Largest Crowd Ever in Carrollton

Motorcades from Louisville, Covington, Cincinnati and other intervening points Make Merry.

 With flags flying and drums beating, Carrollton on Monday celebrated the formal opening of the new short route between Louisville and Cincinnati.

 It was Carrollton’s Great Day. The entire business district of town was beautifully draped and decorated with flags, the speaker stands in front of the Court house yard further enhanced by gorgeous baskets of dahlias, furnished by Mrs. C. G. Ribble.

 The largest motorcade came from Covington.  W. C. Ryerson, Membership Secretary of the Northern Kentucky Motor Club led a five mile long procession from Kenton and Boone into town and paraded them around the square while the Ludlow High School band and loud speakers blared.

 Close behind them came the Northern Kentucky Division of the Cincinnati Automobile Club with a sprinkling of Cincinnatians sporting as their attraction the drum and bugle corps of the Wallace Costigan American Legion Post, Newport.

 The line of automobiles including the delegation from Cincinnati and Newport was approximately five miles long and required 18 minutes to pass through Ghent, at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

 The procession included representatives of the Covington Chamber of Commerce, Retail Merchants Association, the Covington Buick Company, automobile clubs of various cities and towns, the Businessmen’s’ Club of Ludlow, which provided more than fifty automobiles, delegations from Crescent Springs, Bromley, Erlanger, Elsmere, Florence, Warsaw, and Ghent.

 The procession was led by Kenton County patrolmen George Langley, Michael Wagner, and Otto Froelicher. Harry Haines, motorcycle patrolman of the Covington Police Department was Marshal.

 Stops were made at towns along the route.

 Robert E. Callahan, veteran police chief, C. B. Pettibone, Superintendent of Waterworks, and William R. Scheiffer led Ludlow’s delegation in the Covington motorcade.

 Bromley sent a large group, led by Henry Hackstead, member of the Northern Kentucky Motor Club’s Board of Directors.  Dawson Chambers, President of the Kenton County Farm Bureau represented Independence.

 Robert Berkshire, Burlington publisher, was the “glad hand” man for the Boone County town.

 Northern Kentucky’s boisterous delegations had scarcely quieted down until Louisville’s motorcade, 50 automobiles strong, dashed across the Kentucky River bridge behind an escort of motorcycle policemen, with the drum and Bugle corps of Jefferson Post, American Legion, supplying the music.

 Then came representatives from Lexington, headed by Sherman Porter, secretary of the Lexington Automobile Club, and a large delegation from Madison, Ind.  The American Legion Post, Bedford, 200 strong, registered a one hundred per cent attendance.

 Senator Perry B. Gaines was master of ceremonies and the address of welcome given by Major Jas. Tandy Ellis.  Other notable speakers on the program were Congressman Brent Spence, Ft. Thomas, and Chairman of the Highway Commission, Ben Johnson.

 Brief addresses were also made by officials from the counties along the route of the highway, which included Robert F. Vaughan, Jefferson county; John H. Klette, Kenton county, attorney for the Northern Kentucky Motor Club; Ward Yager, Commonwealth Attorney of Gallatin county; Senator Joseph K. Gardiner, President of the Cincinnati Automobile Club; E. B. McCain, Bedford, representing Trimble County; and Ballard Clark, Oldham county; also Monte J. Goble, of Cincinnati, Vice President of the Fifth Third Union Trust Company and President of the Appalachian Highway Association.

 On the platform with the speakers were Attorney General J. W. Mammack, Representative F. B. Adcock, Highway Commissioners J. Lyter Donaldson, C. W. Montgomery, Liberty, Ky; J. K. Waller, Morganfield, and R. M. Sheltbourne, Paducah.

 One of the most delightful features of the occasion was the music furnished by the University of Kentucky’s Concert Band.

 That this great celebration is largely the fruit of the untiring efforts of our own townsman J. Lyter Donaldson, Carroll Countians well know, and future generations of Northern Kentucky will rise and call him blessed.

From the Carrollton News-Democrat, October 29, 1931.

There was a large celebration four months earlier in Bedford to celebrate U.S. 42's completion from Louisville to Bedford.  You can read that here.