Appalachian Community Histories – Worthington, Greenup County: From Melrose Addition to the Rise of Regional Aviation
Along the southern bank of the Ohio River in eastern Greenup County lies Worthington, Kentucky, a small community whose history connects nineteenth-century iron production, Kentucky politics, the development of riverfront neighborhoods, and the growth of aviation in the Ohio Valley. Situated between Wurtland and Russell, with Raceland immediately to the south and Hanging Rock, Ohio, across the river, Worthington developed within a region shaped by industry, railroads, agriculture, and the commercial opportunities of the Ohio River.
Although Worthington did not become an incorporated community until 1920, the land on which it stands had already passed through generations of ownership and economic development. Its history is closely associated with William Jackson Worthington, a Union Army officer who later served as Kentucky’s lieutenant governor, and with the family members who helped establish the community that bears his name. During the twentieth century, Worthington became an important location for regional aviation when a former dairy farm was transformed into Abken Airport, eventually becoming part of what is now Ashland Regional Airport.
Before Worthington: Landownership and the Iron Industry
Long before Worthington appeared as an incorporated municipality, the surrounding Ohio River Valley was an important corridor for transportation, agriculture, and industrial development. Greenup County’s location along the river connected its settlements to markets in Ohio and to the growing industrial communities around Ashland, while the broader region’s forests, mineral deposits, and transportation routes supported the development of the Hanging Rock Iron Region.
Accounts of Worthington’s early history trace the land that became the community to Abraham Buford, who subsequently sold the property to the Means and Russell Iron Company. The company later transferred the property to William Jackson Worthington, whose family would become central to the establishment of the town. This sequence connects Worthington’s origins to the larger industrial history of northeastern Kentucky, although the original county deeds remain important for reconstructing the precise dates and boundaries of those transactions.
An important surviving document from this earlier period is the 1876 Map of the Counties of Greenup, Carter and Boyd and a Part of Lawrence, prepared by C. Schenk and W. C. Mitchell for the Kentucky Geological Survey. Preserved by the Kentucky Historical Society, the map identifies some nineteenth-century property owners and provides a geographical record of the Ohio River communities before Worthington’s incorporation. Read alongside county deeds and other land records, it offers a starting point for understanding the transformation of the riverfront from privately held property into a residential community.
William Jackson Worthington and the Family Behind the Town
The community’s name comes from William Jackson Worthington, whose career took him from military service during the Civil War into Kentucky’s state government. Worthington served in the Union Army’s 22nd Kentucky Volunteer Infantry and participated in military operations associated with the Siege of Vicksburg and the campaign around Cumberland Gap. After the war, he entered state politics, serving in the Kentucky General Assembly before becoming lieutenant governor under William O. Bradley from 1895 to 1899.
Worthington’s connection to Greenup County is documented in the Kentucky Historic Resources Inventory, which recorded the Colonel Worthington House in 1987. The property, located along U.S. Route 23 near Academy Road in the city of Greenup, was described as a substantial Greek Revival brick residence dating to approximately 1840. Its architectural features included a central-passage floor plan, a symmetrical five-bay exterior, and distinctive brickwork beneath the roofline. Although the house stands in Greenup rather than in Worthington, it preserves an architectural connection to the family whose property and name became associated with the later municipality.
After William Jackson Worthington’s death in 1914, his daughters inherited the property associated with the future town. Historical accounts credit them with establishing the community and naming it in honor of their father, thereby preserving the Worthington name on the Ohio River landscape. The city today identifies February 5, 1920, as its founding date, which is also commonly reported as the date of its incorporation. The municipality’s establishment marked the transition from family landholdings and developing subdivisions into a formally recognized town.
Melrose Addition and the Development of the Riverfront
As Worthington developed during the early twentieth century, its riverfront land became the subject of subdivision plans that anticipated further residential expansion. One of these areas, known as Melrose Addition, later became especially significant because it included the property on which Abken Airport was established.
A historical account compiled by Ronald W. Kenyon, the son of aviation pioneer Warner Kenyon, provides unusually detailed information about this part of Worthington. Drawing on family records and information supplied by archaeologist Vincent Versluis, Kenyon traced a substantial tract of land along the Ohio River through several owners. Thomas Stepp purchased the property from W. L. Geiger and his wife, Ester, in 1894. Between 1903 and 1917, William Millard accumulated approximately 134 acres from Stepp’s heirs, while a later transaction transferred a portion of the property to C. L. Bugg Jr. and his wife, Mary.
The history of Melrose Addition becomes particularly interesting through a 1929 Sanborn fire insurance map described in Kenyon’s account. According to information supplied by Versluis, the map showed proposed streets and avenues extending almost to the Ohio River, including land that would eventually become an airport. Versluis suggested that the proposed expansion may have been abandoned after the stock market crash of 1929, although the original subdivision records and Sanborn map are needed to establish exactly how much development occurred before those plans were discontinued.
The surviving evidence nevertheless reveals that Worthington’s riverfront was being considered for substantial residential growth before the Great Depression. Land that might otherwise have become additional streets and houses instead remained available for an entirely different form of development, one that would eventually connect the community to the emerging world of regional aviation.
The Ohio River Flood of 1937 and the Beginnings of an Aviation Legacy
Before Abken Airport was established, aviation in the surrounding Ohio Valley was already beginning to transform regional transportation. Warner Kenyon, who worked as an engineer for Armco Steel in Ashland, obtained his pilot’s license in 1935 and became involved in the area’s developing aviation community. His early flying career included the use of Ashland Airport, which operated near Thirty-fourth Street along the Ohio River.
The disastrous Ohio River flood of January and February 1937 provided an early demonstration of the importance of local aviation. As floodwaters inundated large portions of Ashland, including its airport and surrounding transportation infrastructure, many families in rural Boyd and Greenup counties became isolated. According to Ronald Kenyon’s account, his father joined pilots C. Giovanelli and James Dobyns in using a fairway at Bellefonte Country Club as a temporary landing strip. From that location, the pilots transported mail and dropped food and other supplies to stranded families.
Although those relief flights occurred before the establishment of an airport in Worthington, they helped demonstrate the practical value of aviation in a region where flooding could interrupt roads, railways, and ordinary river travel. Warner Kenyon continued pursuing his interest in flying, eventually becoming a certified flight instructor and helping establish the aviation enterprise that would occupy Worthington’s former farmland.
Abken Airport: A Dairy Farm Becomes an Airfield
In 1944, Warner Kenyon joined Lawrence D. Abernathy, an accountant for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway who lived in Russell, to establish Abken Aviation Company. The name combined portions of the two founders’ surnames, and their partnership soon led them to purchase a dairy farm in Worthington’s Melrose Addition.
Ronald Kenyon’s revised family history identifies the purchase as approximately fifty acres acquired from C. L. Bugg Jr. and his wife, Mary, in 1944. The property stood near the Ohio River and offered enough relatively level ground to construct an airfield. The two partners developed a 3,000-foot grass runway running approximately east to west, together with a large hangar containing office and instructional space. Additional T-hangars were constructed for local pilots who needed somewhere to house their aircraft.
Abken Airport officially opened to the public on September 23, 1945, only weeks after the conclusion of World War II. Historic photographs preserved by Ronald Kenyon document the dedication ceremony, including the crowds of spectators, automobiles, and aircraft gathered on the former farm. The opening represented a considerable change in the use of Worthington’s riverfront land, transforming property once associated with agricultural production and proposed residential development into a center for aviation.
The timing of Abken’s opening proved important. Thousands of American servicemen were returning home from the war, including former military personnel who had developed an interest in aviation. Under the educational provisions of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, eligible veterans could pursue flight instruction, and Abken established a flying school that attracted students from the surrounding region.
Warner Kenyon served as an instructor while the company employed other qualified pilots to provide training. The business expanded its fleet, eventually operating numerous aircraft ranging from small Piper trainers to surplus military airplanes such as the Vultee BT-13 and the twin-engine Cessna Bobcat. Contemporary photographs of the airport, including a 1947 aerial image taken by Bob Kates, show its hangars, aircraft, and surviving farm buildings, providing a direct visual record of Worthington’s changing landscape.
From Abken to Ashland-Boyd County Airport
As postwar aviation expanded, the competition for regional airport facilities intensified. Between 1948 and 1952, Ashland and Huntington, West Virginia, pursued competing plans for facilities capable of serving the broader Tri-State region. Ashland’s proposed development centered on the existing Abken property in Worthington, where the relatively level riverfront terrain made the site suitable for a larger runway.
Using state and local funds, the City of Ashland purchased Abken’s runway and adjoining property, while the aviation company retained its hangars, offices, and additional land at the eastern end of the facility. The original grass runway was replaced with a 5,000-foot asphalt runway, and the expanded facility opened in 1953 under the name Ashland-Boyd County Airport. Despite the name, the airport stood in Greenup County, preserving Worthington’s geographical connection to the development of regional aviation.
The expanded airport also attracted corporate aviation. Ashland Oil and Refining Company developed hangar and maintenance facilities to accommodate its aircraft, while Abken Aviation continued operating alongside the larger airfield. The property evolved into a mixed aviation facility serving private pilots, business aircraft, and flight instruction, with the former dairy farm’s buildings gradually giving way to increasingly specialized aviation infrastructure.
Abken’s association with the Kenyon family continued for decades. Around 1980, Warner Kenyon sold his share of the company to Dick Brannock, a former Ashland Oil pilot, bringing another chapter of the original partnership to a close. The larger facility eventually became known as Ashland Regional Airport, continuing the aviation history that began in Worthington during the final years of World War II.
Raceland-Worthington Schools and Community Life
Although the development of the airport provides one of the most extensively documented episodes in Worthington’s history, the community’s everyday life also developed through its schools, neighborhoods, and relationships with nearby towns. Worthington’s educational history is closely connected to Raceland, and surviving Raceland-Worthington High School yearbooks offer an important record of the people who lived in and around the two communities.
The Greenup County Public Library has preserved and digitized numerous editions of the school’s yearbooks, including volumes from 1938, 1960, 1961, 1970, 1971, and 1974, together with later publications. These materials provide an original record of changing generations of students and teachers while preserving the names, activities, athletics, advertisements, and organizations associated with community life.
The yearbooks are particularly useful because they document aspects of Worthington that municipal incorporation records and property deeds cannot fully capture. They preserve evidence of the relationships between families and schools, the growth of youth athletics, and the role of local businesses in supporting educational institutions. Examined alongside newspapers, census records, and photographs, they offer a way to reconstruct Worthington’s social history during the decades when its residential neighborhoods and aviation facilities were developing.
John Walton Collier: A Worthington Native and Medal of Honor Recipient
Worthington’s history also includes the life of John Walton Collier, who was born in the community on April 3, 1929. Collier served in the United States Army during the Korean War and became one of the conflict’s recipients of the Medal of Honor, receiving the decoration posthumously for his actions on September 19, 1950.
Serving as a corporal with Company C, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, Collier took part in an assault against a heavily defended position near Chindoing-ni, Korea. According to his official Medal of Honor citation, Collier and three fellow soldiers repeatedly attempted to neutralize an enemy machine-gun position that was preventing their unit from advancing. After two unsuccessful attempts, Collier moved forward under enemy fire and destroyed the position, allowing his comrades to continue their mission.
As Collier returned to his squad, an enemy grenade landed among the men. He warned his fellow soldiers and threw himself upon the grenade, absorbing the explosion and saving the lives of those around him. His actions resulted in a posthumous Medal of Honor, presented to his father at the Pentagon on June 21, 1951, by General Omar Bradley.
Collier was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, while his connection to Worthington remains part of the community’s place in the military history of the United States. His Medal of Honor is held by the Highlands Museum and Discovery Center in Ashland, preserving a regional connection to a young soldier whose life began in this small Greenup County town.
Archaeology and the Preservation of Worthington’s Past
The history of Worthington is not confined to its surviving buildings and written records. Archaeological investigations have also helped bring attention to the earlier landscape of Melrose Addition and the former dairy farm that became Abken Airport.
In May 2015, archaeologist Vincent Versluis conducted an investigation of the airport property on behalf of the Kentucky Heritage Council. The work included archaeological testing and the excavation of foundations associated with the former farmhouse. Ronald Kenyon’s historical collection preserves information about the investigation, along with photographs showing the farmhouse site and its relationship to the airport’s later buildings.
Such investigations demonstrate how the same property can preserve evidence of several distinct periods in a community’s development. At the Worthington airport site, nineteenth-century land transactions, early twentieth-century subdivision plans, agricultural buildings, wartime aviation, and postwar airport expansion all form part of a continuous local history. The original archaeological report, historic maps, and county property records remain especially valuable for documenting the physical changes that occurred as the site evolved.
The Greenup County Public Library’s genealogy and local history collections provide additional opportunities to recover the experiences of Worthington residents. Its holdings include local school materials, maps, census resources, obituaries, and family-history records, while the historical collections at Morehead State University preserve Robert M. Rennick’s research on Greenup County place names and oral histories concerning neighboring communities. Together, these resources offer a foundation for reconstructing the town’s development beyond the better-known stories of the Worthington family and Abken Airport.
Worthington’s Place in Ohio Valley History
Worthington remains a small municipality, recording a population of 1,501 in the 2020 United States Census, but its history reflects several of the major developments that shaped northeastern Kentucky. Its early landownership connects it to the iron industry, its name preserves the legacy of a Civil War veteran and state official, and its neighborhoods emerged during an era of changing transportation networks and residential development along the Ohio River.
The history of Abken Airport adds another dimension to that story, demonstrating how a single agricultural property became part of the nation’s postwar aviation expansion. From the opening of a grass airstrip in 1945 to the development of a larger regional airport in 1953, Worthington participated in the technological and economic changes that transformed transportation throughout the twentieth century.
Perhaps most importantly, Worthington’s past survives in several different kinds of historical evidence. Property deeds and subdivision maps preserve the town’s origins, historic photographs document its aviation history, school yearbooks record generations of local residents, and military records commemorate the service of individuals such as John Walton Collier. Considered together, these sources reveal a community whose history reaches beyond its modest size, connecting a small town on the Ohio River to the broader story of Greenup County, Kentucky, and the nation.
Sources & Further Reading
Biggs, Nina Mitchell, and Mabel Lee Mackoy. History of Greenup County, Kentucky. 1951. Reprint, Greenville, SC: Southern Historical Press, 2025. https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Greenup_County_Kentucky.html?id=qH8Z0QEACAAJ
Congressional Medal of Honor Society. “John Walton Collier.” Medal of Honor Recipient Database. https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/john-w-collier
Greenup County Clerk. “Land and Property Records.” Greenup County, Kentucky. https://greenupcountyclerk.ky.gov/records/
Greenup County Public Library. “Genealogy and Local History.” https://www.greenuplib.org/genealogy
Greenup County Public Library. “Local High School Yearbooks.” Includes digitized Raceland-Worthington High School yearbooks beginning in 1938. https://www.greenuplib.org/local-yearbooks
Jackson, Evelyn, and Mildred Dupry. “Greenup County: Place Names.” County Histories of Kentucky. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/
Kenyon, Ronald W. “The Story of Abken Airport.” Abken Airport. Originally published August 26, 2011. Updated February 24, 2016. https://abkenairport.blogspot.com/p/story-of-abken-airport.html
Kentucky General Assembly, House of Representatives. Journal of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 1920. Vol. 1. Frankfort, KY, 1920. University of Kentucky, UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/ky_state_journals/119/
Kentucky General Assembly, Senate. Journal of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 1920. Vol. 1. Frankfort, KY: State Journal Company, 1920. University of Kentucky, UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/ky_state_journals/290/
Kentucky Heritage Council. “Colonel Worthington House.” Kentucky Historic Resources Inventory, 1987. National Park Service, National Register Digital Archive. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c9c68818-f927-45ca-b885-a67a97d64460
Kentucky Historical Society. Greenup County Cemetery Inventory. Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections. https://www.kyhistory.com/
National Archives and Records Administration. “Railroad Maps in the Cartographic Research Room.” Includes Interstate Commerce Commission railroad valuation maps, 1915–1920. https://www.archives.gov/research/cartographic/railroad-maps
National Archives and Records Administration. “Search Census Records Online and Other Resources.” Includes the 1930, 1940, and 1950 United States censuses. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/online-resources
Rennick, Robert M. “Greenup County: Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, no. 71. Morehead State University, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/71/
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813101798/kentucky-place-names/
Russell Times. Greenup County: Historic Souvenir Edition. Morehead State University, County Histories of Kentucky. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/
Savage, Jake, Bertha Savage, and Lucille Maynard. Interview by Robert M. Rennick, August 18, 1977. Robert M. Rennick Oral History Collection, no. 312. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_oh_collection/312/
Schenk, C., and W. C. Mitchell. Map of the Counties of Greenup, Carter and Boyd and a Part of Lawrence. Kentucky Geological Survey, 1876. Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections. https://www.kyhistory.com/digital/collection/Maps/id/200/
United States Geological Survey. Historical Topographic Map Collection. Searchable historical maps of the Greenup, Ashland, and Ironton quadrangles. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
University of Kentucky Libraries. Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program. Includes historical Greenup County newspapers and regional newspaper holdings. https://kentuckynewspapers.org/program/
Works Progress Administration and Historical Records Survey. “Greenup County.” 1936. County Histories of Kentucky, no. 35. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/35/
Author Note: I wrote this article to preserve the history of Worthington, a small Ohio River community whose story connects nineteenth-century landownership, the Worthington family, and the development of regional aviation. Through historical maps, family accounts, school records, and archival collections, I hope to bring greater attention to the people and places that shaped this corner of Greenup County.