My Grandmother, Calla Della Jacobs, was born in Catawba, a Kentucky backwater community 30 miles south of the Ohio River and Cincinnati. Catawba owed its short existence to the Kentucky Central Railroad that built a line in 1852 from the Ohio river heading south through Falmouth, the capital of Pendleton County. Catawba developed amid side tracks and switching facilities five miles north of Falmouth. The Louisville & Nashville (L&N) Railroad acquired the line sometime around 1870. My great grandparents, Charles and Julia Jacobs (below), moved to the village during that decade.
The Catawba Road runs east along a winding hog-back ridge from State Highway 27 before dropping into the river plain where the village once existed. The drive is picturesque, offering panoramic views into the ravines that lie on each side of the road.Such hilly terrain poses problems to railroad builders as their objective is to maintain a level roadbed, so the tracks were laid along the route of least resistance - the flood plain of the Licking River. The railroad snakes its way north from Falmouth approximating the curves and bends of the Licking as it flows toward the Ohio. Catawba sat within a large horseshoe bend about five miles north of Falmouth.
The rail line ran through the village in a man-made trough twenty feet deep. The Catawba Road crossed the gap over a wooden bridge. My great grandparent's house sat directly facing the bridge on the far side of the tracks. 
Their little home (above), sitting on a corner lot, had four rooms downstairs and two up. The front appeared, with a little imagination, to resemble a rectangular clown face with a tall window (eye) on each side of a narrow door (nose). The front door faced a narrow lane that ran parallel to the tracks. 
Turn left at the bridge and follow the narrow lane running in front of the house, and a person would arrive at the small house where Mom lived as a child (above). It was no more than a hundred yards down the lane. The place was very small but had two front doors in the center, like a duplex. The whole house could not have been larger than a couple hundred square feet. I don't know for what purpose it was originally build, but it sat on top of the bluff overlooking the train tracks below. Across the tracks on top the other side sat Mom’s Grandparent Frank's house. 
If one continued straight from across the bridge (east) on the lane that ran beside the house the next building encountered was a blacksmith shop. Grandma’s brother Clarence (Bud) became the owner of the family house after their parents died in 1912, It was his shop. Then the road started to make a hundred-eighty degree curve to the right (as shown on the above map), and at that point you would find the only church (above) in town. It was aligned with the other buildings so the road curved away from it. The church was a modest building with one large room and a bell tower near the front. 
The road continued its half-circle ending at another brother’s, William (Taul) and Dora (Frank) Jacobs house. Taul Jacobs was a covered bridge builder, and Dora ran the local post office. Their place was a wood framed structure built into the east bank of the railroad bed and facing the tracks. There is an old picture (above) of Mom, Hazel (Frank) Buckingham, when she was about two years old. It shows her sitting on the stone front step with her Uncle Taul in the background. She had a flower in her hair. In that picture she would be looking across the tracks to the train station on the opposite side.
Their little home (above), sitting on a corner lot, had four rooms downstairs and two up. The front appeared, with a little imagination, to resemble a rectangular clown face with a tall window (eye) on each side of a narrow door (nose). The front door faced a narrow lane that ran parallel to the tracks. Turn left at the bridge and follow the narrow lane running in front of the house, and a person would arrive at the small house where Mom lived as a child (above). It was no more than a hundred yards down the lane. The place was very small but had two front doors in the center, like a duplex. The whole house could not have been larger than a couple hundred square feet. I don't know for what purpose it was originally build, but it sat on top of the bluff overlooking the train tracks below. Across the tracks on top the other side sat Mom’s Grandparent Frank's house. If one continued straight from across the bridge (east) on the lane that ran beside the house the next building encountered was a blacksmith shop. Grandma’s brother Clarence (Bud) became the owner of the family house after their parents died in 1912, It was his shop. Then the road started to make a hundred-eighty degree curve to the right (as shown on the above map), and at that point you would find the only church (above) in town. It was aligned with the other buildings so the road curved away from it. The church was a modest building with one large room and a bell tower near the front. The road continued its half-circle ending at another brother’s, William (Taul) and Dora (Frank) Jacobs house. Taul Jacobs was a covered bridge builder, and Dora ran the local post office. Their place was a wood framed structure built into the east bank of the railroad bed and facing the tracks. There is an old picture (above) of Mom, Hazel (Frank) Buckingham, when she was about two years old. It shows her sitting on the stone front step with her Uncle Taul in the background. She had a flower in her hair. In that picture she would be looking across the tracks to the train station on the opposite side.
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