The New International Encyclopædia/Covington (Kentucky)

COVINGTON. A city and the county-seat of Kenton County, Ky., at the junction of the Ohio and Licking rivers, opposite Cincinnati, of which it is practically a suburb (Map: Kentucky, G 1). It is entered by the Louisville and Nashville, the Kentucky Central, and the Chesapeake and Ohio railroads, and electric railroads also connect it with the neighboring towns. Bridges to Cincinnati and to Newport, Ky., add to the facilities for communication,, the great suspension bridge to the former city being a noteworthy specimen of engineering. (See Cincinnati.) Covington occupies an area of about two and one-third square miles on a beautiful plain partly surrounded by hills, and resembles Cincinnati in its general arrangement. Of a total street mileage of about 45 miles, more than three-fourths are paved, the great part with macadam and asphalt. The city has many handsome private residences, a public library, city hall, and a Federal building noteworthy as a specimen of modern Gothic; and among charitable institutions, a hospital for contagious diseases, a German orphan asylum, and a home for aged men and women. Covington is a prominent centre of Roman Catholic influence, the cathedral, a type of flamboyant Gothic, being one of the finest ecclesiastical structures in the State. Connected with this denomination there are also a Benedictine priory, a convent, a hospital and foundling asylum, and Notre Dame Academy. The facilities for transportation, both by rail and by water, placing the city in communication with a wide territory possessing valuable natural advantages, have contributed to the commercial importance of Covington, though it is overshadowed by its greater neighbor. Its industrial interests also are important, and include extensive pork-packing establishments, rolling-mills, glass-factories, distilleries, tanneries, tobacco-factories, cotton-factory, and manufactures of vinegar, furniture, stoves, tinware, bricks, tile, pottery, rope, cordage, etc. There are municipal water-works, built in 1869 at a total cost of about $1,200,000, the entire system now including some 45 miles of mains, and furnishing an abundant supply of water drawn from the Ohio River at a distance of about 13 miles above the city. Covington's annual budget approximates $465,000, the main items of expense being $90,000 for schools, $85,000 for interest on debt, $35,000 for police department, $35,000 for the fire department, $30,000 for street expenditures, $30,000 for the water-works, and $20,000 for charitable institutions. Settled in 1812 and laid out three years later, Covington was chartered as a city in 1834. Population, in 1860, 16,471; in 1880, 29,720; in 1890, 37,371; in 1900, 42,938.