincinnati. Walter J. Mitchell was president and Charles Tranter was vice president. In the 1880s about 300 Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers walked off the job at the factory.

In 1898 the firm’s management complained that taxes and water rates were too high and city services too slow. The city had denied a right-of-way for a railroad connection. Around 1900 the mill was sold to Republic Iron and Steel, in a trust headquartered at Vandergrift, Pa., that later was relocated to Chicago. Republic Iron and Steel soon laid

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off or relocated several of its workers in Covington.

According to the company, these relocations were necessary “because of high costs and inadequate facilities” in Covington. In 1907, with many of its Covington employees already relocated to Sheffield, Ala., Republic Iron and Steel sold its Covington properties and left town.

Walking on Pike St., on Madison Ave., and on the residential sidewalks of Covington, pedestrians still can read emblems on fencing and iron storefronts that were manufactured by the Covington Iron Works, by Fred J. Meyers, or by the Stewart Iron Works. Started in 1856 by John Mieth, the Fred. J. Meyers Wire Works had a store in Covington on E. 12th St. and a factory on E. 10th St. in 1876. By 1886 the company manufactured architectural ironwork, iron storefronts, stairs, and shutters at 419–423 Madison Ave. in two brick buildings. One of the buildings had six stories and measured 47 by 150 feet; the other had two stories and was 23 by 190 feet. In 1893 a fire that did $450,000 in damage, called the largest in Covington’s history, gutted the Fred J. Meyers Company, a nearby church, and some of the neighboring businesses. Less than half of the damage, $210,000, was to the Fred J. Meyers Company, but the firm chose not to rebuild.

In 1894 the Covington city directory listed the Covington Architectural Iron Works, John H. Lutter, proprietor, on the east side of Court St. between Fourth and Fift h Sts. In 1900 Lutter and George F. Roth were proprietors at the northeast corner of Ninth and Washington Sts. The 1904– 1905 city directory also listed the company under “Jail Works.” In the decade 1908–1918, Roth was the proprietor and the firm provided structural and ornamental iron and steel, sidewalk lights, cellar doors, gratings, iron and wire fencing, and grillwork. This was an important local company for several decades, but by 1929 it had closed.

Newport still is home to the Buecker Company, started in 1858 as the Buecker Machinery and Iron works (see Buecker Iron Works) by German immigrant Ernst Buecker Sr. The company fabricated iron fencing for many residences in various cities nationwide. It is still located at 29 W. Sixth St. The firm’s recent owners, David Buecker and Linda Velton, are fift h-generation members of the family.

The Buecker Company still attaches its signature label to a wide variety of custom-made metal consumer and commercial orders. This company is one of Kentucky’s Centennial Businesses.

By 1876 another German immigrant, Father Joseph Goebbels, a local Catholic priest, had helped organize the American Wire and Screw Nail Company, “the first of its kind,” and he served briefly as its president. Using techniques learned in Germany, the firm made “modern nails.” Father Goebbels’s activities occasionally are cited as a unique story because while heading this business he was a practicing priest who had his residence at Covington’s St. Augustine Catholic Church.

By 1881 J. L. Stephens was the company’s president and treasurer. In 1890 L. H. Gedge was president of the newly named American Wire Nail Company, and the firm was manufacturing “standard wire

482 I71, I75, I275, I471 nails” at its factory on the east side of Washington St. in Covington between 15th and 16th Sts.; F. C. Gedge was first vice president and B. H. Gedge was secretary. By 1894, however, the firm was no longer in business.

By 1892 in Covington, the Houston, Stanwood & Gamble Company was manufacturing steam engines and boilers, selling engines to power mills in the South and in the Caribbean, and selling boilers domestically to heat large buildings and laundries. In 1905 the Kentucky Post reported that the Houston, Stanwood & Gamble Company was building for its boilermaking department “the largest floor space in the city” at a site in Covington just east of Philadelphia St. In 1910 the company quickly fired 20 men when they chose to strike for a two-and-a-half-cent raise. In 1916 the firm’s machinists walked out for a reduction of hours. The company soon offered a reduction from 60 to 52 hours. In 1909 Charles Houston, the company’s president, proposed the laying of railroad tracks along Willow Run Creek. Ten years later, there was talk of dredging a harbor at the end of Willow Run. During World War I, the Houston, Stanwood & Gamble Company received a $200,000 war order for 200 lathes under a subcontract with the Cincinnati Iron and Steel Company. But electrification, poor management, and the Ohio River flood of 1937 led to the Covington company’s end. The Houston, Stanwood & Gamble Company had cast steam engine blocks, fireboxes, and large flywheels and fashioned boiler tanks.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, lesserknown companies operating in Covington included the Excelsior Foundry Facing Mills, located on Third St. at the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O) tracks; the Dean Waterman Company, at 70 W. Ninth St.; the Insurance Foundry, south of 15th St. and west of Madison Ave.; Frank F. Decker, at 125 W. 13th St.; and the Western Foundry Company, at Third and Philadelphia Sts. From the early 1900s, the Moeschel Edwards Corrugating Company manufactured iron and steel roofing, sidings and ceilings, eaves troughs, conductor pipe, and metal shingles; later it made fireproof rolling steel doors and industrial overhead doors, first on W. Ninth St., then at 812 Russell St. This company closed its Covington plant in the 1980s, but the firm’s name has been listed in other locations, including Newport. In 1913 C. B. Edwards was this company’s president; in 1960 Paul C. Edwards was president and C. B. Edwards was vice president and secretary.

After his father, Lewis Michaels, had started the Michaels Art Bronze Company, Frank L. Michaels relocated the company in 1913 from Cincinnati to Second and Scott Sts. in Covington. In 1954 the company was again relocated, this time to a facility at Kenton Lands Rd. in Erlanger. In 1958 Frank Michaels was chief executive officer and Lawrence Michaels was president. The company did contract work on a University of Louisville building, a Square-D plant in Lexington, and the Prudential Insurance building in Chicago, where it supplied stainless steel column coverings and framework for an observation tower. In the 1950s

the Michaels Art and Bronze Company had a local crew of 157 make the gleaming stainless steel curtain walls for the Inland Steel Corporation’s skyscraper in Chicago, giving the company, and the structural and cosmetic qualities of its work, national exposure to architectural professionals. In 1958 the Michaels Art and Bronze Company bid to install “wrap-around porcelain” on the then new Kroger Building in Cincinnati. In 1991 the Michaels Art and Bronze Company was purchased by the Crescent Designed Metals Company, “a pioneer in architectural metal work,” which was founded in Kentucky in 1870 but now operates in Philadelphia as Crescent Designed Metals– Michaels Art Bronze.

George H. Klaene immigrated to the United States in 1866 with his widowed mother and his family. He helped organize the Star Foundry in Covington and was its president in 1890. Klaene attended St. Joseph Catholic parochial school and joined the “molders trade.” The firm Klaene founded began as a “jobbing foundry.” It specialized in stoves and ranges, employed 40 workers, and sold to markets in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Star Foundry, located at Third, Main, and Second Sts. and the C&O Railroad, also manufactured “Steel Ranges, Cast Ranges, Stoves, Gas Ranges, Oak Heaters, Hot Blast Heaters, Air Tight Heaters, Franklin Heaters, Cannon Stoves, and Laundry Stoves.” In 1938 William H. Hoppenjans was president of Star Foundry; in 1956 the company’s president was Robert B. Hoppenjans.

In 1880 Martin and Reynolds operated the Kenton Iron Foundry and Railing Works in Covington on Main St. between Second and Third Sts. In 1890 the William H. Martin and James J. Reynolds Foundry cast grate bars and stove linings. In 1890 Harry H. Martin was secretary-treasurer and general manager; he was a third-generation member of the Martin family. The company sold iron castings throughout the Ohio River Valley. In 1890 Martin reorganized the business as the Germania Supply and Foundry, and in 1914 it was operating in Covington at Second St. and Western Ave. By 1923 the company had been renamed the Martin Foundry; it cast grey iron and other related items, such as steel sewer lids.

By 1932 the Klaene family operated another foundry in Covington at 1530 Russell St. In 1940 it was the Klaene and Kruckmeyer Foundry, in business at 14th and Chesapeake Sts. In 1946 fire destroyed a main foundry building under construction at 1320 Russell St. In 1948, at 1545 Russell St., what was now known as the Klaene Foundry manufactured “grey iron castings,” and the Precision Casting Company at the same address produced “aluminum alloy metal.”

In 1955 a Molders and Foundry Workers Union strike hit the Martin, the Star, and the Klaene foundries. The city of Covington purchased the Martin Foundry’s properties for urban renewal in the mid-1960s. Star Foundry soon ceased operations. In 1975 a $1 million fire “completely destroyed the family-owned Klaene Foundry” at 16th and Russell Sts. in Covington. But the Stewart Iron Works, probably Covington’s best-known com-

pany, and others still continue to fabricate metal products.

Edmondson, Joyce, Barbara Droege, and James R. Deters. “Immigrant Industrialists: Droege and Bogenschutz.” NKH 8, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 2005): 2–23.

Lietzenmayer, Karl J. “Stewart Iron Works: A Kentucky Centenary Company,” NKH 5, no. 1 (Autumn–Winter 1997): 1–14.

Purvis, Thomas L., ed. Newport, Kentucky: A Bicentennial History. Newport, Ky.: Otto Zimmerman, 1996.

Reis, Jim. “Church Arose from Ashes,” KP, August 5, 2002, 4K. ———. “Heritage Shaped along the Licking,” KP, November 12, 1990, 4K. White, John H. Cincinnati Locomotive Builders, 1845–1868. 3rd ed. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, 2004.

John Boh

I-71, I-75, I-275, I-471. See Expressways.

ITALIAN AMERICANS. It has been well over 100 years since more than 4.5 million Italians immigrated to the United States, representing the last of the mass migrations from Europe. Ultimately, the Italian immigrants totaled about 10 percent of the overall U.S. population. That percentage excludes the Italians known as “birds of passage,” who came to the United States just so that they could work, send money back home, and then ultimately return to Italy. In Northern Kentucky, the Italians trickled in around the mid-19th century; the mass migration to the region began around 1887 and continued through 1924. According to the most common figures, 4.1 percent of Newport’s foreign-born residents were of Italian descent, and they represented 2 percent of the city’s overall population. These figures may be unreliable because most of the Italian population resided in the city of Clifton, which was not annexed by Newport until November 26, 1935. Census data and naturalization records were also flawed in that many of the immigrants did not follow the federal guidelines for applying for citizenship and often mistrusted the government’s desire to record their whereabouts.

By comparison, the immigration to the Cincinnati area began earlier in the 1800s with a group of Genoese merchants who crossed the Atlantic, passed through the Gulf of Mexico, and arrived in New Orleans. They made their way up the Mississippi River and settled on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati. The early success of these northern Italian immigrants led the way for more to follow. The Italian population gradually built to more than 4,000 living in the downtown area of Cincinnati as early as 1892. The Italians who settled in the Northern Kentucky region were, for the most part, from the southern regions of Abruzzi, Calabria, Campania, Molise, and Sicily, Italy. They came to start a new life away from the devastation brought about in Italy by earthquakes, poverty, and diseases such as malaria that ran rampant throughout the country. Most of these new immigrants, who arrived before 1892,

ITALIAN AMERICANS

were processed through Castle Garden, New York City, and later through Ellis Island, N.Y., which opened in 1892.

Many Italians worked their way to the Northern Kentucky area by way of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Jobs were plentiful in the steel mills and the coal mines of these neighboring states. Italian immigrants were encouraged to come to the region by employment brokers from the United States, who would visit their hometowns in Italy and recruit them. This was done especially for tailors and stonemasons. In those cases, some came directly to Northern Kentucky and settled. Those who owned and operated their own businesses seemed to settle in the urban areas of Newport and Covington, where they lived in a house or an apartment above their store or business. Others, who were interested in farming or who wanted a more residential area, settled in Cote Brilliante. The Italian settlement stronghold, however, was Clifton, later known as South Newport.

Family also influenced the migration to the Northern Kentucky area. Some Italians came to buy property of their own. Once established, they would sponsor other family members or neighbors to come. It was also a common practice for Italian parents to prearrange their children’s marriages, often as early as at birth; children were promised to wed when they became of age. For these reasons, many of the Italians who settled in the areas of Cote Brilliante, Covington, Newport, and Clifton, which was known as Spaghetti Knob, were related or at least acquainted with one another. Examples of Italian immigrant families coming from the same small towns are the Arcaro (see Eddie Arcaro), Armenti, Farro, Forde, Forte, Giancola, and Vacca families, from the town of Castelpetroso; the Greco, Pellillo, and Ialungo families, from the town of Bagnoli del Trigno; and the Ciafardini and Porfirio families, from the town of Trivento. All three of these towns are in the province of Campobasso (now Isernia), in the region of Molise, Italy. It is easy to see how the Italians decided to settle in a concentrated area such as Clifton, a barren, undeveloped area situated on a hill, resembling many of the families’ hometowns in Italy.

One of the earliest immigrants to settle in Campbell Co. was Charles Graziani, who was born in 1806 in the town of Oneglia, in northwest Italy near Genoa, immigrated around 1845, and died August 6, 1866, in a steamboat accident aboard the General Lytle. He was an accomplished artist, the son of the count of Oneglia. He married Emma Sanham, settled in Cold Spring, and the couple raised nine children. His youngest child, Benjamin Graziani, was born in Cold Spring and became an influential criminal attorney, state representative, and leader of Covington’s Italian community.

While many Italian neighborhoods around the nation had groupings called Little Italy, Northern Kentucky had Spaghetti Knob, which was actually the city of Clifton, incorporated on February 15, 1888. Although the Germans and the Irish already occupied this city, a small community of Italians began building homes in the area during the early 1900s. It was just the right place for the Italians to plant vegetable gardens, grow grapes to make wine, and raise goats, pigs, and chickens for the dinner table.

At the heart of this Italian Roman Catholic community was the annual celebration of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose feast day is celebrated on August 15. The Italians were accustomed to honoring their patron saints with traditional feasts, street parades, and festivals, customs brought with them from Italy.

With their devotion to the Blessed Mother and their flair for pageantry, they began a tradition of celebrating the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by carry ing the statue of the Blessed Mother through the streets of Clifton. The feast was first celebrated on August 14 and 15, 1926, and chaired by Eugene “Gene” Giancola. A festival followed at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, and by the following year, first-generation Italian American girls, dressed in authentic Italian costumes, served as waitresses for the Italian dinner served in the school. The celebration continued through the following decades, gradually ending in the 1960s.

Giancola was one of the most prominent and respected Italian Americans. The son of Archangelo and Rufina Armenti Giancola, he was born on a ship that arrived in the United States in 1893.

Gene Giancola held leadership roles in every facet of life in Clifton. He was the founder and editor of the Hill Top Herald, a community newspaper he created during World War II to keep the community and area ser vicemen informed of what was happening at home and abroad. He married Rosina “Rosie” Porfirio in 1916, and they resided at the corner of Ash and Main Sts. Rev. Herman J. Wetzels, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church, organized a group of cadets in Clifton on August 17, 1920. The cadets, who were preparing to become Knights of St. John, were engaged in various charitable works throughout the community. They also formed a band, marched in area parades, and performed concerts for the general public. The Knights of St. John is an international, multiethnic organization that included many local Italians. It held its meetings at St. Stephen Catholic Church, at Ninth and Washington Sts. in Newport (see Holy Spirit Catholic Church). Some of the local Italians active in the orga ni zation were Joseph Coley; Carl, Eugene, Frank, Julius, and Paschal Giancola; Joseph and

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Anthony Larvo; Joseph Ledonne; Anthony Paolucci; and Ralph Zappa.

Along with the Italian families who immigrated came the introduction of Italian cuisine to the general public. Family-owned Italian restaurants opened up throughout the region, each with its own specialty. Forde’s Restaurant, owned and operated by Michael and Bernadette Testa Forde, was famous for ravioli. Luigi’s Restaurant, known for its pizza, was owned and operated by Tony and Helen Zechella. In fact, Tony’s father, Louis “Luigi” Zechella, is said to be the person who first introduced pizza into the Northern Kentucky region.

Sam Santini operated Santini’s Bar and Restaurant, which later became known as Grandview Gardens in South Newport. For more than 50 years, John Michael “Colonel” and Johanna Coletta “Jay” Pompilio operated Pompilio’s Restaurant, a casual dining landmark in Newport known for its authentic Italian spaghetti dinners. Of these restaurants, only Pompilio’s remains open today; it is currently a family-run enterprise headed

by Frank C. and Peter F. Mazzei. Farther east, in Maysville, is Caproni’s Restaurant, currently owned and operated by Jerry Lundegan. It opened in 1945 and still retains the name of its founding family.

In Italian culture, life is worth celebrating, and the early immigrants availed themselves of every opportunity to celebrate. In addition to church and family events, Columbus Day was observed as early as 1892 in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky by all nationalities. Full-scale replicas of the ships the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria passed by on the Ohio River. The festivities included elaborate parades with decorated floats and wagons. Local militia and military troops from the Fort Thomas Military Reservation also participated. In later years, Columbus Day in Northern Kentucky was usually celebrated with a banquet.

Today the holiday is organized and celebrated by the Cincinnati Chapter of the Order of the Sons of Italy. Italian Day at the Coney Island Amusement Park on Cincinnati’s East Side was first established in 1952 and held every year at the Coney Island Pavilion until the park closed in 1971. The Newport Italianfest, a four-day celebration of family, friends, and entertainment, currently maintains the region’s Italian heritage. The festival completed its 15th year in 2006.

Casebolt, Pamela Ciafardini, and Philip G. Ciafardini. Italians of Newport and Northern Kentucky. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2007.

“Company of Cadets Formed in Clifton,” KTS, August 17, 1920, 19.

Reis, Jim. Pieces of the Past. Vol. 2. Covington, Ky.: Kentucky Post, 1991.

Pamela Ciafardini Casebolt