WILDER, KY
Oct. 2 2008
PART 1
Wilder is a lightly populated town running for several miles along the Licking River south of Cincinnati. On the north side it starts as working-class but on the south side it becomes a financially secure exurb. This 2-part batch of pictures also has a few items from southwestern Newport on the way to and from Wilder.
The set starts off in Newport. This is northeast on 12th at Central Avenue. Straight ahead, 12th ends at York Street, and I'm not sure if it ever continued through where the rail line is now - though one old map suggests it did.
Southwest on 12th at Central. KY 9 turns off of Central and picks up 12th here. KY 9 (a route that has long linked Newport and Wilder) would bypass this if the costly new highway on the west side is built.
Continuing southwest on 12th, approaching Lowell Street. KY 9 makes a sharp left ahead and becomes Licking Pike.
Here, KY 9 goes under a rail bridge that goes over the Licking River to Covington. This bridge marks the boundary between Newport and Wilder.
Northeast on Overlook Drive, a crumbling street from KY 9 to the hilly neighborhood that characterizes the south side of Newport. I know folks who flatly refuse to drive on this road because of its deplorable condition.
Going northeast on Overlook and looking through the woods on the right-hand side of the street, you see this. It appears as if the remains of an old house rest among the woods.
A video of the Peace Bike traveling south on Overlook back to KY 9 in Wilder! A minute into the video, you see a tiny road branching off on the right. It apparently was once part of 13th, but now it appears to be just a driveway for a private business.
I mentioned Wilder on the Internet before this outing, and someone from out of town suggested I get a picture of Bobby Mackey's on KY 9, for they'd heard this country music nightclub was haunted. I hadn't paid much attention to the building (which is on the site of an old slaughterhouse) in years, but when I took this picture, I got a haunting memory of my grade school years when the school bus used to drive past here.
This pic is great!!! Downhill on Queen City Avenue in Wilder, past a barrier, you can see that this road was probably abandoned decades ago.
Continuing on the abandoned Queen City Avenue, the road just sort of breaks up here. The railroad crossing sign in the background (to the right of the more prominent one) looked like it could've been from the 1950s or earlier.
A video taken while biking downhill on Steel Plant Road. If you're going south, it actually makes a better bike route to central Wilder than KY 9 does.
South on KY 9 at South Street is this funny sign. Of course, schools transmit disease too, but you don't see signs warning people about school.
The bird trail at Fredericks Landing (a park in Wilder) leads here. This is looking downstream near the mouth of Threemile Creek. It empties into the Licking River, which is in the background. The creek gives its name to Three Mile Road. Further upstream, the creek is piped under I-471 just north of I-275. It also appears to be piped under I-275 east of there, and its source seems to be near Main & Dietrich in Highland Heights.
A tranquil narrated video showing Threemile Creek flowing backwards because of the flooding rains earlier in the year.
Continuing further on KY 9! This is north on KY 9 on the 1990s-era stretch that replaced what became part of Johns Hill Road.
Roads Scholars may receive indigestion from this sign, for speed limits are almost always divisible by 5. When they aren't, the sign is almost never a professional one like this is. However, this sign is on a driveway for a private business west of KY 9.
This is looking back quite a ways to the bunker blast - oops, rock blast on KY 9 that we experienced a couple photos back. The building on the left would clearly be in Covington.