Alexandria, Kentucky, United States

🇺🇸 Alexandria is a home rule-class city in Campbell County, Kentucky, in the United States. Along with Newport, it is one of the dual seats of the county.

History It is believed that the area that is now Alexandria was first settled by Frank Spilman and his family c. 1793. The Spilman family was from King George County, Virginia, and they may have named their settlement after Alexandria, Virginia. The family had begun developing and selling lots in the settlement by 1819, the year the first post office was established. On February 22, 1834, Alexandria was formally established by an act of the state assembly.

When the Kentucky General Assembly formed Kenton County from part of Campbell County in 1840, they moved Campbell's county seat from Newport to Alexandria, which was closer to the centre of the redrawn county. The citizens of Alexandria quickly constructed a county courthouse but, because the majority of the county's population lived in Newport, the move was not a popular one and it took a court order and a visit from the sheriff to get the county clerk to move.

The city of Alexandria was formally incorporated by act of the state assembly in 1856.

In 1883, Newport successfully lobbied for its own Court House District, allowing it to retain a Court House Commission with taxing authority and various county offices in addition to those maintained at Alexandria. A new courthouse was established in Newport in 1884, and the county's fiscal court and judicial offices operated out of this while other administrative offices remained in Alexandria. Nonetheless, the county was not dual seated until 2010.

Geography Alexandria is located near the geographic centre of Campbell County.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.9 square miles (18.0 km²), of which 6.9 square miles (17.9 km²) is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²), or 0.05%, is water. The city is 14 miles (23 km) south of Cincinnati, Ohio, on U.S. Route 27. Kentucky Route 9, a four-lane limited access highway, follows the north-eastern boundary of Alexandria and leads 47 miles (76 km) south-east to Maysville.

Transportation The second oldest road established in Kentucky was the Old State Road, from Newport to Winchester, through Alexandria, Falmouth, Cynthiana, and Paris. This road was established by an act of the Kentucky Legislature in 1836. County residents formed the Newport and Alexandria Turnpike Company to improve the road; the improved turnpike opened in 1856 under the name Alexandria Pike. The road was financed by toll booths, two of which were located in Alexandria. Desiring a free road to the markets in the county, the county government purchased the road in 1921 and made it part of U.S. Route 27.

Because Alexandria does not lie immediately along the Ohio River, its growth has been limited compared to nearby cities that lie along the river.