Columbiana County, Ohio

I had planned this county (my 81st) as a day trip. From the Monongalia County Court House in Morgantown to the Columbiana County Court House in Lisbon, is 106 miles. If it's over 100 miles, I think about staying over one night, but this was a county that voted 68% for the current president in 2016, and one of the bigger cities (Lisbon is designated a village) is closer to home. Columbiana County is the closest county to us in Ohio that has a larger population than our county, with more than 107,000 people. Just something I know.

My plan was to go Sunday, because Joe was busy most of the day, and I didn't have any place I had to be. I checked the weather, and snow was forecast all day Sunday (that happened) with temperatures into the week starting in the single digits. So, no, it had to be Saturday.

I left about 9:40 in our newer car. Google Maps takes one on the Interstate to Washington, PA, then off on PA-18, a two lane road through some small towns to U.S. 30, back into West Virginia's northern panhandle, then across the Ohio River. I visited two of the three cities in Columbiana, East Liverpool and Salem. It's 87 miles from our house to the bridge over the Ohio River from Chester, West Virginia's northernmost city, to East Liverpool, Ohio. It took me about two hours, with traffic backed up on PA-18 by a funeral going to a church and large trucks with strange-looking machinery used in fracking.

East Liverpool is a beautiful small historic city, situated on a bluff above the river. It was cloudy and windy, as it was most of the trip, with temperatures near Morgantown around 40, five degrees cooler at my destination. Not much was happening in East Liverpool. There were antique malls, where people sell off the relics of the twentieth century to try to make ends meet. I saw people going in to those. I had picked ten places in the county (of 42) to find from the National Register. Half of them were in East Liverpool, including a beautiful Carnegie Library, two historic districts, the former city hall, The Elks Club and Odd Fellows Hall. I walked to all of them. The Union for Reform Judaism showed a synagogue in town, with nine member families. I found the building, next to a hospital in what was once a swanky residential area. The building is empty and for sale.

I usually look for a mall, but found only two shopping centers, one near Salem and one outside East Liverpool. It was 1 P.M and I was hungry, so I visited the latter. I knew there was a Wal-Mart and a Penney's, so I figured there would be something to eat. There were a few other stores, selling shoes and jewelry and women's clothes, and three or four free-standing chain restaurants, but I ate at Subway, inside Wal-Mart. The store is huge, has a complete food section and everything you would want to buy, heavily discounted. I believe everyone in eastern Columbiana County was there. It's easy to blame the demise of small towns on Wal-Mart and other big box stores, but maybe the small-town downtown is not a feasible model today. Maybe they were drying up anyway, leaving an opening for big-box stores.

I moved on to Salem, way in the north end of the county, twenty-five miles from both Youngstown and Warren. Most of the route is on OH-11, what we Californians would call a "freeway," in much better shape than any road in West Virginia. State Street is the main commercial district in Salem, and on the National Register. It seems livelier than East Liverpool, with a larger, more occupied downtown. I also found the home of John Street, a leader of the abolitionists, and Waterworth Memorial Park, an urban park with a lake and a theater.

I wanted to be sure to see Lisbon, the county seat. Wikipedia says it was platted in 1803, only the second (European-American) city in Ohio. At 2800 or so people, it is much smaller than Salem or East Liverpool. It is on Little Beaver Creek, which flows into the Ohio River north of East Liverpool, in Pennsylvania. The center of Lisbon is a historic district. Many of the buildings look to be from early in the 19th century. I also found the Hanna-Kenty home, from 1838, remodeled in 1907, and apparently again more recently. Marcus Hanna was a U.S. Senator at the turn of the last century. I  headed out to the west from Lisbon, where I found Guilford Lake State Park and the 1832 Hostetter Inn.

I had planned to leave from Lisbon at 4:30 to be home by 6:35. I stayed a bit later. I was cold and suddenly hungry. I ducked into a Subway in a historic building in Lisbon, and treated myself to milk and cookies.

Coming home along PA-18 in Washington County, I was low on gas and also needed to pee. Two gas stations along the way had signs on the door of the attached convenience store saying "no public restroom." My car said I had enough gas to get home (but not much more). I relieved myself on the side of the road somewhere, then drove to Waynesburg, one county north of us in Pennsylvania, to get gas at Sheetz, a Pennsylvania-based chain that has gas, food, and (usually) clean restrooms. I arrived home close to 7. Joe and I had dinner out and were home by 8:30.

Patterson Memorial Building, 1924, now used by Kent State University's Liverpool Branch

Carnegie Library, East Liverpool, 1902

Alumni Tower on the site of the former East Liverpool High, overlooking the Ohio River. West Virginia is on the hill across the river

5th Street Historic district, East Liverpool

Downrown Historic District, East Liverpool

Elks Hall, East Liverpool, 1916

Synagogue, East Liverpool. The building is for sale.

The old bridge across the Ohio River to East Liverpool

Historic Houses, East Liverpool

Former City Hall, now the Health Department, East Liverpool, 1934

Odd Fellows Building, East Liverpool, now apartments, 1907

vacant commercial buildings, Market and 6th, East Liverpool

State St., Salem

South Broadway, Salem Historic District, now used by a church

John Street House,1838, Salem. Street was a Quaker and an abolitionist, the son of one of the founders of Salem
This was a stop on the Underground Railroad

Waterworth Park, Salem. 

Hostetter Inn, 1832, west of Lisbon

Guilford Lake State Park, west of Lisbon

Lisbon Historic District

Columbiana County Court House, Lisbon

Hanna-Kenty House, originally 1838, Lisbon

Campbell County, Kentucky

My next county to visit was Campbell County, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. It's a lot like Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is bigger than Cincinnati, and the Ohio River is not as wide as the tidal Delaware at Philadelphia. Newport is one of the two county seats in Campbell County, and is on the river. 

December is a hard time to travel. The days are short; the weather is iffy. We also were just back from a week in Memphis at the end of November and are off again, this time to New York, on December 21. 

I picked Saturday, the tenth, and Monday the twelfth to travel, and Sunday to explore. This was my first trip to a Republican county since the election, and although I considered not visiting counties that voted that way, I decided to go with my original idea, which was to see everyplace, good and bad.

Like driving to Camden, unless one wants to take a whole lot of time, the distance is more than three hundred miles, my limit. Camden is mostly east and a little bit north; Newport is mostly west and a little bit south. 

I stayed with my usual chain, in a building on the river. It looks like that whole area may be a redeveloped industrial area, with a shopping center and movie complex, the motel and new loft apartment buildings. One can easily walk across a pedestrian bridge into downtown Cincinnati from there, although it is a bit cut off from the center of Newport.

I traveled north from Morgantown to Washington, Pennsylvania, then west to Wheeling and Columbus and southwest to Cincinnati. It was dark and snowing to Columbus, then sunny and clearer, but cold from there. On the way back, I headed east from Cincinnati to Athens, Parkersburg and Clarksburg, then north to Morgantown. The weather was better going back.

From past experience, I knew there was a good Chinese buffet in Zanesville and Union Street Diner in Athens, and I stopped at the buffet on the way in and the diner on the way back. 

There are sixty places on The National Register in Campbell County. I reluctantly decided to visit only a random ten of them, but as I had time Sunday, I walked around in the late afternoon in Newport. It was about 25 F. in the morning, then warmed up, with some drizzle, to about 40.

Saturday night, I walked to a chain diner, not far from the hotel. It was cheap, but not especially good food. I asked the waitress if the string beans had bacon in them, and she verified that they did. I learned to ask from traveling in the south. It was still early, so I walked through town a bit before heading back to plan Sunday's jaunt.

The view of the Cincinnati skyline from my room

Holiday lights on a street in Newport, Saturday night.

East Newport Historic District

York St Historic District, Newport

mid-century bank building, Monmouth St, Newport

new housing, central Newport, looking old

former library building Monmouth Avenue

Marianne Theater, Bellevue, east of Newport

Dayton School, Dayton, now apartments

Newport-On-The -Levee shopping district

Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights

There was probably a mistake in directions for the first historic place I tried to find, but I found this interesting modern house instead  near Alexandria

Camp Springs was a nineteenth century German settlement. This is Blau's Four-Mile House

Kort Grocery, Camp Springs, 1880

County Courthouse, Alexandria, now a museum. There were attempts to move the county seat to Alexandria, closer to the central part of the county. Both Alexandria and Newport are listed as county seats

St. John The Baptist Catholic Church, Wilder, 19th century

Sauser Farm House, near Alexandria

Homes at Ft. Thomas, a military installation from 1890. Each house is now privately owned

The Walking Bridge, connecting Newport and Cincinnati

New "loft-style" apartments on the Ohio river in Newport

Newport to Cincinnati highway bridge, from the Walking Bridge

Campbell County Courthouse, Newport

Colonel James Taylor Mansion, Newport

Mansion Historic District, Newport

Historic Homes in Newport

I can't explain the Israeli flag on this house

Sunday after breakfast, I drove to Northern Kentucky University, a 1968 addition to the state's university system, in Highland Heights, south of Newport. It was cold and cloudy out. As the day went on, it got warmer and darker. Like Camden County, Campbell is narrow and extends south into the countryside. I visited Camp Springs, a 19th century German settlement, then detoured south to Alexandria, a quaint little town, with a southern-style courthouse, now a museum. I found a German Catholic church in Wilder, now in the suburbs, and a farm near Alexandria.

By lunchtime, I was in hilly, pretty Ft. Thomas, more populous than Newport. The 1890 fort has been sold off, and I found an officer's house for sale for just under four hundred thousand dollars. I stopped for lunch at a sports bar, where I had a chicken sandwich with marinara sauce and cheese, and peppery french fries. It was forty and drizzling out. People at the bar were watching the Cincinnati Bengals play the Cleveland Browns, who have apparently not won a game in years.We could see snow accumulating on the players' helmets, as it was 20 F. in Cleveland.

Back in Newport by around 2 P.M., I decided to walk around the city to find more historic places.By 4, cold and wet, I returned to the motel for a nap.

At the movies on the levee, a few blocks from where I stayed, they were showing a Bollywood movie shot in Paris, called Befikre, starring Ranveer Singh and Vaani Kapoor. The film is mostly in Hindi, subtitled, but with a good bit of English and French thrown in. I drove over for the 6:15 show. Only three other people were in the theater. The film, a silly romantic story, with beautiful actors, music, dancing, and sunny Paris, lifted my spirits.

After the movie, I bought snacks at a nearby Kroger, and had a late feast in my room. I enjoyed Campbell County, despite feeling guilty about not visiting more diverse and more Jewish Cincinnati, which was right there.

The pics are out of order in some cases, because I shot some with my camera, and others on my cell phone. It is difficult to get them arranged just right.

Bracken County, Kentucky

I know- I hardly ever seem to be home anymore. I'm still visiting one county monthly, only this July and August I made up for the trips I missed in January and February. I'll be off again next week, because it's the only time I can go in September before the Holidays and my "Beach Boys- Light and Dark" class which starts mid-September.

The wisdom to how I do this became apparent on this trip when I was near Athens, Ohio at lunchtime and just halfway to Augusta, the big-using the term loosely- town in Bracken County. I was in Athens in March of 2014, and I remembered yesterday that the Union Street Diner was a good place to eat. I found it without going too far out of my way. It's all about pathways and making places familiar.

Augusta is famous for a few things: it was one of the first places to be settled in Kentucky immediately after the American Revolution, it sits on a beautiful spot on the Ohio River, which flooded up to sixty-five feet in 1997, there was a Civil War battle here in 1862, where Confederate troops fleeing from an unsuccessful attack on Cincinnati burned much of the town, tobacco is the main cash crop, Stephen Foster often visited an uncle here (hence "My Old Kentucky Home") and, at one point in the 1970s, Rosemary, Nick and a teenaged George Clooney lived here.

I found Augusta a bit scary. There is a downtown, which seems to be open on weekends for tourists. Lots of gift shops, antique/junk stores, little precious cafés, all closed on Monday when I arrived. You have to look to find the "real" town. I had a bowl of spaghetti for dinner at a local pizza and subs place.

There are no chain hotels in the county, so I picked the B&B that lets you make a reservation online. They have, I think, twelve rooms, decorated in cute styles. I picked the "railroad room" with a sign on the wall that says "Grand Central Station" and the television sitting atop a steamer trunk. They give you a menu for breakfast and you get to order a variety of things. Food in this area comes in three flavors: sugar, butter and pork.

I didn't want to stay in someone's house in the state where several county clerks are defying the Supreme Court  and not issuing marriage licenses and have to explain my life to the people who own the place over croissants and muffins at breakfast. That's why I generally prefer anonymous chain hotels.

The waterfront on the Ohio River is gorgeous, lined with big old houses and brick sidewalks. Behind that is a poor industrial town. Trailers, little nineteenth century cottages in bad shape, one IGA grocery store, one gas station. I'm sure I looked like the tourist I am in my bright yellow Ralph Lauren t-shirt today. I give the town a C+ for friendliness. I walked a lot (the weather was sunny and between 55 and 75 degrees) and said "Hi" to everyone. Some greeted me back, but some deliberately did not.

Last night, I was taking pictures of some big old houses back off the water, when a woman came out and greeted me. She was in her 70s, thin, wearing a bright orange blouse and messy blond hair. She asked where I was from, and when I complimented her blouse, she said "Well, I am a Leo." I could have guessed that she lived in Los Angeles for many years. I felt like I had run into someone from "back home." She's from Kentucky ( a few counties downstream) but insisted to her husband that they move back here after the Northridge earthquake in 1994. They have a beautiful Victorian house with a wrap-around porch in the middle of town. Not that there is much more than the middle - the town is ten blocks by five.

I traveled the road down the river to find a few historic places with little luck. I did encounter the tiny town of Foster, a huge limestone mine., and a hydro-electric plant under construction. Traveling due south for lunch, I found the county seat, Brooksville, much smaller than Augusta, and looking half-empty. Brooksville is surrounded by fields of bright yellow-green tobacco. I had lunch at Donna's, a diner across from the courthouse where everyone seemed to know everyone else. I was proud of myself for not eating at Subway, around the corner. As a reward (never reward yourself with food) I had a slice of home-made butterscotch meringue pie. Down the road from Brooksville is Germantown, on the county line, looking like some town in rural Pennsylvania.

Rosemary Clooney's old house on River Street is now a museum, and not doing well. I guess people under sixty don't remember her. Still, they had some George memorabilia as well. The woman who manages the hotel gave me and a couple, probably the only others staying overnight at our hotel, a tour this afternoon. Rosemary was stunning in her day, and still glamorous until her death in 2002. Her son is married to Debby Boone and George is her nephew. Interesting family.

 Tonight, I had the buffet dinner at the hotel. They had chili, vegetable soup, pork roast, beef with noodles, meat balls, roasted boneless chicken, a salad bar, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stewed tomatoes (not seen since elementary school) and green beans, thankfully without bacon. I was joined by two busloads of visitors from First Baptist Church in Cold Spring, Kentucky. We were entertained by a small band playing show tunes and a singer reminiscent of Bill Murray on Saturday Night Live forty years ago. I didn't sit with the church people, as they had taken every seat in the main room. I got to be off in another room by myself. Meals are the times when I miss having Joe with me on these jaunts.

As usual, I felt guilty about leaving Joe and Tappuz, spending money I don't have and putting too many miles on our once-new car. But I've never had a bad time on these little trips, and I enjooyed both the long drive (and back tomorrow) and getting to know a new place.

Here are the pics:

The ferry that connects Augusta to Ohio

Water Street Historic District, Augusta

Main Street, Augusta, with a train coming through

Monument to nameless Confederate soldiers killed in Augusta in 1862

Vacant building in Foster

Me with Rosematy Clooney memorabilia

George Clooney memorabilia at Aunt Rosemary's house, Augusta

Rosemary Clooney House, Augusta

Germantown

House on Elizabeth Street, Augusta

Alfonso McKibben House, Augusta

Downtown Brooksville

Bracken County Courthouse, Brooksville