Buena Vista
Information comes from research done by Campbell County Historian Margaret Strebel Hartman
Buena Vista was the first major residential development beyond the area of
Newport platted as out lots in the 1790s. Prior to the 1840s, the south
side of 6th (Jefferson) Street had marked the limit of the city's division into
house lots east of Columbia, aside from four blocks of house lots laid out on
the south side of 7th (Mayo), west of Isabella.
About 1846, General James Taylor surveyed 740 lots between Monmouth and Central (Cabot) from Ringgold (8th) south to modern 12th (Liberty). He named the tract after the remarkable victory just won by his cousin, Zachary Taylor's badly outnumbered American army against Santa Anna in the Mexican War.
Buena Vista would be an area of high population density, because the vast majority of its lots measured just on fourteenth of an acre. It would accommodate approximately 4125 new residents. Buena Vista nevertheless included 20 quarter acre lots and two half acre lots between 8th and 9th on Monmouth, York and Columbia streets. That particular block of York Street would emerge as one of Newport's most fashionable neighborhoods in the 1860s as wealthy professionals and public servants built imposing Greek Revival mansions on sprawling lots.
Among the prominent York Street homeowners living between 8th and 9th were Mayor Edmund W Hawkins, Washington J Berry, attorney for legal matters on Buena Vista and cousin to Colonel James Taylor; Dr. J Q A Foster, city postmaster, August Constans, owner of the Newport Brewery, and Colonel William Whistler, retired Army veteran from the War of 1812 and uncle of painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
When James Taylor Sr. died in 1848, he left another 120 acres of his property along the Licking to be laid off into lots as a further addition to Newport. Since it bordered Buena Vista, this area also became known by that name.
Buena Vista was eventually annexed into Newport.