One of Rosemary Clooney’s hit songs was "Come On-A My House." That invitation could apply to her hometown of Maysville.
   "We have where she grew up, went to school, married, had a premier and is buried," said Maysville tourism director Duff Giffin.
   Giffin has developed a tour that includes the childhood home of the actress-singer and her brother, former Cincinnati TV personality and newsman Nick Clooney; the 1930s Spanish-style Russell Theater where her 1953 movie, "The Stars are Singing," premiered; and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, where she married her last husband in 1997.
   The tour also includes the house she purchased in nearby Augusta and used as a getaway from Hollywood and is now furnished with memorabilia of her career and items donated by her nephew, actor George Clooney.
   Maysville is justifiably proud of its native daughter. However, Clooney is only one of many famous or historic figures who have called Maysville home at some point in their lives, including explorers Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, Civil War general Albert Sidney Johnston, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stanley Reed, baseball Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel and Miss America 2000 Heather French Henry, now the co-owner – with her husband, former Lt. Gov. Steve Henry – of the Clooney house.
   "We’ve always relied on our history," said Giffin.
   That history dates to the earliest days of Kentucky. Limestone Landing on the Ohio River - which later became Maysville - was a key northern gateway into the Bluegrass in the 1780s. Nearby Washington, now a part of the city, was a prosperous economic center in the late 18th century, and Maysville became an important and busy riverport in the mid-19th century.
   You can discover that history around every corner in Maysville.
   Begin at the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, which tells the city and region’s history with detailed dioramas, artifacts, photographs and documents.
   The newest addition to the center is a large collection of miniatures donated by Maysville native Kathleen Savage Browning. The museum recently underwent a $4.5 million expansion and renovation to house the collection.
   Displayed in the 3,300-square-foot gallery includes are miniature houses, room boxes, vignettes, furniture and dolls built to 1/12th scale, meaning one inch equals one foot. The houses range from a 16th-century English pub to a 1950s five-story apartment house to a large replica of Spencer House, the ancestral home of the late Princess Diana.
   "I cannot put into words what it is like in detail and intricacy," Giffin said. "In Spencer House, if it is suppose to be an oil painting, it is an oil painting; if china it is china, if gold leaf is in the house, gold leaf is in the collection.
   "You walk in and say, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ It is the wow factor."
   The museum center also includes an art gallery with work by local and regional artists.
   Talented artists have also traced Maysville history on the sides of its flood-wall, with nine large detailed murals depicting scenes from a 16th century Native American bison hunt to a 1920s Maysville streetscape.
   Take a stroll down Maysville’s charming three-lined streets and absorb another kind of artistry that traces the city’s heritage.
   Well preserved 19th- and early 20th century buildings, churches and houses display a wide variety of architectural styles.  Mechanics Row — seven row houses on West Third Street — combine Federal style with a New Orleans influence with descending parapets, iron balconies and grille work, chimney pots and Mansard rooflines.
   Buildings also help tell the story in Old Washington, a collection of historic buildings from the former town where costumed guides give tours from spring through fall.
   "Our historic tour includes seven buildings plus a video," Giffin said. "One of the neatest things about Old Washington is the community grew and became sophisticated very fast. So there is everything from original 1780s log cabins to Federal mansions.  Within a quarter mile, you can see how civilization progressed.
   Because of its location just across the Ohio River from the free state of Ohio, Maysville played an important role in the Underground Railroad, the informal system of people who helped slaves escape from the South.
   The National Underground Railroad Museum is located downtown in a former safe house and includes slave artifacts, the original kitchen and quarters where fugitive slaves were hidden under a false floor.
   The Harriet Beecher Stowe Slavery to Freedom Museum in Old Washington also contains information about the Underground Railroad.

By Herb Sparrow
Special To Kentucky Farm Bureau