Marlin Wightman

Photographs ©1996 Malcolm J. Wilson

Marlin Wightman's first impression of Cincinnati is one shared by many Appalachians who moved to the city in the 1950s. Seventeen, just out of high school, he left Cumberland County, Tennessee, to spend a summer with his sister, who had married and moved to Cincinnati about two years earlier. Here's how Marlin remembers the experience of crossing the Ohio River in his brother-in-law's 1937 Ford:  

"We traveled all day long coming up Route 25 from Tennessee. We got here just after the sun had set. We came up Dixie Highway, around Covington Hill, and I saw the lights of the city shining on the river and I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, Cincinnati and all its lights. I'd never seen anything like this before." 

Perceptions of Home: The Urban Appalachian Spirit ©1996 The Urban Appalachian Council (now Urban Appalachian Community Coalition)

Photographs ©1996 Malcolm J. Wilson; Interviews ©1996 Don Corathers

Photographs digitized by the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. Genealogy & Local History Department.