690 OLD BAPTIST CHURCH ON THE DRY RIDGE commuting. In terms of the urban core, the OKI favored clear-cutting “dilapidated” neighborhoods and constructing new office, commercial, and residential space in the International architectural style. In successive plans since its initial offering, OKI, and planners in general during this period, have slowly distanced themselves from recommending the use of the automobile and the highway as the primary means of solving problems. A 1979 survey conducted by OKI demonstrated that many citizens did not favor spending tax dollars on more highways that divided neighborhoods and displaced people. In its 1981 plan, Transportation 2000, OKI said that it had been wrong in its initial approach. The energy crisis of the 1970s is credited with changing the anti-urban tone of OKI’s plans. Modest mass-transit plans based on existing railways were proposed in the 1981 plan, along with setting up a few transit centers around the area. By 1993, with new federal regulations in place, OKI was forced to incorporate alternative transportation methods. In the OKI publication Managing Mobility: Year 2010 Regional Transportation Plan, the organization recommends “improving bus ser vice and developing rail transit.” Protecting air quality, respecting financial concerns, and the management of congestion in existing roadways are all given strong and serious thought. Some of the methods offered are an extensive light- and passenger-rail system, mass transit, HOV (highoccupancy vehicle) lanes on interstates, and increased bus routes and time schedules to connect to regional transit centers. Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments. Managing Mobility: Year 2010 Regional Transportation Plan. Cincinnati: OKI, 1993. ———. OKI Regional Transportation and Development Plan. Cincinnati: OKI, 1973. ———. OKI Regional Transportation Plan: A Transportation Plan for the OKI Region to Guide Transportation Investment and Service Decisions Now and in the Future. Cincinnati: OKI, 1981. ———. 2000 Transportation Questionnaire. Cincinnati: OKI, 1979.
Chris Meiman
OLD BAPTIST CHURCH ON THE DRY RIDGE. The first church to be organized in the area that later became Grant Co. was known as the Old Baptist Church on the Dry Ridge. It was organized on the fourth Sunday of August 1791, near Campbell’s Block house, with nine founding members: Robert Childers Sr., William Conrad, Jesse Conyers, Rachel Conyers, Elizabeth Franks, Jacob Franks, John Lawless, Absolam Skirvin, and John Skirvin Sr. Two ministers were involved in starting the Dry Ridge Old Baptist Church. One was Elder John Conner, who made yearly trips to the frontier, preaching to scattered congregations. In 1811 he settled in Harrison Co. Like many ministers of the time, he had extensive landholdings and did not accept any compensation for his ministry. The other minister involved in the church’s
founding was Elder Lewis Corban, who had paid little attention to either education or religion until he was age 30. After a long struggle with religious matters, he was baptized in 1786. Corban was so effective in his preaching that he was ordained in 1790, once he had moved to Kentucky. The newly established church on the Dry Ridge met on the fourth Sunday of each month and the Saturday preceding, which was set aside for church business. Male members were appointed to take turns serving as sentries to guard against Indian attacks. The peace of the church was maintained; any member who had a complaint against another brought it before the church for settlement. Meetings were held in the open near the block house when the weather was good and there was no immediate threat of an Indian attack. The few surviving minutes detail an attack by 12 Shawnee warriors on the fourth Saturday in September 1793, while the church was meeting in the block house. The Shawnees attempted to set fire to the building but were driven off with rifle fire, which wounded two or three of them. By 1799 the church occupied its first true church building. A description by Elder Corban explains that the “struxure [was] of good yeller poplar logges well hewed, duff tailed and chinked 20 foot long, 15 foot wide and about 15 foot to the rigepol.” The congregation, numbering about 40 members, withstood Indian attacks, cholera, and privation, but in 1817, it faced a new religious doctrine that threatened its existence. Elder Christian Tomlin came into the area preaching the free-will Baptist doctrine. The adherents to the free-will doctrine were also known at various times as separate Baptists, free-will Baptists, new school Baptists, and later as missionary Baptists. Eleven members of the Dry Ridge Old Baptist Church congregation accepted the new doctrine and on July 12, 1817, organized a church based on the new teachings. Elder Tomlin was the 12th member. The new church was initially known as the Baptist Church at the Dry Ridge, Free-Will, and is today the Dry Ridge Baptist Church. The congregation of the Old Baptist Church on the Dry Ridge (also called predestinarian, par ticular, and primitive) and the free-will congregation at Dry Ridge reached an agreement in 1818 to share their Bibles and hymnbooks. The free-will congregation met on the second Saturday and Sunday of each month; and the predestinarian congregation continued to meet the fourth Saturday and Sunday of each month. The congregation of the Old Baptist Church suffered a second severe loss in 1818 when 16 members moved their membership by letter to organize the Old Baptist Church at Fork Lick. Without a minister in attendance, with their membership in a state of decline, and with their identity being overshadowed by the growth of the free-will congregation, the Old Baptist Church on the Dry Ridge decided to “organize anew” at Williamstown. Jacob and Elizabeth Franks were dismissed to assist David Lillard in organizing an Old Baptist Church at Mount Zion, Ky., and Asa Tungate and wife were granted letters to
join the Salem Old Baptist Church in Salem, Ill. The seven remaining members of the Old Baptist Church on the Dry Ridge reorganized in 1826 into the Williamstown Church of Christ, Particular Baptist. In February 1827 William Conrad was ordained as minister. By 1829 the church was prospering, with 33 members. After meeting for a time in the old Williamstown Seminary, the church constructed its own meetinghouse, which was replaced with a new building during the 1880s that served the congregation until 1919. The site of this old church (including its cemetery) is now within the Williamstown Cemetery. Conrad, John B., ed. History of Grant County. Williamstown, Ky.: Grant Co. Historical Society, 1992. Franks, Lloyd W., ed. The Journal of Elder William Conrad, Pioneer Preacher. Williamstown, Ky.: RF, 1976.
John B. Conrad
OLD CEDAR BAPTIST CHURCH. The Old Cedar Baptist Church, founded sometime before 1816, is now located at the intersection of U.S. 127 and Ky. Rt. 607 in southern Owen Co. The church’s first log cabin structure, located on Cedar Creek about two miles north of the current church building, was known as the Mouth of Cedar Creek Meeting House. The congregation belonged to the Franklin Co. Baptist Association from before 1816 through 1899 and then joined the Owen Co. Baptist Association. In 1839 the church moved into a frame building located in front of the current building on land that is now partly covered by U.S. 127. That building had a pot-bellied stove on each side and a partition, the same height as the benches, down the center. Women and men entered through separate doors and sat on separate sides of the church. James Duvall was the first pastor in this second structure, and he served about 26 years. The frame structure was converted into a parsonage and was torn down about 1954. Members constructed the current stone structure in two phases. The second phase, a top floor, was built and paid for while W. M. Wilson was pastor, 1949 through 1955, and was dedicated October 1, 1950. The church is a member of the Southern Baptist Association. James Robert Bondurant, the current pastor, has been ministering since 1989. He is one of 12 men who have been called or ordained into the ministry from the church. The Old Cedar Baptist Church was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on September 5, 1997. Murphy, Margaret Alice, and Lela Maude Hawkins. The History of Historic Old Cedar Baptist Church and Community, 1816—2004. Frankfort, Ky.: Lynn, 2004.
Margaret A. Murphy
OMNICARE INC. Omnicare Inc., the nation’s largest provider of pharmaceutical care to seniors, has its headquarters in the RiverCenter office towers along the Ohio River in Covington. Omnicare Inc. serves 1.4 million persons each day in thousands of skilled-nursing, assisted-living, and other