654 NEWPORT AQUARIUM Miles Greenwood, and iron from D. Wolf. It is likely that he wrapped the four cables into one, since he did something similar a few years later on the Wheeling Bridge. In 1868 the Roeblings supplied another $1,107 worth of wire and service. W. Morton, a civil engineer, was hired in 1872 to develop further plans to strengthen the bridge, and an assistant was hired to help him. Washington Roebling supplied materials and plans for cable stays. Morton was the on-site engineer at a salary of $100 per month. The J. A. Roebling Company was paid $900 for wire and advice. Weight limits were promulgated for the bridge: no more than 12 head of cattle at a time were permitted on the bridge. In 1875 the bridge board decided to employ an engineer to develop plans and specifications to build a central pier on the bridge and other features to strengthen it. The pier construction was awarded to a local company at a cost of $21,478. The ironwork contract went to John Gray for $3,559, and he agreed to supervise the pier construction for free. The pier was located 404 feet east of Fourth and Garrard Sts. in Covington. B. R. Morton and John Gray carried out the engineering ser vices, and the total cost of the new pier was $39,061. The pier construction firm sued the bridge company for nonpayment. When Gustave Bouscaren, the chief engineer for the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, was employed to inspect the bridge condition, his verdict about the quality of the work just completed was that it was unsatisfactory. Arrangements were made to advertise for plans and specifications for two new bridges, one a suspension bridge and the other a truss bridge. Morton was authorized to spend almost $4,000 to repair the f loor of the bridge scheduled to be replaced. A Colonel Payne of Brooklyn, N.Y., who was Washington Roebling’s assistant on the Brooklyn Bridge, was employed to inspect the bridge and comment on Bouscaren’s negative report. The suit about the new pier was not settled, and the Covington City Council warned the bridge board to take no action before obtaining the city’s permission. Payne’s report was far more negative than Bouscaren’s, and he advised immediate replacement of the bridge. The bridge board was so negative by now about suspension bridges that they advertised only for a truss bridge. Five companies responded, and the bridge board decided in favor of the sturdiest option, which was provided by the Keystone Bridge Company of Pittsburgh. The consulting engineer was C. R. Stroebel. B. K Morton was hired at $100 per month to oversee the construction. Morton agreed to run a ferry for passengers and vehicles for the period when the bridge was shut down. The old bridge was demolished in the summer of 1886, and the new bridge was opened the same year. In 1934 the 1886 span was demolished, and in 1936 a new bridge dedicated to veterans was opened. Burns, John E. “A History of Covington, Kentucky through 1865,” vol. 3, Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky.
Coley, Jeannette Cabell. “A Biography of Charles Ellet, Jr.” Smithsonian Associates Civil War Newsletter 5, no. 5. http://civilwarstudies.org (accessed August 21, 2006). Reis, Jim. “World War Veterans Memorial Bridge: Providing a Vital Link,” KP, July 19, 2004, 4K. Tenkotte, Paul A. “Rival Cities to Suburbs: Covington and Newport, Kentucky, 1790–1890,” PhD diss., Univ. of Cincinnati, 1989.
“Aquarium Symbol of Rebirth,” KP, November 20, 1997, 1K. Newport Aquarium. www.newportaquarium.com. “Prep Work Begins for Aquarium,” KP, December 24, 1997, 2K. “Sweet Pea the Shark Is Moving to Newport,” KP, June 9, 2005, K3.
Joseph F. Gastright
NEWPORT BARRACKS. By 1800 it was evi-
NEWPORT AQUARIUM. The Newport Aquarium is located in Newport at Newport-on-theLevee, a commercial center situated along the Ohio River and made up of retail stores, restaurants such as Mitchell’s Fish Market, and entertainment facilities including the AMC movie theater. Newporton-the-Levee was designed as a place where people could gather in a social setting. The levee is widely acknowledged as the major force in the recent renaissance of the city of Newport. One of the levee’s biggest attractions is the Newport Aquarium, which was begun by five businessmen in the Greater Cincinnati area, doing business as Aquarium Holdings, who wanted to build something that would express their shared concern for sea life. It took nearly 10 years for the aquarium to come to life, however. Initial plans, as discussed in 1990, called for building the aquarium on the Ohio side of the river, but the owners were persuaded by Newport city officials to change their plans and place the facility in Newport along the Kentucky shoreline. Ground was broken in 1997, and on May 15, 1999, the aquarium opened to the public. Its stated mission was “to captivate, educate, and advocate conservation.” Consistent with its goal of promoting interest in conservation of the world’s sea life, the aquarium is populated with fishes, mammals, birds, and other water animals—housed in 1 million gallons of water—that take visitors on a visual tour of the world’s oceans, seas, straits, channels, and other waterways. The aquarium has five seamless underwater tunnels made of solid acrylic, see-through floors, two and a half viewing levels, 7,000 marine animals from 600 species, and 66 separate exhibits, to offer visitors a unique and memorable experience. Throughout the building are 17 murals designed and created by Eric Henn, an artist from Franklin, Ohio, and 16 original musical soundtracks play daily throughout the facility. The aquarium has been a commercial success and continues to grow. In 2004 a permanent exhibit of Asian river otters, lorikeets, and pythons was opened as part of a $4.5 million expansion. Further exhibit development in 2005 took the shape of a “summer of sharks.” The new, worldrenowned exhibit both displays sharks and provides new ways for visitors to learn facts about them. The Shark Central exhibit allows visitors to touch sharks. In 2008 a new Frog Bog exhibit opened, featuring 20 species of exotic frogs from around the world. At the waterfront in Camden, N.J., in summer 2005, a corporate sister aquarium of the one in Newport opened.
Michael J. Poehner
dent that the city of Cincinnati neither needed nor wanted the military installation located on its riverfront, Fort Washington. The fort occupied increasingly valuable land as the city’s downtown grew. Clearly, it was only a matter of time before Fort Washington would be shut down. Meanwhile, just across the Ohio River in Newport, James Taylor Jr., Newport’s founder, recognized an opportunity to capitalize on and profit from this situation. Taylor was from an influential family; he was a cousin of future presidents James Madison (1809–1817) and Zachary Taylor (1849–1850) and was the wealthiest landowner in Campbell Co. James Taylor carried on a lively correspondence with his family, the U.S. Army, and the federal government and in spring 1803 learned that Gen. Charles Scott (governor of Kentucky from 1808 to 1812) had been chosen to seek a suitable location for an arsenal. Scott concluded that the best location was near the mouth of the Licking River, and the U.S. secretary of war authorized him to purchase four to six acres there. The land was expected to accommodate a boat landing within the Licking River and to be at an elevation high enough to protect the arsenal’s buildings from the spring freshets, even if it meant locating a mile or so up the river. The story of the Newport Barracks, and indeed of the village of Newport, would have been different if this instruction to build the arsenal upstream on the Licking River had been heeded. On November 10, 1803, Scott completed negotiations for “a magazine at the mouth of the Licking.” Taylor was informed that the most eligible site was on the land he had generously donated, rather than the upriver site first considered, and that he (Taylor) should superintend the construction. The U.S. Treasury issued him money to pay for the materials and labor required to begin construction of the arsenal. He was instructed to erect three buildings, a brick two-story arsenal with a cellar, a barracks, and a circular brick powder magazine. The facility was under construction when Capt. Meriwether Lewis, the coleader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1803–1806, passed on his way to Big Bone Lick in nearby Boone Co. to collect specimens for President Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809). Lewis was traveling to meet Capt. William Clark to explore the still undefined lands acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. By 1806 a detachment including a sergeant and 12 enlisted men had arrived at the arsenal in Newport, led by an inexperienced Pennsylvanian, Ensign Jacob Albright. Because the barracks were unfinished, Albright had to bed down his men at first in the cellar of the arsenal.