BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
VERONA -- City hall is the local service station. The mayor could be one of several people who happen to be there at any time. And everyone eats at the nearby restaurant that's famous for fried fish.
Harry Reed, 74, waves to a motorist from his bench at the Verona Garage.
(Patrick Reddy photo)
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Welcome to Verona.
"It's like living in Mayberry," said Toni Sims, whose home is just across Ky. 16 from Jeff Renaker's auto repair shop, a.k.a. city hall.
But that Mayberry reference is no slam of this rural southern Boone County community where everyone pretty much knows everyone else. "If I had to live in the city, I don't think I could stand it
after living here," she said. "I love it here. It's a relaxed kind of life. Of course, I think there are a few people who see the hot tub in my side yard and think it's a flying saucer that's going to take off some night."
Verona is known by many people in Northern Kentucky merely as the tiny business area at the confluence of Ky. 16, Ky. 14 and Ky. 491. But the community, which never incorporated, takes in several square miles of rolling green hills dotted with farms and the occasional new home.
Unlike other areas of Boone County like Hebron, Burlington and Union, residential and industrial growth hasn't had much of an impact on Verona. So far.
Verona's written history seems to start in 1831 with a group of farmers who began the New Bethel Baptist Church. Members met in what was called the Stephenson Settlement at the home of Zadok Stephenson. The church moved several times until the present brick structure was built in the center of the community in 1950.
Also in 1831, the first post office opened in Verona on the road that connected what is now Walton with a town known as Middletown. The intersecting road, which eventually became U.S. 42, led to Big Bone Lick state park.
Mr. Renaker's frame building, dated to the turn of the century and in continuous use as a service station for 60 years under his grandfather and father, is one of the prime gathering spots in what could be called downtown Verona.
"This is city hall," 63-year-old Ronnie Vest said with a grin as he settled into his usual spot on the bench near the gas pumps. "This is where everything gets done."
Mr. Herb's Restaurant is a focal point of the Verona business district.
(Patrick Reddy photo)
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Mr. Vest's family tree goes back to the mid-1800s in Verona. When he's not working the tobacco and corn crops on his farm on Stephenson Mill Road, he and some friends watch the world go by from his vantage point in front of Mr. Renaker's.
"This is a good community," he said as a tractor rumbled by on Ky. 16. "This is the kind of place where, if someone needs help, there's always someone to do what needs to be done."
A dairy farmer for many years, Mr. Vest recently got out of that business. The days of the smaller dairy farms being financially feasible are gone, he said.
"I worked a lot of years to get the things I wanted for the (dairy) farm, and then I had to sell all of it because I couldn't afford it anymore," he said. "Only the big farms can stay in business now." The regular gang gathers at Renaker's station, usually stopping to have lunch next door at Mr. Herb's Restaurant, famous throughout Northern Kentucky for its fried fish.
"He's the mayor of Verona," shouts Paul Webster, pointing to Mr. Vest.
"Only when you're not here," Mr. Vest quips. "And here comes someone older than all of us."
Don Murray, a young 84, just smiles and takes his spot on the bench. A resident since 1946, he claims he liked the taste of the water and decided to stay.
Mr. Webster, a Verona native who now lives in retirement in Gallatin County, can still be found quite often at Mr. Renaker's with his high school pal, Mr. Vest. "We both went to the old Verona High School," he said.
Verona is that kind of town.
Railroad days
It's home to one of the most famous thoroughbred jockeys of all time, Northern Kentucky native Steve Cauthen, the Triple Crown winner who lives with his wife and children on a horse farm near the Boone-Gallatin county line.
Mrs. Robert Porter, who lives across the road from Mr. Cauthen, remembers growing up in neighboring Grant County and taking the train every day to Verona High School. She said many children in Grant and Pendleton counties rode a train to Verona to attend the school.
It was when the railroad came to Verona in 1869 that the settlement really began to flourish, according to historical accounts in several Boone County publications. In 1875 the population of Verona was 150.
A passenger station was built to accommodate the train travel into the area, but the structure no longer exists. The last passenger train passed through Verona in April of 1971, but a set of tracks through town still carries freight.
Verona boasts the only operating farm winery in Northern Kentucky, Jimmy Barker's Blackberry Hill Winery on Mount Zion-Verona Road. Mr. Barker, a native of Virginia, came to Kentucky as a young man to work in the construction business, settling on 100 acres of rolling farm land to raise a family.
Eventually he also began to raise blackberries on four acres of level land, starting a pick-your-own berry business in the summer. "I was looking for a way to use all of my berries, and the winery just kind of grew out of that," said Mr. Barker, who now produces several thousand gallons of what many local residents consider the best blackberry wine on the market.
