Appalachian Community Histories – South Shore, Greenup County: From Fullerton and Taylor to a Kentucky River Town
Along the southern bank of the Ohio River in northern Greenup County, Kentucky, the community now known as South Shore developed through the meeting of several smaller settlements, industries, and transportation routes. Situated near the mouth of Tygarts Creek and directly across the river from Portsmouth, Ohio, the town owed much of its early growth to the railroad, brick manufacturing, and the ferryboats that carried passengers and goods between Kentucky and Ohio.
For much of its history, however, South Shore did not exist under its present name. Earlier generations knew portions of the area as Fullerton, McCall, and Taylor, names that appeared on postal records, railroad maps, and business documents long before the modern city was incorporated. Each represented a different stage in the development of a community whose fortunes were closely connected to the river and the industries that grew along its banks.
The surviving historical record is unusually rich for a small Kentucky river town. Early postcards document the Portsmouth and Fullerton ferry, photographs preserve scenes from the Taylor brickyard, and oral histories recorded during the 1970s and 1980s identify businesses, families, schools, churches, and individuals who shaped the community. Together, these materials offer a history that extends beyond the construction of bridges and factories to include the everyday lives of the people who made South Shore their home.
Fullerton and the Early River Community
Before South Shore became an incorporated city, Fullerton developed as one of the principal settlements along this section of the Ohio River. The community took its name from a local family and grew considerably during the late nineteenth century as railroad transportation and ferry service strengthened connections with Portsmouth. Although the river separated the two communities politically, their commercial and social relationships were closely intertwined.
The establishment of the Fullerton post office in 1893 provided an important sign of the settlement’s growing identity. A post office offered residents a recognized mailing address and helped distinguish the community from other settlements along the Greenup County riverfront. As additional businesses and transportation facilities appeared, Fullerton developed into a community substantial enough to seek municipal incorporation in 1919.
The ferry crossing was particularly important during the years before an automobile bridge connected the Kentucky and Ohio shores. A contemporary postcard published by H. A. Lorberg sometime between 1901 and 1907 shows the Portsmouth and Fullerton ferry, preserving an image of the river transportation upon which residents depended. The vessel represented more than a convenient means of crossing the Ohio. It connected Kentucky families with the stores, employers, markets, and transportation services available in Portsmouth.
The significance of the ferry also survives in the Greenup County Oral History Project. Orville Major Howerton, interviewed in September 1978, discussed Fullerton’s businesses and families, early automobiles, horses and buggies, ferryboats, and the eventual founding of South Shore. John Paul Davis, interviewed in August 1980, recalled his work on ferries and riverboats and discussed how South Shore acquired its name and how the community was laid out. These interviews preserve the perspectives of residents who remembered an earlier transportation system and the changes that followed.
The surviving public catalog identifies their subjects but does not provide transcripts, making the original recordings particularly valuable for further research into the town’s early development.
The Taylor Brickyard and the Growth of Industry
While Fullerton developed around the railroad and ferry, another settlement emerged nearby through brick manufacturing. In 1895, the Taylor Brickyard was established near Tygarts Creek, providing an industrial foundation for the community that eventually became known as Taylor. The factory gave the area a commercial identity separate from Fullerton and helped establish a pattern of industrial employment along this portion of the river.
One of the most valuable surviving images of this period is a photograph cataloged by the Scioto County Public Library as Taylor Brick, McCall, KY 1920. The photograph depicts a man with a horse and cart at the brickyard, preserving a view of the labor and transportation associated with the industry during the early twentieth century. It provides contemporary visual evidence of the factory at a time when the surrounding community was still identified with the name McCall.
The factory’s historical importance extends beyond the surviving photograph. Brick manufacturing offered employment to local workers and helped establish the economic character of the settlement. Its presence also contributed to the development of a distinct community around Tygarts Creek, where industrial activity and transportation connections shaped the surrounding landscape.
The importance of this industrial past is reflected in later oral histories. John Milford Hunt, interviewed in December 1983, discussed Fullerton’s brickyard alongside its canning factory, ice plant, post office, physicians, and other businesses. Everett Sammons, interviewed in August 1978, described his experiences working in a brick factory, a steel mill, and agriculture, although the catalog does not establish that the brick factory where he worked was Taylor.
Taken together, these accounts provide evidence of the varied industrial and agricultural occupations associated with northern Greenup County. They also demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between businesses documented in South Shore itself and the wider regional economy in which its residents participated.
From McCall and Taylor to South Shore
The community’s changing postal names offer one of the clearest ways to follow its development. While Fullerton maintained its own post office, another office opened in the Taylor area in 1907 under the name McCall, honoring its postmaster. As the surrounding industrial settlement developed, its postal identity changed to Taylor in 1930 and then to South Shore in 1940.
These changes reflected a community whose identity was evolving long before its eventual incorporation. In the early twentieth century, a letter addressed to McCall could refer to an area that later generations would recognize as part of South Shore, while Fullerton continued to possess its own established name and postal history.
The existence of these separate post offices is an important consideration when researching local families or businesses. An individual who lived in the same general area for several decades might appear under different community names in historical records without having moved from one settlement to another. Consequently, the names Fullerton, McCall, Taylor, and South Shore all form part of the documentary history of the modern city.
The neighboring community of South Portsmouth must also be distinguished from South Shore. Although both developed along the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and were closely associated with Portsmouth, they were separate settlements. Historical references to Springville, the earlier name associated with South Portsmouth, should not automatically be treated as references to South Shore.
Railroads, Ferryboats, and the First U.S. Grant Bridge
Transportation remained central to the development of northern Greenup County during the early twentieth century. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad strengthened the area’s relationship with industrial centers and distant markets, while the ferry connected Fullerton with Portsmouth at a time when river crossings remained essential to everyday commerce.
Railroad development also transformed the surrounding landscape. In 1917, the Chesapeake and Ohio Northern Railway completed its massive bridge across the Ohio River at Sciotoville, connecting Ohio with the Kentucky side of the river. Designed under the direction of engineer Gustav Lindenthal, the structure incorporated two enormous continuous truss spans and became a significant achievement in American bridge engineering. Its construction demonstrated the growing importance of this stretch of the Ohio River to regional railroad transportation.
The neighboring railroad community of South Portsmouth also possessed a Chesapeake and Ohio depot, which appeared in early twentieth-century postcards. The depot, associated storage buildings, and water tower were located on the Kentucky side of the river. Although the depot stood outside modern South Shore, it formed part of the transportation network through which the surrounding communities maintained connections with Portsmouth and the wider region.
The next major transformation came in 1927, when the original U.S. Grant Bridge opened between Portsmouth and the Fullerton area of Kentucky. The suspension bridge initially admitted pedestrians in August, followed by automobile traffic in September, providing a permanent highway crossing where earlier generations had depended upon ferries.
Contemporary postcards identify the Portsmouth Fullerton Bridge Company as the bridge’s owner and the Dravo Construction Company of Pittsburgh as its builder. Initially operated as a toll bridge, the crossing eventually became one of the defining transportation landmarks of the Portsmouth and northern Greenup County area.
The construction of the bridge did not immediately erase the ferry’s place in local life. A surviving five-cent token from the Fullerton and Portsmouth Ferry Company, cataloged as dating from the 1940s, provides evidence that the river crossing remained part of the area’s transportation history after the highway bridge had opened. The token and early ferry postcards together document an era when riverboats and bridges existed within the same local transportation system.
Businesses, Churches, and Everyday Life in Old Fullerton
Although the brickyard, railroad, and river crossings dominated the area’s industrial and transportation history, the surviving oral histories reveal a considerably broader picture of community life. Fullerton and the surrounding settlements contained businesses and institutions that served residents whose daily experiences extended far beyond the riverfront.
Avis Mariah Van Bibber, interviewed in September 1978, discussed the businesses and personalities of Fullerton and South Shore, including the Methodist church and Dan Spry Drug Store. Her recorded recollections also address a cap factory explosion, an episode that deserves additional examination through contemporary newspapers before its date and circumstances can be established.
John Milford Hunt’s interviews provide another detailed guide to the community’s commercial history. Along with the brickyard, Hunt discussed a canning factory, ice plant, post office, physicians, and J. R. Morton’s funeral home. His recollections also address the Great Depression and methods of transporting the deceased, illustrating how the development of local businesses was connected to changing standards of transportation, medicine, and public services.
Other interviews broaden this portrait of everyday life. Louise Miller Dillow described her experiences as a telephone switchboard operator, while Nellie May McMullen discussed teaching, family life, and her move to South Shore. Their accounts direct attention toward occupations and domestic experiences that might otherwise be overlooked in histories dominated by industrial development and major construction projects.
Margarite Isabelle Greenslate Webb’s 1978 interview also offers information about Fullerton, Route 7, businesses, regional settlement, and local families. When considered alongside the recollections of Howerton, Davis, Van Bibber, and Hunt, these interviews provide an unusually extensive record of the people and places associated with South Shore’s earlier communities.
The Great Depression and the Ohio River Flood of 1937
The Great Depression and the catastrophic Ohio River flood of 1937 formed part of the experiences of the generation that witnessed South Shore’s development. The community’s location along the river provided economic advantages, but it also placed the surrounding region within an area repeatedly threatened by high water.
In January 1937, exceptionally heavy rainfall throughout the Ohio Valley produced one of the most destructive floods in the river’s recorded history. At Portsmouth, the Ohio River reached a crest of 74.23 feet on January 27, exceeding the previous record of 67.90 feet established during the flood of 1913. Communities throughout the region experienced the consequences of the rising water, while the flood disrupted transportation and economic activity on both sides of the river.
For the history of South Shore, Ernest Dunaway’s oral history is particularly relevant. Interviewed in August 1978, Dunaway discussed the 1937 flood, the Great Depression, and the planning of the U.S. Grant Bridge, alongside his military service and personal experiences. His account offers a potentially valuable connection between the major events recorded in government documents and the recollections of someone familiar with the local area.
Lena Estelle Antis Nevison’s interview, recorded in September 1978, provides additional context through her recollections of the earlier 1913 flood, education, teaching, and transportation. The two interviews help connect the area’s history with the broader experience of Ohio River communities that repeatedly confronted the difficulties of living and working along a flood-prone waterway.
The precise extent of property damage and displacement within South Shore during these floods requires further examination of local newspapers, property records, and the original oral-history recordings. Nevertheless, the surviving regional flood measurements and eyewitness collections establish the historical importance of these events to the surrounding river communities.
The Incorporation of South Shore in 1957
By the middle of the twentieth century, the separate histories of Fullerton and Taylor had become increasingly intertwined. The South Shore name had already been adopted by the former Taylor post office in 1940, and the establishment of an incorporated city in 1957 formally brought Taylor and part of Fullerton together under the South Shore name.
The city’s incorporation represented an important change in the identity of the community. Rather than existing solely as neighboring settlements with separate postal and industrial histories, the areas included within the new municipality now shared a common civic identity. Fullerton, however, did not immediately disappear from official usage, and the postal system continued to reflect the earlier distinction between the communities.
In 1957, the South Shore and Fullerton postal operations were combined under the name Fullerton-South Shore. The office adopted the simpler South Shore name in 1958, completing another stage in the area’s transition from its older community identities to the name recognized today.
These postal changes help explain why Fullerton remains so prominent in older photographs, postcards, and historical documents. The town’s name had been associated with the river crossing and local businesses for generations, and the incorporation of South Shore did not erase the earlier community from the historical record.
The Replacement of the U.S. Grant Bridge
The original U.S. Grant Bridge remained an important connection between Kentucky and Ohio for most of the twentieth century. In 1974, the Ohio Department of Transportation acquired the bridge, and the tolls that had been collected since its opening were removed. As the structure aged, however, deterioration and the expense of continued maintenance prompted consideration of a replacement.
By 2001, the original suspension bridge had reached the end of its service. It was permanently closed and demolished to make way for a new crossing, temporarily changing the familiar transportation landscape shared by Portsmouth and northern Greenup County.
The replacement U.S. Grant Bridge officially opened on October 16, 2006. Its modern cable-stayed design contrasted sharply with the suspension structure that generations of residents had known, but it continued the same essential function of connecting the communities across the Ohio River.
The opening was also an occasion for local historical remembrance. Photographs preserved by the Scioto County Public Library document the dedication and identify several people who had attended both the original bridge opening in 1927 and the celebration of its replacement in 2006. Their presence connected nearly eighty years of local transportation history through the lives of people who remembered the earlier crossing.
Preserving the History of South Shore
Much of South Shore’s early history survives not through monumental buildings or widely published accounts, but through the photographs, postcards, oral histories, and historical records collected on both sides of the Ohio River. The Scioto County Public Library’s digital collections preserve images of the Portsmouth and Fullerton ferry, the Taylor brickyard, the original U.S. Grant Bridge, and businesses associated with the surrounding communities.
The Greenup County Oral History Project provides another essential record. Through interviews with residents such as Orville Major Howerton, John Paul Davis, Avis Mariah Van Bibber, and John Milford Hunt, the collection preserves descriptions of the businesses, families, transportation systems, and everyday experiences that shaped the community. Although the publicly available catalog does not provide complete transcripts, the original recordings remain important sources for reconstructing the town’s history.
Robert M. Rennick’s place-name research, preserved at Morehead State University, provides additional documentation of Greenup County’s changing community names, while the Works Progress Administration’s Historical Records Survey offers a broader account of the county during the 1930s. Together with historic maps, county histories, newspapers, and original postal records, these collections provide a foundation for understanding how Fullerton, McCall, Taylor, and South Shore developed over time.
The history of South Shore illustrates how a small Appalachian river community could develop through several overlapping identities before eventually becoming a single incorporated city. Its story is one of families who settled along the Ohio River, workers who found employment in factories and transportation, businesses that served neighboring communities, and successive generations who adapted to changes in the regional economy.
The ferryboats, old brickyard, and original suspension bridge belong to earlier periods of that history, but their surviving records reveal the foundations upon which the modern town developed. For residents and historians alike, recovering those earlier names and places is essential to understanding South Shore, a Greenup County community whose identity was shaped by the Ohio River and the people who lived along its southern shore.
Sources & Further Reading
Davis, John Paul. Oral history interview, August 12, 1980. Interview 1976OH45.21. Greenup County Oral History Project, Kentucky Oral History Commission. https://passtheword.ky.gov/collections/greenup-county-oral-history-project
Howerton, Orville Major. Oral history interview, September 9, 1978. Interview 1976OH45.16. Greenup County Oral History Project, Kentucky Oral History Commission. https://passtheword.ky.gov/collections/greenup-county-oral-history-project
Hunt, John Milford. Oral history interview, December 1, 1983. Interviews 1976OH45.24a and 1976OH45.24b. Greenup County Oral History Project, Kentucky Oral History Commission. https://passtheword.ky.gov/collections/greenup-county-oral-history-project
Van Bibber, Avis Mariah. Oral history interview, September 12, 1978. Interview 1976OH45.13. Greenup County Oral History Project, Kentucky Oral History Commission. https://passtheword.ky.gov/collections/greenup-county-oral-history-project
Dunaway, Ernest. Oral history interview, August 11, 1978. Interview 1976OH45.15. Greenup County Oral History Project, Kentucky Oral History Commission. https://passtheword.ky.gov/collections/greenup-county-oral-history-project
Kentucky Oral History Commission. Greenup County Oral History Project. Pass the Word, Kentucky Historical Society. https://passtheword.ky.gov/collections/greenup-county-oral-history-project
Lorberg, H. A. “Portsmouth and Fullerton Ferry, Portsmouth, Ohio.” Postcard, 1901–1907. Scioto County Public Library Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/items/show/18925
Scioto County Public Library. “Taylor Brick, McCall, KY 1920.” Historical photograph, 1920. Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/items/browse?collection=76&page=6&sort_dir=a&sort_field=added
Lloyd, F. J. “Building of the Grant Bridge.” Photograph, July 19, 1926. Scioto County Public Library Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/items/show/17502
Cook, F. “The Gen’l U.S. Grant Bridge, Portsmouth, Ohio.” Postcard, 1928. Scioto County Public Library Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/items/show/24921
Scioto County Public Library. “F. and P. Ferry Company Token.” Ferry token, 1940s. Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/items/browse?tags=1940s
Scioto County Public Library. “U.S. Grant Bridge, 1939–1940 Repair Work.” Historical photograph, 1939–1940. Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/items/show/14860
Scioto County Public Library. U.S. Grant Bridge Grand Re-opening, 2006. Historical photograph collection. Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/collections/show/52
Scioto County Public Library. Portsmouth City Directories. Historical directory collection, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Local History Digital Collection. https://www.sciotolibrary.org/history/collections/show/14
Works Progress Administration and Historical Records Survey. “Greenup County.” 1936. County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/35/
Rennick, Robert M. “Greenup County: Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, no. 71. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/71/
Rennick, Robert M. “Greenup County: Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/index.7.html
Biggs, Nina Mitchell, and Mabel Lee Mackoy. History of Greenup County, Kentucky. 1951. Reprint, Greenville, SC: Southern Historical Press, 2025. https://southernhistoricalpress.com/product/history-of-greenup-county-kentucky-e-book/
Kentucky Atlas & Gazetteer. “South Shore, Kentucky.” https://www.kyatlas.com/ky-south-shore.html
National Weather Service. “Historic Ohio River Flood of 1937.” Wilmington, OH: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://www.weather.gov/iln/1937OhioRiverFlood
U.S. Geological Survey. “topoView: Historical Topographic Maps.” Historical Topographic Map Collection. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/topoview
University of Kentucky Libraries. “New Kentucky Digital Newspaper Search Interface Launches, Streamlines Search Experience.” April 12, 2022. https://libraries.uky.edu/news/new-kentucky-digital-newspaper-search-interface-launches-streamlines-search-experience
Author Note: South Shore’s history reminds us that the communities we know today often grew from smaller settlements whose names and industries have largely faded from memory. Through surviving photographs, oral histories, and historical records, I hope this article helps preserve the stories of Fullerton, Taylor, and the generations who built this Ohio River town.