CORDOVA
Coppin’s Department Store, Seventh St. and Madison Ave., Covington.
Kentucky Death Certificate No. 32739, for the year 1913. Lietzenmayer, Karl J. “John Roberts Coppin: The Family and the Company,” NKH 5, no. 2 (Spring– Summer 1998): 1–15.
Karl Lietzenmayer
COPPIN’S DEPARTMENT STORE. After working for the H. & S. Pogue Department Store in Cincinnati, 24-year-old John Roberts Coppin moved to Covington to open a dry goods business. In 1873 he leased space in a new building at 607 Madison Ave. and named his new store the California Dry Goods Company. The store weathered the financial panic of that year and by 1880 had outgrown its limited space. Coppin rented a larger space nearby at 538 Madison Ave. from M. C. Motch (see Motch Jewelers). In 1884 Coppin negotiated a seven-year lease on this site with an option to purchase. By 1886 he owned the building. About that time, he purchased the lot behind the Covington Trust Bank (now Huntington Bank) facing on Sixth St. and erected a two-story building that connected with the rear of his Madison Ave. store, giving the dry goods store 13,000 square feet of space and allowing for $45,000 of stock. After 13 years in business, the company was employing 25 clerks. By 1903 the company’s growth demanded more room, and it expanded into a rear alley, increasing the store’s commercial space to 18,000 square feet; there was now room for $70,000 of merchandise. As continued growth required searching for a new location nearby, in 1906 Coppin purchased an available lot at the northeast corner of Seventh St. and Madison Ave. in Covington and began planning for construction of the first reinforced concrete skyscraper in Kentucky. The building was designed by architect James Gilmore. The name California Dry Goods had long since disappeared, and the firm was officially incorporated on September 21, 1907, as the John R. Coppin
Company. The officers were John R. Coppin, president; his brother William Coppin, vice president; and John’s son J. Roberts Coppin Jr. and H. A. Schroetter, stockholders. Charles Clifford Coppin joined the firm in 1915, after the death of his father, John Roberts Coppin Sr. The 1907 panic delayed construction of the new building for two years, but by 1910 the seven-story Coppin building in Covington was completed. The store suffered with debt during this time, especially after 1913. In 1915 Frank Thorpe and Henry Sterne purchased 51 percent of the outstanding capital stock of the corporation. The company’s officers in 1915 were Frank Thorpe, president; William Coppin, vice president; William Macklin (Thorpe’s brother-in-law), secretary; and Harry Sterne, treasurer. Clifford Coppin resigned his position with the store in 1919, and William Coppin died while working at his company desk in 1923. Thorpe bought the outstanding stock of these two men as well as that of J. Roberts Coppin. This was the last year any Coppin family member was connected with the department store. In 1920 the John R. Coppin Company joined Arkwright Merchandise Corp., a New York–based buying group. Arkwright was a merchandising ser vice, which pooled the buying power of 125 stores by the 1960s, and the association enabled Coppin’s buyers to keep abreast of fashion and market trends. In 1936 the entire store was remodeled. However, the Great Depression was a lean time for the company. Thorpe died in 1932 and management passed to William and Fred Macklin. Under the Macklins, the business became quite successful during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Aldens Inc., of Chicago, a leading retail merchandiser, bought the Coppin’s Department Store in June 1964. Bryce J. Frankin, a Whitesburg, Ky., native, was sent to Covington to be store manager. By the early 1970s, Coppin’s was sold again to the Gambles Department Store chain, also of Chicago. The 1976 erection of the Florence Mall in Boone Co. was an immediate commercial threat to downtown Covington businesses. One year after the inauguration of the Florence Mall, Coppin’s Department Store closed permanently; eventually, other downtown Covington stores closed as well (see Covington, downtown). “Coppin Store Buys 627 Site for Parking Lot,” KP, December 22, 1955, 1. “Coppin Store Remodeled in Modern Style,” KP, September 22, 1936, 3. “Covington’s Downtown Business Is Slipping,” KP, December 8, 1977, 1K. “Era Ends as Coppins Winds Down after 104-Year History,” KP, December 15, 1977, 23K. Lietzenmayer, Karl. “John Roberts Coppin: The Family and the Store,” NKH 5 no. 2 (Spring–Summer 1998): 1–15.
Karl Lietzenmayer
CORBIN, WILLIAM FRANCIS (b. 1833, Campbell Co., Ky.; d. May 15, 1863, Johnson’s Island, Ohio). The friends of Will Corbin, who was executed during the Civil War, described him as a brave, noble, generous young man, enjoying a reputation of good morals and citizenship. He grew
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up on Washington Trace Rd., near Carthage, in the southern part of Campbell Co., attended school in Alexandria, and, after graduation, taught school at California, Ky. With the Civil War on the horizon, Corbin told friends that he deplored war and the effect that divided loyalties would have on his family and friends. However, as Union Homeguard troops began patrolling Northern Kentucky, his thinking changed. When an informal company of men was being formed, Corbin joined. An election of officers was held, and he was elected a 1st lieutenant. On September 25, 1862, Corbin’s company was sworn into the 4th Cavalry Unit of the Confederate Army. On February 20, 1863, Gen. Humphrey Marshall ordered Corbin and his friend T. J. McGraw to recruit a company of men from Northern Kentucky. While doing so, they were captured by a squad of Union Homeguard troops and taken to Cincinnati. Eventually they were placed in a military prison at Johnson’s Island on Lake Erie, near Sandusky, Ohio. They were tried by a military court and sentenced to die. Upon hearing the news, Will’s family was horrified. His sister Melissa traveled to Cincinnati to plead her brother’s case before General Ambrose Burnside, who had ordered the executions, but he refused to stay his order. Undeterred, she traveled to Washington in an attempt to persuade President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) to spare her brother’s life. The president refused to see her, but an aide said that the request needed to be in writing. She went to the pastor of Lincoln’s church in Washington and asked for his help. A Rev. Sutherland was sympathetic to her cause and helped her compose a written request for clemency. The next day the pastor went to the Capitol and met with Lincoln, but the president refused to intervene. Heartbroken, Melissa returned home the next day, to await her brother’s fate. In May Corbin and McGraw were executed by a firing squad. Their bodies were returned to Campbell Co., where they were laid out at the Corbin home. Will Corbin was buried in the family plot on their farm; Jeff McGraw was buried about a mile south, in the Flagg Springs Baptist Church Cemetery. Will’s mother, griefstricken, died within months. DeMoss, J. C. The Short Story of William Francis Corbin. Privately published, 1897. Dicken, Absolom Columbus. “Civil War Diary of Absolom Columbus Dicken, 1862–1865.” Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky.; Campbell Co. Historical Society, Alexandria, Ky. Also available at the National Archives, Washington, D.C. Wessling, Jack. Early History of Campbell County. Alexandria, Ky.: Privately published, 1997.
Jack Wessling
CORDOVA. Cordova, a community in the southern part of Grant Co., at the intersection of Ky. Rt. 36 (Old Leesburg Pk.) and Ky. Rt. 330 (Crooked Creek Rd.), became part of Grant Co. in 1827, when the Harrison-Grant county line was moved father south. One of the earliest families in the area was that of Jeremiah Morgan, who operated a general store there in 1858. He was the overseer of the