A Northern Kentucky library will host a safe-opening ceremony Thursday morning. The hope is it will shine some light on local history. The 19th century safe was owned by the Covington-Cincinnati Bridge Company.
Mike Blum with the Kenton County Public Library says the company collected tolls from everyone crossing the Roebling Suspension Bridge "for about the first hundred years of its existence. There were no credit cards or fancy e-cards back then. It was a cash and coin business. It turns out they had an enormous amount of money running through that business," he says.
When the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet bought the Suspension Bridge in the 1950s, the safe went along. Blum says it hasn't been opened since then.
"The safe is ready to open. We used Acme Locksmith in Covington. They were the same guys who did the safe at the Carew Tower," Blum says.
In July 2018, a safe at the Netherland Plaza got a lot of media attention but yielded only a few magnetic keycards.
Blum says the library's historians will be on hand to look over anything that's inside the old bridge company's safe. He says if there is anything good inside, it'll be put on public display.
"There may be something in the safe. We're going to have our local history and genealogy staff there, ready to pull whatever is in the safe out, and put it on public display. We'll have some historians on site too, who'll take a look."
Blum says the safe will be cracked Thursday morning at 10 a.m., at the Covington branch of the Kenton County Public Library.
