Walton, Kentucky: Declaration Signer on the Turnpike

Walton was established in eighteen forty on the route of the Covington and Lexington turnpike, the main road running south from the Ohio River through the heart of Kentucky. The town was named for George Walton, a Georgian who signed the Declaration of Independence. It became one of the larger towns in Boone County in the late nineteenth century, driven first by turnpike traffic and then by the railroad, which arrived in eighteen sixty-nine and gave farmers and merchants a direct line to Cincinnati. Walton straddles the line between Boone and Kenton counties and today is one of the small cities that frame the southern edge of the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area.