A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

when she was in medical school and I was in high school-we rode the same street car every morning. Shebecame a doctor after she graduated. Another narrow brick building was built between the Hollywood andPartymillers. Both buildings have since been torn down-the parking lot for LaRosa’s is there today. Gonealso is the brick station that stood beside the traction tracks (it dated back to the days when the tractionline had been a railroad). That building had been a Marsh Pontiac and then a Porshe-Audi dealership forsome years.Just behind Vail’s feed store was another small building where Lou Eiler had a poultry store forsome time-later he sold antique’s in it (some of my antiques were bought there). Added on to McNutt’sHardware Store was a metal building where some kind of work was done. There were no parking lots inCollege Hill as there are today. After Vail’s Feed Store was torn down there was a filling station there forsome years. The old Simpson house just south of the dead end of Salvia is gone and parking lots of thePresbyterian Church have replaced it. Llanfair Terrace stands where the old pastures were on LlanfairAvenue. The Larchwood Apartments have replaced the Bauhmann house on Larch. On Belmont newhouses were built in what had been the Pounsford front yard. Their old home on the hill above Belmontwas torn down-their carriage house now serving as a church property. A house was built down in theravine where the traction tracks had gone under Glenview Avenue. The bridge is gone-the area filled inand a railroad built over it as was done with the one on Groesbeck Road.On North Bend road just east of the Wigwam, the old Matie Bowman home, with its lovely old treeswas raised and now an apartment complex stands there. The library and Pleasant Hill School havereplaced the old Crawford Home. Most of the north side of that street is now apartment buildings. Thepasture lands along the east side of Lantana have been taken up with apartment complexes. SavannahAvenue was the first street leading north from North Bend Road, it having been the driveway to theEphraim Brown house. Later Cary was extended northward and Heitzler and other streets added. The newCollege Hill Plaza has replaced almost everything in the block between Cedar and Llanfair except thebank building.I loved to walk and every afternoon would walk around College Hill. Sometimes I would follow the‘Loop’-Hamilton, Belmont, Oakwood, and North Bend-the way street cars ran. I used to enjoy looking atthe lovely homes on those streets. I dreamed of what life had been for the people in those homes in yearsgone by. My interest in history was already developing.On the west side of Hamilton Avenue on the southwest corner of Cedar was a grove of chestnuttress-we used to go back a path in it to look for the nuts. Next to it back almost to the school fence was alarge frame house owned by Deters, the plumber. In front of it was built a smaller house (which was usedas a police substation before the present mall was built). Mr. Deter’s daughter lived in this little house.Next south was the Waldman house. He was a painter and his daughter was our seventh grade teacher.Next south was another frame house-I never knew who lived there. Next was a large brick building wherethe Duennes’ lived. I Knew Dorothy. Then came the big brick building known as the Augsburger building(5811-5813 Hamilton Avenue), now gone. Last was a big metal building used to store feed and grain.Across Llanfair were two very old frame cottages. One was torn down when the former filling station wasbuilt, the other-the Solomon Howard-was moved. Next south was the charming little shingled cottagebuilt by Newbold for his son. There was a small ravine in the front yard and a little footbridge was built tocross it.Coming back to Cedar Avenue west of the chestnut grove were two houses before you reached theschool property 23 Katie Forbes (Schevene Neuzel) lived in the first one. A few years ago it was moved to(1629) Linden Drive. Past the school grounds were several large frame houses, one was that of the23 1669 Cedar Ave. was the home of Samuel F. Cary. Built about 1840 it is a square frame house, 2.5 stories high with a deep from porch.At the turn of the century, the prominent College Hill residents. Dr. and Mrs. Jacob Ferris lived in a large frame house at the southwest corner of Cedar and HamiltonPike. Dr. Ferris and E. N. Wild owned 3 acres of Hamilton Avenue and around 1900 subdivided it into lots, requiring a cash payment of $25.00 per lot and the balancein monthly payments. In 1903, the Ferris’ divorced. Mrs. Ferriss built a five room cottage at 1615 Cedar. That same year Mrs. Ferris left College Hill snd sold thehouse to Katherine and George Forbes. Their daughter was Katherine Forbs Schevene Neuzel.The second Forbes house referred to was 1714 Cedar Ave. Charles Henry Forbes, carpenter and wagon maker, moved a two room log cabin from North Bend Road tothis site ca 1867. This house stayed in the Forbes family until 1965 when it was purchased from the estate of Alice Forbes Fox, Charle’s daughter. It was demolishedin 1968.233