The Day House

Could the walls of the old second-hand shop, on Pike-st, near the railroad station in Covington, speak, some very interesting tales could be told, as where the old store now stands, the old Day House stood, with its old-fashioned pillars in front and its massive porch running the entire length of the building.

Great would have been the surprise of the farmers, who put up at the Day House back in the [18]60's if they had seen a street car roll by in front of the house, for in those days, Pike-st was hardly a street, but a pike.

Street cars, of course, were unheard of, especially electric cars.  A dirt road led up to the house, but now a fine smooth asphalt street passes by.

Directly in back of the old Day House, or what is now the station, were the large stockyards, where farmers put their stock while they put up at the hotel.   Progress has stepped in there, too.  The old farmers would have been horror-stricken to see a gigantic engine whirl by, with black smoke roiling from the stack, and the hissing steam as it forces its way out of the boiler.

The farmers fed their stock from the little hamlets down in Central Kentucky to Cincinnati, where they could be sold on the stock market.

The old Day House, in what is now Covington, was the last stop until the farmers reached Cincinnati.  At almost any hour of the day one could see a large flock of sheep, or drove of hogs being driven down Pike-st. and into the stockyards.

The Old Inn

Daniel White, owner of the second-hand store that is now standing where the old Day House was, remembers the old Day House very well.  He says the old farmers would drive their stock into the yards and then come in and register, just as one would do at a first-class hotel these days.

White said there were at times as high as 200 guests at one time in the old hotel.  Often thousands of head of cattle and other stock were in the yards at one time.

A few days ago two old stock raisers came to this city with a large number of sheep. The old men were white with age and their sons were with them, taking charge of their stock.

"It's a heap sight different than it used to be," remarked one of the old timers. "It used to be that I walked all the way from Lexington to Cincinnati, driving my stock ahead of me, but now a fellow can just load his stock into a car and then jump into a car himself and you can get here twice as fast and twice as easy.  Times have changed a heap," the old man mused.

from the Kentucky Post, October 6, 1914