Greene County, Ohio and Greenup County Kentucky, Part 2: Greenup County, Kentucky

 For the second part of this trip, I stayed in Wheelersburg, Ohio, just upstream from Portsmouth, about 14 miles downstream and across the Ohio River from Greenup, the city that has the courthouse from the county of the same name. The next county upriver is Boyd, which is where Ashland is located, so much of Greenup County is a suburb of the Huntington-Ashland Metropolitan Area, a "tri-state" area including parts of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. Greenup County is 98% White and voted 72% for Donald Trump in 2020. The total population of the county is about 35,400.

There are twenty places on the National Register of Historic Places in the county. Wednesday afternoon, May 17. I found the courthouse and a few other places in the small town of Greenup, along the Ohio River, before heading back to the motel and dinner. After dinner, I headed up to Portsmouth, about fifteen miles north of the hotel, and looked at the murals along the flood wall, which dates from 1937, built after a devastating flood on the Ohio River. The mural extends nearly a half-mile, covers the history of Portsmouth, and was painted by a Louisiana artist from 1993-2002. 

By late afternoon Thursday, I thought I had found seventeen of the twenty places on the National Register, but two of them had been torn down. My picture of one of them is now the pic on Wikipedia. Three of the places were Native burial grounds or former settlements. They were unsigned, so I may have gone past them. 

Here are the pics:

                                                      Greenup County Courthouse, Greenup

                                                   Front Street Historic District, Greenup

                                             Methodist Episcopal Church South, Greenup, 1845

Former Greenup Masonic Lodge, 1867. I met the owner who is building a restaurant on the first floor

                                                     Flood Wall Mural, Portsmouth, Ohio

                                                       Flood Wall Mural, Portsmouth

                                            Bridge over the Ohio River near Portsmouth, Ohio

                                                     Another Ohio River Bridge

                                                 Kouns-Hoffman House, Greenup, about 1850

                                                 Warnock House, Greenup, about 1880

                                                         West Main Street District, Greenup

                                               Octagon House, South Greenup District

                                                     Church in South Greenup District

                                                       McKee House, Greenup, 1880

               Lunch at Golden Corral near Ashland, KY: Fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, Mac and cheese

                                                        Wurtland Union Church, 1921

      McConnell House, Wurtland, 1833, a law office and slave quarters are included in the listing

                                                           Oldtown Covered Bridge

               Jesse Stuart House, 1939, near Greenup. Stuart was a poet and novelist, poet laureate of            Kentucky, and lived from 1906-1984

                                                Worthington House, about 1840,near Greenup

After that heavy-duty lunch at Golden Corral and a nap in the late afternoon, I visited a supermarket  near my hotel and got a "healthy" microwaveable dinner, which I ate in the room. Unfortunately, there was a Dairy Queen across the parking lot from the motel, so I had a chocolate sundae later.

I drove home Friday on U.S. 23 through Ashland, Kentucky  to I-64 through Charleston, and then on I-79 to Morgantown. I was home in time to make dinner and go out to services at Tree of Life. 

One could comment here with a Google account, on "Barry Wendell" on Facebook, @BarryLeeWendell on Twitter, or by email to doveliezer2001@yahoo.com. 

Fleming and Elliott Counties, Kentucky

 Sadder but wiser after last month, I set out for Kentucky, Tuesday June eighth and came back on  Thursday the tenth. I left Tuesday after lunch, because I had to wait for the plumber to fix a clogged toilet and Joe had a funeral in the afternoon. It's 291 miles from Morgantown to Flemingsburg, almost my limit of 300 miles. I drove to the motel from the usual chain, in Morehead, a bigger town with a university, and a little closer to home.  It's not a bad drive, all interstate, and I arrived about five, checked in and napped. The motel is one exit past the center of Morehead, and  there isn't much at the exit. I drove back into town for dinner, and found a steak and beer place that was open to diners. Many places were not. I'm one of those "fully vaccinated" people who has permission from the Centers For Disease Control not to wear a mask. No one in this restaurant wore one. I ordered chicken teriyaki, probably wrong for the place, but I rarely eat beef and chicken and rice is my go-to. The "teriyaki sauce" was more like maple syrup. I came back to the room, plotted my route for Wednesday, and went to sleep by ten. It was light until after nine. All of Kentucky should technically be on Central time, but the eastern part of the state is on Eastern. 

It's 51 miles along Route 32 between Flemingsburg, the county seat of Fleming County and Sandy Hook, the county seat of Elliott County. Fleming was this month's scheduled county; Elliott should have been last July, but one couldn't get out. Morehead is between them on Route 32.

I headed out after breakfast to Fleming County, known for its three covered bridges. There are only just over 14,000 people in the county; about 2600 in Flemingsburg. I located all of the bridges, in rolling countryside, with a few mountains, and lots of cows. I visited Elizaville, a rural crossroads that looks almost totally abandoned. The town of Flemingsburg looks like it could be further east. It's old and pretty. There isn't much going on. The court house is from the 1950s, but in a "colonial" style. It rained most of the day. I looked around the town and found some historic sites. There was almost nothing open in town. I got back in the car and looked for historic places in the county to the north and west of town. It took me some time, what with missed turns, vague directions and a likely desire of people who live in historic homes from the 1790s to make sure people don't find their house. It took more time than I had allotted. I think I found some of the houses on roads where one could not pull off to take a picture, or down a long driveway. Route 32 bypasses Flemingsburg, and there are some fast food places along the bypass. I thought I would stop at McDonald's, but it was drive-thru only, and I needed a bathroom, so I ended up at the convenience store/ Subway across the street. I had stopped at a Subway on my last trip, but I couldn't bring myself to order anything. I used to eat there all the time, but it looked unappetizing. This time I was okay with it, and I got a chicken sandwich with mustard and tomatoes. Usually I get spinach with it, but I didn't see any. There was no iced tea, so I tried Diet Coke, but that was running clear, so I ended up with Coke Zero, which I think is not as good. I told the clerk after lunch, and he offered me a bottle of Diet Coke. I declined it, although I appreciated the gesture. Having to drink Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke is very low on the scale of human suffering.

It was already close to two P.M., and I had only that day to explore. I was exhausted from being out so long and walking around in the rain. I went back to the motel and slept from 3-4.

Elliott County has about 7,800 people, so about half as many as Fleming County; Sandy Hook, the county seat, has fewer than 700 people. I headed back out on I-64 to KY 32, then south following Google's directions to Sandy Hook. I thought the directions were wrong because I was on a one-lane, twisty road with 10 mph curves and stone cliffs over the road. It was enchanting and different from the terrain in Fleming County, just mountains, and rock outcroppings, no rolling hills or cows. Just as I thought this was another wrong turn, I saw a stop sign and I was in the middle of Sandy Hook, Kentucky. I parked on the main street, and walked two blocks in either direction. That's about all there is to the town. The sidewalks have steps because the street is so steep. It's a pretty town, nothing particularly historic about it, but there's a park and a school and some social service agencies. Wikipedia says it was once the most Democratic county in Kentucky, but in the 2020 election, it went 75% for the incumbent. I didn't see anyone to ask "why?" I thought I would get dinner at a pizza place, but a sign on the door said "Carry-out only" and it appeared to be closed. There was also a McDonald's, but I didn't want to eat there. I snapped a few pictures and headed back to Morehead.

For the third time that day, I missed a turn and ended up in Grayson, Carter County, which I visited in 2017. I was way east of where I intended to be. I did see a park with a lake, the same one I saw from the other side when I visited Carter County. 

I found a fast-food Italian restaurant in Morehead, and stopped there. Cars were lined up at the drive-through, but it was open for indoor eating. I had a salad and a gigantic bowl of spaghetti with marinara sauce. There were tables outside, it had stopped raining and the chairs were dry, so I ate outside. It turned out to be a pretty night. I stopped at the convenience store/ gas station next to the motel on the way back, and got an ice cream sandwich made with two chocolate chip cookies, probably as many calories as the bowl of pasta, but you know, I was on vacation.

I left fairly early Thursday, and although I thought about an alternate route home, there wasn't anything that wouldn't add at least two hours to my trip. I had lunch at the Chinese buffet at Flatwoods, near the middle of West Virginia, only there was no buffet, and I was home by three.

Ringo's Mill covered bridge, South of Flemingsburg

Hillsboro-Grange City Covered Bridge, south of Flemingsburg

Goddard Covered Bridge, restored and in use, Goddard

Elizaville Presbyterian Church, 1861, doesn't appear to be in use

Fleming County Courthouse, 1950s

Flemingsburg Historic District The building on the right 
was a dry goods store owned by a Mr. Fried, an immigrant from Lithuania 
in the late 1800s. The store closed in  the 1970s.

Thomas W. Fleming House, about  1819

First Presbyterian Church,  Flemingsburg, 1819

Park in Sandy Hook

Elliott County Library. I thought I would go in, but it closed at 4:30 and I was 10 minutes late.

Main Street, Sandy Hook

Mural, Sandy Hook

Grayson Lake on the Elliott County side

Carter and Bath Counties, Kentucky

You might think I was too exhausted from travel to Canada to leave again six days after our return for my sixty-second county within three hundred miles of Morgantown, in this case Carter County, Kentucky. You would be wrong.

This project has become more than an obsession, as Zack Hample, my (half) bother-in-law said recently about his catching baseballs. I have to do this, and I like it.

Carter County didn't seem promising. Grayson, the county seat, is small,  2.700 people, just really an exit off I-64 two counties west of West Virginia, and only thirty miles from Huntington. There aren't a lot of historic places, no Jewish community, no mall. It's 234 miles, downtown Morgantown to downtown Grayson, which means two nights.

Looking at the map, I realized that Bath County, two more counties to the west, was still within three hundred miles of Morgantown. Alphabetically, I should have been there in August, 2014, when I visited Bath County, Virginia. I figured I could spend an afternoon there. It had a few more historic places, at least.

I left later than I planned Sunday, not unusual, and arrived in Grayson about four. After a nap, I went out to buy a swimsuit at K-Mart, just down the road, and dined at one of those seemingly ubiquitous Chinese buffet restaurants.

The main street connecting I-64 to Main Street (U.S. 60), about a mile apart,  is Carol Malone Boulevard, a jumble of fast food restaurants, gas stations and motels. I had to research to find out that Carol Malone was an opera singer from Grayson. Kentucky Christian University is along Carol Malone Boulevard. Wikipedia says they had a great choral program, but deleted the music department to focus on athletics.  Ouch. I drove a bit of Main Street, and walked two blocks west of Carol Malone to find the 1907 County Court House.

Kentucky Christian University, just off Carol Malone Boulevard

Carter County Courthouse, 1907, West Main St. (U.S.60) They are reworking the landscaping.

Statue of a World War I soldier, Courthouse lawn, Grayson

West Main St., Grayson

Monday, I tried out my new swimsuit in the motel pool, then headed out to explore Olive Hill, the other town in Carter County, fifteen miles west of Grayson, and then I planned to visit Owingsville, the county seat of Bath County, fifty-three miles west of Grayson, across Daniel Boone National Forest.

Monday, August 21, was a red-letter day, the day of the solar eclipse, 93% in Grayson at 2:33 P.M. I figured to be at Grayson Lake State Park, south of town, to see the eclipse through the trees.

Olive Hill looked like more of a town than Grayson, only half vacant. There is a rail trail along a creek, and a historic railroad station, not used by the railroad.

"Downtown" Olive Hill

Historic train station, Olive Hill

Owingsville, two counties west, and the county seat of Bath County, was founded by Thomas Dye Owings. The plaque in front of his house states he came from Maryland, so possibly from Owings Mills, near where I grew up in Baltimore County. This is an older town than Grayson, and is more picturesque, even though it only has 1,500 or so people. It lies 43 miles east of Lexington.

Bath County Court House, Owingsville

The center of this block is the original Owings House, c.1800

Downtown Owingsville Historic District

Monument to Confederate soldiers from Kentucky, 1907, Owingsville

J.J. Nesbitt House, 1878, Owingsville

I ate lunch at a family-owned pizza place, just off I-64, and thought I found a shortcut to the lake to get me there in time for the peak eclipse. As I was driving, I thought something was wrong with my eyes, as the light dimmed on a bright sunny day.

My shortcut wasn't, typically, and I was about seven minutes late to the lake. The temperature had dropped from 89 to 81 F. in the middle of the afternoon and the light was still dim when I snapped a pic of the marina.

The marina at Grayson Lake. The light is slightly dimmed; this was seven or eight minutes after the peak of the eclipse

I drove back to my motel for a nap, then ate at Shoney's a not-favorite coffee shop place. There is a supermarket in town, and I thought I could get a plate there, but all they had was fried chicken, with two sides. The sides were mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, baked beans and green beans, the latter two both with pork in them. Shoney's has a salad bar at  least.

I was happy to get away, but it didn't seem like much of a place to visit. Before dark Monday, I walked from my motel across I-64, and the mile or so down to Main St. There is a little park with a playground, a new, old-looking log house, which is home to the tourist agency for the county, a covered space with picnic tables and benches under a few trees. The street behind Carol Malone Boulevard is lined with some older homes. There were kids on the playground, two women chatting and eating carry-out from styrofoam boxes at one picnic table, a woman looking at a cell phone at the other picnic table, a man stopped on a motorcycle talking to a friend on the street behind the park. It was still warm out, the temperature having gone back up after the eclipse passed. I could hear and smell diesel trucks passing by. It wasn't much, just a scene, comforting, somehow, of a small-town in America.

I sat on a bench for a few minutes, then walked back to the motel, stopping for a frozen "treat" at McDonald's.

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.