New Paris: Kentucky Nostalgia in Preble County

New Paris, tucked into Preble County in far western Ohio, was not named for France. Some of its first settlers came from the vicinity of Paris, Kentucky, and when the village was platted in eighteen seventeen it was named after the city they had left behind. The county itself honors Commodore Edward Preble, a naval officer who fought the Barbary pirates. The village remains a small agricultural community today, its French-sounding name a quiet echo of Kentucky homesickness rather than any transatlantic ambition.