Cincinnati: The Queen City

CINCINNATI
The Queen City,
225th Anniversary Edition
Original text by Daniel Hurley
Updated content by Paul A. Tenkotte
A publication of Cincinnati Museum Center
HPNbooks
A division of Lammert Incorporated
San Antonio, Texas

Cincinnati looking west, Mt. Adams in the foreground. Martin Rogers, “An October Morning,” from National Geographic Magazine (1977). Photograph.
GIFT OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.
Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2014 Cincinnati Museum Center
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing
from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to HPNbooks, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790, www.hpnbooks.com.
ISBN: 978-1-939300-72-0
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2014951748
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Cincinnati: The Queen City, 225th Anniversary Edition
authors: Daniel Hurley
Paul Tenkotte, Ph.D.
cover illustration: The Public Landing by Otto Onken (c. 1815-1897)
contributing writer for “Sharing the Heritage”: Joe Goodpasture
HPNbooks
president: Ron Lammert
project manager: Wynn Buck
administration: Donna M. Mata, Melissa G. Quinn
book sales: Dee Steidle
production: Colin Hart, Glenda Tarazon Krouse, Evelyn Hart,
Tony Quinn, Christopher Mitchell
All images in this book, unless otherwise noted, are from the collections of the Cincinnati History Library and Archives at Cincinnati
Museum Center.

CONTENTS
4 FOREWORD
6 CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER
8 CHAPTER 1 Taming the Ohio Wilderness, 1788-1830
30 CHAPTER 2 Of Visions and Dreams, 1830-1880
62 CHAPTER 3 Scramble Up the Hills, 1870-1914
86 CHAPTER 4 New Ways to Cope, 1914-1945
111 CHAPTER 5 My Neighborhood and Our City, 1945-1988
130 CHAPTER 6 Return to the River and Our Heritage, 1988-2013
163 FOR FURTHER READING
169 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
170 INDEX
178 SHARING THE HERITAGE
257 SPONSORS
259 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
C O N T E N T S
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C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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FOREWORD
Welcome to the 225th anniversary edition of Cincinnati: The Queen City. First published in 1982, and updated in 1988 and 1996,
Cincinnati Museum Center and our Cincinnati History Library & Archives provide in this book a concise historical overview of how our
city and the surrounding region have arrived at the 225th anniversary. The narrative story of our region spans over two centuries which
have seen countless economic cycles, various forms of city government, expansions and contractions of physical development, waves of
immigration and migration, cultural and racial struggles, regional competition and impact on a national and international level.
It is our hope that this volume will help you develop a greater insight and understanding and sense of community pride. Readers will
gain a sense of place and an appreciation of how our geography has shaped our economy and continues to be essential to our region’s
livability, both through physical beauty and proximity to great community assets. You will learn the stories of the many people who have
been life-sized heroes, building our region in dedicated and understated ways. You will better understand how our ancestors, as well as
citizens of today, felt a sense of purpose and are committed to making a difference in our neighborhoods, schools, religious organizations
and our region. You will undoubtedly feel a deep sense of history and marvel at our industrial, financial, artistic and civic roots that give
us all a sense of Cincinnati’s staying power. We hope that this look back at our city and her region will inspire the next generation of
entrepreneurs, visionaries and leaders.
Cincinnati Museum Center is home to the legacy institutions of the Museum of Natural History & Science (founded in 1818) and the
Cincinnati Historical Society (established 1831), plus a relative upstart, the Duke Energy Children’s Museum (established 1991). All have
joined forces and have adaptively repurposed our iconic Cincinnati Union Terminal train station (completed in 1933). The role of this
merged organization is to provide world-class learning experiences for children and adults by revealing the richness of our past, present
and future. The mission is to inspire people of all ages to learn more about the world through science, regional history, and educational,
engaging and meaningful experiences.
Cincinnati: The Queen City, 225th Anniversary Edition features the profiles of over forty companies and organizations that help make this
region successful. It also showcases the depth of the historical collections at the Cincinnati History Library & Archives, including historic
photographs, archival documents, books, maps, and other visual materials. These important resources are maintained and preserved for
use by professional and amateur researchers alike, available to classrooms, scout troops, curious individuals, media reporters, college
students, business leaders and national and international researchers.
We hope you will enjoy this fascinating look at 225 years of Greater Cincinnati history and understand the remarkable heritage of our
Queen City of the West.
Douglass W. McDonald
President & CEO
Cincinnati Museum Center
Paul Briol, The Fountain at Night (c. 1935). Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
F O R E W O R D
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CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER
Cincinnati Museum Center is a one-ofa-kind,
multi-museum complex housed in
Cincinnati Union Terminal, a historic Art
Deco train station and National Historic
Landmark. Museum Center’s major offerings
at Union Terminal include the Cincinnati
History Museum, the Cincinnati History
Library & Archives, the Duke Energy
Children’s Museum, the Museum of Natural
History & Science and the Robert D. Lindner
Family OMNIMAX ® Theater. Museum Center
is the largest cultural institution in the city of
Cincinnati, with more than 1.4 million
visitors per year.
Our permanent and temporary exhibits are
supported and complemented by a state-ofthe-art
collections and research facility, the
Geier Collections & Research Center,
educational programs, professional development
programs for teachers, day and
overnight camps, public lectures and
programs, tours of historic sites and
community-wide cultural events. Museum
Center’s collections encompass more than 1.8
million specimens, artifacts, art works, books,
documents, and photographs and are
integrated into our exhibition, research, and
education programs.
In addition, Museum Center has been
working with our collaborative partner, the
Ohio Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, to
protect the Richard and Lucile Durrell Edge
of Appalachia Preserve System for more than
fifty years. The Preserve is the largest privately
Top: The Cincinnati Union Terminal
Rotunda (c. 1940).
CMC PHOTOGRAPH.
Middle: The Cincinnati History Museum.
CMC PHOTOGRAPH.
Bottom: The Eulett Center.
CMC PHOTOGRAPH.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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owned protected natural area in Ohio at
16,000 acres. It provides critical habitats
for more than 100 rare plant and animal
species. The Eulett Center is Museum Center’s
research and education facility at the Preserve.
It has increased staff research capabilities,
greatly expanded opportunities for
educational programming and has enhanced
the Preserve’s relationship with the Adams
County community.
In 2012, Cincinnati Museum Center grew,
adding The National Underground Railroad
Freedom Center to our corporate structure.
The National Underground Railroad Freedom
Center sits on the banks of the Ohio River and
since 2004 has positively impacted millions of
people locally and globally, by revealing
stories about freedom’s heroes, from the
era of the Underground Railroad to
contemporary times, and inspiring people to
take courageous steps for freedom today.
In 2009, Cincinnati Museum Center
received the National Medal for Museum and
Library Service, the nation’s highest honor for
museums and libraries. The award, given by
the Institute of Museum and Library Services,
recognizes institutions for extraordinary civic,
educational, economic, environmental, and
social contributions to their communities.
In 2012, Cincinnati Museum Center
achieved accreditation from the American
Alliance of Museums (AAM), the highest
national recognition for a museum.
Accreditation signifies excellence to the
museum community, to governments,
funders, outside agencies and to the museumgoing
public. Of the nation’s estimated 17,500
museums, 778 (only 4.5 percent) are
currently accredited. Cincinnati Museum
Center is one of only 16 institutions
nationally honored with both the IMLS award
as well as AAM Accreditation.
Above: The Museum of Natural History
& Science.
CMC PHOTOGRAPH.
Bottom, left: The Duke Energy
Children’s Museum.
CMC PHOTOGRAPH.
Bottom, right: Cincinnati Museum Center
receives more than 1.4 million visitors
per year.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL E. KEATING.
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Daniel Boone pointing to the rich and fertile Kentucky wilderness in 1769. James Pierce Barton, Kentucky Landscape (c. 1832). Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF MRS. W. R. THRALL.
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CHAPTER 1
T A M I N G T H E O H I O W I L D E R N E S S , 1 7 8 8 - 1 8 3 0
In the 1780s southwest Ohio lay at the
edge of the Northwest Territory, America’s
newest frontier. The frontier has always
excited the American imagination. Dreams
about limitless riches and fears of
terrifying dangers were always just beyond
the next mountain range. On the frontier,
the democratic, self-reliant American
identity was supposedly forged.
In most popular accounts of the
American frontier, the dominant figure is
the lonely pioneer who clears a small farm
in the vast, howling wilderness. In these
versions, cities appear only after years of
rural development as the result of natural,
unplanned population growth at certain
critical locations.
This myth neglects the fact that some
settlers also carried plans for cities into the
wilderness. The early Virginians named
their first counties “James City County”
and “Charles City County.” The Puritans
immediately set about laying out and
developing Boston into a seaport city.
Philadelphia’s phenomenal success led
dozens of other city builders to copy
William Penn’s straightforward plan for
laying out whole cities in a grid pattern
years before streets could be built. Cities
were not accidents. They were the
outgrowth of conscious decisions, and
every American frontier attracted men
who planned cities as well as those who
planted wheat and corn. The
settlers who ventured into southwest Ohio
in 1788 included those who carried this
tradition with them.
At the end of the War for Independence
and the signing of the Peace of Paris in
1783, Americans turned their attention
westward to the newly acquired lands of
the Northwest Territory. Since 1774
settlers had been streaming across the
mountains into Kentucky, and by 1788 it
was already home for 70,000 settlers. Few
ventured north of the Ohio River, however.
This uneven settlement pattern partially
reflected more effective British control of
the area, but more importantly, it resulted
from fierce Indian resistance to white
encroachment. Kentucky settlers termed
southwest Ohio the “Miami
slaughterhouse.” Already angry over the
loss of their hunting grounds in Kentucky,
the Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot and
Delaware Indians were determined that
they would not be pushed farther west by
new waves of white settlers.
The people of the United States and
the new government, operating under the
Articles of Confederation, were equally
determined that these new lands would
become an integral part of the emerging
American empire. Since 1763 British
policy had kept the trans-Allegheny West
closed to American settlement in an effort
to keep peace with the Indian tribes long
loyal to the French. But thousands of
residents of the seaboard states saw
wealth and opportunity in the richness of
the West; the impoverished American
government saw the opportunity to raise
much-needed revenue to cancel its
Revolutionary War debts.
The equal determination of white
Americans to settle the West and of native
Americans to protect their hunting and
home lands propelled the nation into yet
another chapter of what had already
become a familiar and tragic story. At first
the United States government attempted to
dictate to the Indian tribes on the grounds
that, as allies of the defeated British, they
had forfeited all rights to their lands
between the Allegheny Mountains and the
Mississippi River. The government was
willing, however, to allow them to
withdraw behind a treaty line that
would immediately open most of Ohio to
white settlement. Yet, as Pennsylvania
William Louis Sonntag (attr.), View of the Ohio River at Maysville, Kentucky (c. 1850). Oil on canvas.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF HELEN S. KNIGHT.
C H A P T E R 1
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Cincinnati is at the location of the Bever Ponds on John Mitchell’s Map of the British and French Dominions in
North America (London, 1755), plates 2 and 6.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
Congressman James Duane, serving as
chairman of the Committee on Indian
Affairs, pointed out, any line was only
temporary. It was assumed that the Indians
would continue to retreat as white
settlements advanced, and that their
numbers would decline as they were
exposed to new, “white-man” diseases such
as cholera and smallpox. But, if the Indians
blocked the path west, new treaties would
remove them so Americans could settle all
the lands to the Mississippi.
Under this harsh policy, three treaties
were dictated to the Indians of the
Northwest Territory between 1784 and
1786. The refusal of many of the Indians
to participate in making these treaties
and their immediate, violent resistance
soon demonstrated that military action
would be necessary to support the policy.
To a government burdened with debt
and able to field an army of only 700, this
was a sobering prospect. In 1787 an
alternative policy began to emerge. Its goal
of clearing all the land for white settlement
remained unchanged, but its methods
were different. Abandoning the theory that
the Indians had lost their claims to the
land through defeat, the government now
proposed to pay them for it. In the long
run it was presumed that this policy would
be cheaper. This subtle shift in tactics
made no impression on the Indians. They
would resist.
In the spring of 1786, Benjamin Stites, a
Revolutionary War veteran from New
Jersey, left Redstone (now Brownsville),
Pennsylvania, and floated down the
Monongahela and Ohio rivers with a
boatload of supplies to the young
settlement of Limestone (Maysville),
Kentucky, to trade with the settlers. From
Limestone he traveled southwest to
Washington, where he found the settlers
excited after an Indian raid in which they
had lost their best horses. Stites formed a
posse and chased the Indians across
Kentucky, over the Ohio River and up the
Little Miami Valley. Nearing the headwaters
of the Little Miami, the posse abandoned
the chase and proceeded west, crossing the
plateau to the Great Miami River. Working
its way down the river, the posse reached
the Ohio and turned toward home.
Stites was impressed by the rich, fertile
lands of southwest Ohio. He soon traveled
to New York, where the Continental
Congress was in session, to interest land
speculators in Ohio. He captured the
attention of John Cleves Symmes, a war
veteran and member of Congress from
New Jersey. In the fall, Symmes floated
down the Ohio as far as Louisville to see
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Miami Land Warrant No. 1. Issued by John Cleves Symmes to Benjamin Stites on December 17, 1787.
GIFT OF MRS. HAROLD V. ORR.
John Cleves Symmes after a portrait by
Charles Willson Peale. Oil on canvas.
PERMANENT LOAN FROM HAMILTON COUNTY.
for himself the beautiful Ohio Valley that
Stites had described. Symmes returned
with a dream of establishing a trade center
on the banks of the water highway and of
amassing a fortune through the sale of the
surrounding land. He immediately set
about organizing a land company and
negotiating for the purchase of the Miami
territory from the government. After
opening offices in several eastern cities, he
began to advertise the strategically located
Ohio land.
Symmes’ efforts were timely. Even
while a new constitution was being
drafted in Philadelphia in July 1787,
Congress adopted the Northwest
Ordinance that, among other provisions,
facilitated the sale and settlement of the
lands between the Alleghenies and the
Mississippi. People were streaming into
the lands bordering the Ohio River in ever
larger numbers. Between February and
June 1788, almost 5,000 people came
down the Ohio in search of new land. In
April of that year, the Ohio Company
brought 58 settlers to the site of Marietta,
where they established the first permanent
white settlement north of the Ohio River.
On October 15, 1788, Congress granted
Symmes a charter to develop the tract of
land referred to as the Miami Purchase. It
lay between the Great and Little Miami
Rivers, bounded on the south by the Ohio
River and a yet to be determined line
between the rivers on the north. Symmes
immediately began selling pieces of the
tract, which he erroneously believed
would encompass one million acres, to
other investors—including 20,000 acres
along the Ohio and Little Miami rivers to
Benjamin Stites.
Stites organized a party of 26 settlers
from New Jersey and Pennsylvania
and led them west. On November 18,
1788, they stopped at a site about one
mile west of the mouth of the Little Miami
River, near present-day Lunken Airport,
where the settlers hastily built a
blockhouse and several log cabins. They
named this first settlement in the Miami
country “Columbia.”
A second settlement in the territory
was organized by Matthias Denman,
Colonel Robert Patterson (the founder of
Lexington, Kentucky) and John Filson (a
surveyor and historian). Denman was a
New Jersey speculator who had been
interested for years in the Northwest
Territory. Based only on what he could
learn from a map, Denman selected a tract
of 747 acres directly across from the
mouth of the Licking River that flowed
north out of Kentucky into the Ohio
River. After making an initial survey and
J O H N
C L E V E S
S Y M M E S
( 1 7 4 2 - 1 8 1 4 )
John Cleves Symmes was born
in Southold, Long Island. An
ambitious person, he quickly rose
through the ranks of colonial society.
He served with the New Jersey militia
in the Revolutionary War, as associate
judge of the Supreme Court of New
Jersey and as a member of the
Continental Congress. In 1788,
Symmes was appointed a judge for
the Northwest Territory and began
negotiations to buy one million acres
of land between the Great and Little
Miami Rivers north from the Ohio
River. In his haste to settle the
purchase, Symmes often sold land
before establishing legal claim. Most
of his personal property was
eventually sold to satisfy suits filed
over disputed titles. He died
penniless and disillusioned.
contributing the name “Losantiville” to
the site, Filson disappeared into the
wilderness and was never seen again.
Israel Ludlow replaced Filson both as
surveyor and partner in the venture.
C H A P T E R 1
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F R O N T I E R S M E N
The adventures and dangers of frontier life intrigued people living in more established
communities along the east coast and in Europe. In 1832 Karl Bodmer, a young Swiss artist
who later became well known for his etchings and treatment of natural life, visited the
United States with Maximilian of Neuwied. During their tour, Bodmer sketched scenes
depicting stories he heard of Ohio and Kentucky frontier life.
Among the most famous of the frontiersmen was Simon Kenton (1755-1836), who
fled west in 1771 from his native Virginia believing he had killed a rival in a love
affair. He used the name Simon Butler and worked as a scout for more than 10 years
before learning that his boyhood antagonist was living. Bodmer sketched an adventure
in Kenton’s life while he was still using the name of Butler. It depicts Kenton’s capture,
in 1778, by the Indians for stealing their horses. As part of his torture, Kenton was
Simon Kenton. Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF ROBERT CLARKE.
Karl Bodmer, Simon Butler (1852). Lithograph.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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strapped, facing backward, on an unbroken horse. The Indians
freed the horse, which then raced through heavy underbrush
trying to dislodge its rider.
In another sketch Bodmer illustrated the story of the capture of
Elizabeth and Frances Callaway (daughters of Richard Callaway)
and Jemima Boone (daughter of Daniel Boone) on July 14, 1776.
Together with Jean Francois Millet, Bodmer prepared a lithograph
of the sketch for publication in an edition of The Last of the
Mohicans. The creators of the lithograph were French. Hence,
the foliage and clothing of the girls were not authentic. An
unknown American artist based his painting, Young Girls Fleeing
From Indians, on the Millet-Bodmer lithograph.
Young Girls Fleeing From Indians (after Karl Bodmer). Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF PETER G. THOMSON.
C H A P T E R 1
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A General Map of the River Ohio from Victor Collot’s A Journey in North America...Atlas. (Paris, 1826), plate 10.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
On December 28, 1788, a party of 11
families and 24 men led by Patterson
arrived at Losantiville. Israel Ludlow, in
an effort to bring an element of eastern
order to the frontier town, laid out streets
on the Philadelphia grid plan. He drew up
lots for houses, vegetable gardens and
cornfields, and the settlers began the hard
and hazardous business of carving a town
out of the Ohio frontier.
Little more than a month later, the party
of John Cleves Symmes pulled ashore at a
spot east of the mouth of the Great Miami
River. By this time cold weather had
arrived in earnest. Symmes and his family
spent an uncomfortable winter living in a
shed that opened to the south and faced a
continuously burning fire. During these
months Symmes laid out the town of
North Bend at the site of his landing.
The lives of the early settlers in these three
villages revolved around the basic tasks of
clearing land and providing food and shelter
for their families. From the beginning, too,
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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protection against the Indians was a primary
concern. Although no concerted attack came
that first year, sporadic raids kept the threat
alive. Symmes described the effect on the settlers:
“I am mortified to see people running
away from these settlements, merely because
no care is taken by their superiors to save
them and their families from the rage of the
savages—they feel themselves abandoned
to destruction.”
The backers of each settlement shared
another common concern: they wanted to
establish the supremacy of their village over
the other two. At first Columbia grew faster
than Losantiville or North Bend. Based on
the ample yields of the fertile lands of Turkey
Bottom, Columbia became the granary and
trading center of the area. Columbia,
however, had a fatal flaw—it lay on such low
ground that it flooded regularly. Many of its
settlers soon abandoned the settlement.
Symmes harbored grand visions for
North Bend. He believed that its closeness
to the Great Miami would enable it to
control the trade of the rich farmland of the
interior, which Symmes considered the
“Egypt on the Miami.” Symmes attempted
to gain control of the trade of both the Great
Miami and the Ohio rivers by laying out a
second town, Miami, that would connect
North Bend across a 1½-mile strip of land
to the banks of the Great Miami River. Like
Columbia, natural limitations checked
North Bend’s potential. The hilly character
of the town site prevented easy expansion.
Losantiville, the middle village, had
certain advantages over the others. As in
Columbia and North Bend, the riverfront
offered the hope for controlling the trade of
the Ohio. Losantiville, however, was like a
giant amphitheater. The flatland along the
river, the “bottom,” stretched back 800 feet
to approximately where Third Street in
An American Log-house from Victor Collot’s A Journey in North America...Atlas. (Paris, 1826), plate 16.

Fort Washington Garrison. The selection of Losantiville as the site for a fort helped the settlement eclipse those
nearby. Initially built in 1789 and garrisoned with 300 soldiers, the fort was the site of training of soldiers for Indian
battles. Following the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, the security provided by the fort was a less significant factor in
the community’s growth. The garrison was moved across the river in 1804 and the fort itself was dismantled in 1808.
Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF CLIFFORD A. WILTSEE.
In the “Trenton Circular,” John Cleves Symmes
advertised land for sale in Ohio prior to Congressional
approval of his purchase. John Cleves Symmes, To the
Respectable Public (Trenton, N.J., 1787), p.1.
downtown Cincinnati is today. At that
point, the ground rose sharply to the “hill,”
a 4.5-square-mile, semi-circular plateau
above the flood plains. Losantiville also sat
immediately across from the mouth of the
Licking River, an important artery flowing
out from the more developed territory of
Kentucky. It was this strategic location that
persuaded the government late in 1789 to
erect Fort Washington at Losantiville. The
fort was obviously important in providing
security, but even more importantly, during
the next six years of warfare with the
Indians, it stimulated trade in the village.
On January 2, 1790, General Arthur St.
Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory,
arrived to inspect Fort Washington.
Although he approved of the fort and the
village surrounding it, he did not like the
name Losantiville. He soon changed it to
Cincinnati in honor of the Society of the
Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary
War officers to which he belonged.
Between 1790 and 1795, Fort
Washington provided the operational base
for campaigns against the Indian tribes of the
Northwest Territory. During the first three
years, these campaigns were disastrous. Both
in numbers and training, the armies that
operated out of Fort Washington were
inadequate for the task. In addition, their
commanders were not equal to the leader of
the Indians, the Miami chief, Little Turtle. In
the span of 13 months—from October 1790
to November 1791—Little Turtle won two
major battles against his white foes.
In the fall of 1790, General Josiah
Harmar set out from Fort Washington with
320 army regulars and 1,133 Kentucky
volunteers. The army marched to the
headwaters of the Maumee River and
burned several deserted Indian villages and
the surrounding fields of nearly ripe corn.
Believing that the Indians outnumbered his
forces, Harmar began a retreat to
Cincinnati. However, he permitted Colonel
John Hardin with 400 men to pursue the
Indians. The Indians attacked and defeated
Hardin’s forces before they could rejoin
Harmar for the retreat south.
The following fall, St. Clair set out with
a force of 2,700 men. By the time the army
reached the headwaters of the Wabash
River, desertions had reduced its ranks to
1,400. On November 4, 1791, Little Turtle
attacked and killed 613 whites and
wounded 237 others. This was the heaviest
level of casualties ever inflicted on a U.S.
army by Indians. The Indians remember
this victory as “the Battle of a Thousand
Slain.” The defeat shook the leadership of
the Miami Purchase and the United States
government. On January 12, 1792, in
reporting the news of the defeat, Symmes
wrote Elias Boudinot, his business partner:
I had no Idea that our army would
have been destroyed in the course of three
hours, for it was impossible for anyone to
suppose that the army was at any time to
be crowded together on a few acres of
ground and liable to be surrounded by
half their number of Indians, whose every
shot could not fail of killing or wounding
three or four of our men; while our platoons
in returning their fire, three times in
four, saw not an Indian they being hid
behind trees, but still our men fired on
mechanically at they knew not what.
After this defeat, St. Clair was replaced as
commander of the army by General “Mad
Anthony” Wayne. Wayne, convinced that
C H A P T E R 1
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N A M I N G
C I N C I N N A T I
Victor Zappenfeld, Cincinnatus At His Plow. Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF THE CINCINNATUS ASSOCIATION.
Revolutionary War Scene: Soldier Calling a Farmer from His Plow (c. 1876). Strobridge and Company
chromolithograph.
GIFT OF MRS. GILBERT BETTMAN.
General Arthur St. Clair, the first governor
of the Northwest Territory, came to inspect
Fort Washington and the settlement of Losantiville
one year after the town was established.
He objected to the odd name that John Filson,
a partner and surveyor for the development,
had given to the town. Losantiville was a
pedantic compilation of Latin and French syllables.
From Latin, Filson drew “os” meaning
“mouth” and “anti” meaning “across from.”
From French he drew “ville” meaning “town.”
“L” represented either the French definite article
or the first letter of the Licking River. The
composite name meant “town opposite the
mouth of the Licking.”
General St. Clair renamed the settlement
“Cincinnati” in honor of the Society of the
Cincinnati, a newly established association
of Revolutionary War officers. He was a
founding member of the society and the current
president of the state society of Pennsylvania.
The society had taken its name from
Cincinnatus, the citizen soldier whom the
idealistic and peace-loving officers adopted
as a role model.
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a patrician
farmer of ancient Rome who was
pressed into military leadership to save the
republic upon two occasions. Both times, he
refused to continue as dictator at the war’s
end, returning instead to civilian life.
The image of Cincinnatus at the plow appears
frequently as a symbol for the city in
civic and commercial art of the 19th century.
The name was adopted in 1920 by the
Cincinnatus Association, the voluntary organization
of “Cincinnati’s Citizen Crusaders,”
which was formed to analyze and
recommend possible solutions to significant
civic problems. The Society of the Cincinnati
continues as an organization in the state and
nation. Its members are descendants of
Revolutionary War officers.
another defeat would be disastrous, insisted
that the army be thoroughly prepared
before again engaging the Indians. For 18
months Wayne trained his troops, bolstered
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
16
the size of the army, laid in supplies and
planned strategy. It was during this time of
preparation that William Henry Harrison, a
young ensign and heir to one of the leading
families of Virginia, who had joined the
army, was assigned to Wayne’s command.
He quickly rose to the rank of lieutenant
and became an aide-de-camp.

Arthur St. Clair.
A R T H U R
S T . C L A I R
( 1 7 3 4 - 1 8 1 8 )
St. Clair was a major general in the
Continental Army during the
Revolutionary War, delegate from
Pennsylvania to the Continental
Congress and President of Congress
in 1787. He was appointed governor
of the Northwest Territory in 1787.
In 1790 he came to Fort Washington
and in 1791 was recommissioned in
the army to lead an attack on the
Indians. The battle, held near the
Maumee River in November 1791,
ended in the worst defeat suffered by
the army against the Indians. When
he was removed as governor of the
territory in 1802, St. Clair returned
to Pennsylvania disgraced and
financially ruined.
Jacket, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near
the present site of Toledo. He then pulled
back to his base camp at Fort Greenville.
Over the next several months he brought
in all of the major Indian chiefs to sign
the Treaty of Greenville. The document
drew a line of demarcation that opened
most of Ohio and southern Indiana to
white settlement. The Indians were given
restricted lands, paid for their losses
and allowed to retain their right to
hunt north of the Ohio River. However,
the federal government now proposed
that the Indians be taught to farm,
since farming took less land than hunting.
The government reasoned that the
Indians would benefit through
civilization and the whites would benefit
by purchasing from the Indians all the
“excess” land. Meanwhile, the close
contact with white society would
continue the process of reducing the
Indian population through diseases.
The peace achieved at Greenville could
not solve the Indian question
permanently. The land policy of the white
settlers and the government, particularly
as it was administered under Harrison as
territorial governor of Indiana, constantly
pushed the Indians farther west. This
pressure would lead, in 1811, to a new
round of Indian wars.
For southwest Ohio, however, the
Treaty of Greenville provided a lasting
resolution of the Indian problem. In 1804
the garrison moved from Fort
Washington across the Ohio to Newport,
Kentucky. Newport Barracks became the
army’s western arsenal. In 1808 Fort
Washington was torn down.
Cincinnati turned its energies to its
internal development. As one of its
leading citizens, Jacob Burnet, wrote
many years later, there was much to do:
“Prior to the Treaty of Greenville, which
established the permanent peace between
the United States and the Indians, but few
improvements had been made, of any
description, and scarcely one of a
permanent character.” Although Ludlow
had given the village an orderly
beginning, in 1795 Cincinnati was a mere
Finally, in October 1793, Wayne
marched his troops from Fort
Washington. He built Fort Greenville, 75
miles north of Cincinnati, where the army
spent the winter. After building additional
forts to protect his supply lines, Wayne
marched north on July 28, 1794. On
August 20 he met and defeated the
Indians, led by the Shawnee chief, Blue
Treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795. Manuscript. From the Dandridge Papers.
GIFT OF MARY DANDRIDGE.
C H A P T E R 1
1 7

Anthony Wayne.
A N T H O N Y
W A Y N E
( 1 7 4 5 - 1 7 9 6 )
Wayne succeeded St. Clair as
commander of the western army with
the rank of major general. He began
his distinguished military service
in the Revolutionary War where he
won the sobriquet “Mad Anthony.”
Wayne came to Fort Washington in
1792 and prepared for a campaign
against the Indians. He remained
commander of the army after the
successful Battle of Fallen Timbers
and died in Erie, Pennsylvania.
collection of rude log structures. For its
first several years it had been a garrison
town. The presence of the military
introduced the chaos of soldiers on the
frontier but also stimulated the local
economy. In fact, between the demands of
the armies and the new settlers, little
agricultural surplus remained for
commerce beyond the region.
The end of the Indian wars brought
more settlers who produced ever larger,
more marketable surpluses. Still, for
several years the economy remained
primitive. It depended largely on barter
or credit arranged through millers and
merchants for the exchange of produce
and goods.
Despite the unsophisticated level of
economic exchange, from the beginning
producers and settlers recognized that the
key to the development of the Miami
Purchase lay in learning to exploit the
commercial advantages offered by
Cincinnati’s strategic location along the
Ohio River—the most important water
route connecting seaboard cities and
states with the interior of the new nation.
In the late 18th and early 19th
centuries, the cheapest and most common
means of transportation on the Ohio was
the flatboat, or Kentucky boat. The
flatboat was simply a raft with sides. For
the settlers entering the area, it became a
floating homestead and provided some of
the lumber necessary for a first house. For
the established farmer, the flatboat was
easy to construct and could carry between
40 and 50 tons of produce downstream
to market. Although the flatboat served
well for travel downstream, it could not
go upstream. When the farmer reached
market, the boat could be sold for
lumber or fuel, but the farmer had to
walk home. If his trip had taken him all
the way to New Orleans, the return trek
could take months.
The keelboat was a slight improvement
over the flatboat. With a shallower draft and
a four-inch keel to protect its bottom, a
keelboat could be poled upstream by a crew
of men, although the work was difficult. By
1815 keelboats provided regular service
between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, with
the round trip taking a month.
The arrival of the steamboat New
Orleans on the Ohio River in 1811,
transformed Cincinnati’s future. Since
1802, Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton
had been experimenting with and
introducing steamboats onto America’s
inland waterways. They decided that the
Ohio River was suited for this use, and they
had the New Orleans built. After passing by
In the May 17, 1794 issue of The Centinel of the
North-Western Territory, an ad appeared which
offered bounties for Indian scalps, (Vol. 1, No. 27, p.3).
PURCHASE.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Israel Ludlow, one of the original proprietors of Cincinnati, planned the town of Cincinnati and surveyed the Miami
Purchase. Israel Ludlow (attr). The Town of Cincinnati, capital of the Western Territory (c. 1792). Manuscript.
Cincinnati on October 27, 1811, the New
Orleans proceeded to Louisville but
returned a month later. The distance of 180
miles took only 45 hours against the
current, a feat that caused a great stir
among the residents of the city. For the next
few days, the New Orleans gave people
short trips up and down the river. For the
first time, travel upstream had become as
easy as traveling downstream.
The steamboat’s impact on commerce
was immediate and dramatic. In 1815 it
cost approximately $1.50 to ship a barrel
of flour from Cincinnati to New Orleans.
By 1821 the rate had fallen to $1 a barrel,
and then to about 50 cents by 1831.
Upstream shipping rates declined even
more rapidly so that by 1826 they
equaled downstream rates.
The steamboat did not instantly drive
earlier forms of transportation off the river.
The flatboat continued to be popular, and
the number constructed increased each
year. It remained cheaper for farmers to
float with their goods downriver on a
flatboat, dispose of them and return via
steamboat, thus avoiding the long walk.
The steamboat was important to
Cincinnati’s growth not only because it
facilitated trade, but also because it
provided the city one of its earliest
industries. Cincinnati became the second
most important center for steamboat
construction. The first steamboat built in
Cincinnati was the Vesta, launched in
1817. By 1827, 48 of the 143 steamboats
operating on the western rivers were built
by Cincinnati boatyards.
Because it lay at the midpoint of the most
important water artery of the American
West, by 1820 it was clear that Cincinnati
was fortuitously situated. The city boasted a
population of nearly 10,000. But even more
remarkably, Cincinnati was surrounded by
excellent farmland that already supported
150,000 settlers.
Cincinnati was established at the same
time settlers were pouring into the
Northwest Territory and into the future
states of Mississippi, Alabama and
Louisiana. The northern settlers
demanded goods from the merchants of
the city and provided produce from the
rich Miami Valley. The Southerners,
feverishly establishing cotton plantations
built on slave labor, provided rapidly
expanding markets for the produce of the
north. With the development of the
steamboat, Cincinnatians could exploit
Sketch of a Flat bottom Boat; such as are used to descend the Ohio and the Mississipi [sic] from Victor Collot’s
A Journey in North America...Atlas (Paris, 1826), plate 7.
C H A P T E R 1
1 9

W I L L I A M H E N R Y H A R R I S O N
( 1 7 7 3 - 1 8 4 1 )
William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), the ninth president of the United States and the
first candidate to campaign actively for the office, rose to national prominence because of
his role in the development of the Northwest Territory.
Born on a Virginia plantation, young Harrison came to Fort Washington in 1791. Here
he served as commandant of the fort and as aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne. In
1795 Harrison married Anna Symmes, daughter of John Cleves Symmes, resigned from the
army and moved to the village of North Bend near the Ohio-Indiana border. He became
involved in important Cincinnati business enterprises including the Miami Exporting
Company, Branch Bank of the United States, a distillery and a foundry.
Harrison embarked upon a long and successful political career in 1798 when
President John Adams appointed him secretary of the Northwest Territory and
subsequently governor of the Indiana Territory. As governor, Harrison worked aggressively
to remove Indians through treaties and wars. His 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne met
with unrelenting opposition from Tecumseh and the Prophet, Shawnee warriors and
brothers. Assembling an army of 800 men, Harrison defeated the Indian forces at
Tippecanoe in 1811. In 1813, as commander of the Army of the Northwest during the War
of 1812, Harrison defeated the Indians and their British allies in the Battle of the Thames.
James Henry Beard (attr.), William Henry
Harrison (c. 1840). Oil on canvas.
LOANED BY MRS. DUDLEY V. SUTPHIN.
The center picture of this 1840 presidential Campaign Handkerchief shows William Henry Harrison on horseback,
surrounded by vignettes depicting his career. Fabric.
GIFT OF FANNIE MAE SCOVILL.
Campaign ribbon.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON PAPERS.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
20

Tecumseh was killed, and the dream of a great Indian confederacy
died with him.
Leaving the military once again, Harrison returned to the
Cincinnati area in 1814 to settle his father-in-law’s complicated
estate. He reestablished business and social ties to the city and
accepted prestigious volunteer assignments, serving as vestryman
of Christ Church, trustee of Cincinnati College and president of
the Hamilton County Agricultural Society.
In the next two decades, the “Farmer of North Bend” ran
for various political offices, winning some, losing others. He
served briefly in the state legislature, House of Representatives
and U.S. Senate. During the Jacksonian era, he was forced to
accept the comparatively humble office of clerk of court for
Hamilton County.
Cincinnati was political headquarters for Harrison’s five-year
campaign for the presidency. He was the compromise candidate
for the Whigs in 1840, engaging in a campaign which brought a
new, carnival-like style to American politics. Although Harrison
was manor-born, incumbent president Martin Van Buren’s
aristocratic affectations allowed Old Tippecanoe to appear the
homespun candidate of the common man.
The Panic of 1837, the continued depression and a tactical error
by a Democratic newspaper set the stage for Harrison’s victory. The
opposition press had sneered that if one were to give the candidate
“a barrel of hard cider, and settle a pension of $2,000 a year on
him... he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.” Whig
propagandists gleefully turned this characterization to their
candidate’s advantage. The Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign
produced a wealth of political mementos based on these motifs.
They are remarkable examples of early 19th century advertising art,
and in their numbers and variety attest to the extent to which this
campaign captured the popular imagination.
William Woodruff, North Bend and residence of the late President Harrison, from the Ladies’ Repository (July 1841), p. 193. Engraving.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
C H A P T E R 1
2 1

the river more efficiently and completely
than could have been imagined at the
time of its founding in 1788.
These natural and historical
advantages—one might even say
“accidents”—provided only the potential
for making Cincinnati a great metropolis.
It remained for men, individually and
cooperatively, to transform these
opportunities into achievements. For those
with vision and a keen sense of public
responsibility, it became necessary to
cooperate with like-minded people on an
array of public projects that would develop
the city and would benefit everyone. These
men were urban “boomers” or “boosters.”
Every 19th century city had its
boomers who devised, sponsored and
directed a host of projects to move their
city forward. At the root of their ideology
was an assumption of the need for
constant growth. They perceived the great
and potentially great cities of America as
being in a fierce conflict for urban empire.
The failure of any city to press its
advantages and grow rapidly meant
stagnation and decline. In a country that
seemed to possess no geographical limits,
these visionaries perceived all limits as
signs of weakness and decay.
Young Cincinnati was blessed with an
array of boomers as fruitful in their ideas
and as energetic in their pursuit of those
ideas as any city in the United States.
Timothy Walker, a young Harvardeducated
lawyer and recent arrival in the
city, described the outlook of Cincinnati’s
boomers by ascribing to them the motto
Flatboat. Model built by Charles E. Mappes, 1972.
GIFT OF CHARLES E. MAPPES.
River Scene Showing Flatboat and Two Keelboats from Leland D. Baldwin’s The Keelboat Age on Western
Waters (Pittsburgh, 1941).
REPRINTED, BY PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS.
B O A T M E N
You hear the boatmen extolling their prowess in pushing a pole, and you learn the received opinion, that a “Kentuck” is the best man at a pole,
and a Frenchman at the oar... You are told when you embark, to bring your “plunder” aboard, and you hear about moving “fernenst” the stream...
The manners of the boatmen are as strange as their language. Their peculiar way of life has given origin not only to an appropriate dialect, but
to new modes of enjoyment, riot, and fighting. Almost every boat, while it lies in the harbour has one or more fiddles scraping continually aboard,
to which you often see the boatmen dancing. There is no wonder that the way of life which the boatmen lead... generally plentiful as it respects
food, and always so as it regards whiskey, should always have seductions that prove irresistible to the young people that live near the banks of
the river.
- Timothy Flint, Recollections of the Last Ten Years (Boston, 1826), p. 15.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
22

Construction of the New World was completed at Cincinnati in early 1849. The boat operated mainly
between Cincinnati and New Orleans, with occasional trips to Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Captain William T.
Chamberlin served as her master until his death in December 1849. The New World was retired from service in
1856. Broadside.
GIFT OF MRS. FRANK CALLAHAN.
First Boat Built on the Western Waters, 1812 from James T. Lloyd’s Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory (Cincinnati,
1856), p. 42.
Possunt quia posse videntur—”they can
prevail because they think they can.”
Cincinnati became a “hotbed of projects.”
To one observer, it seemed that “three
citizens never meet but one or other
immediately offers a book and a pen for
subscription to some new project.”
The goal of the Cincinnati boomers
was to make the city the urban center of a
rich and heavily populated Miami Valley.
To accomplish this, an effort was made to
develop the area in a balanced fashion by
keeping in mind the needs of farmers,
merchants, and manufacturers.
Agriculture was the first and most
important reason for the area’s health. The
first generation of farmers in the Miami
Valley produced a variety of products for
sale including flour, bacon, lard, pork,
whiskey, butter, beef, wool, feathers,
beeswax, and linseed oil. The boomers
attempted to attract farmers to Cincinnati
through such projects as building a series
of city-owned marketplaces.
But even more important than
marketplaces, the boomers pushed a host
of transportation schemes to allow the
farmers of the Miami Valley to move their
goods cheaply and efficiently to
Cincinnati where their produce could be
processed and shipped to the South and to
other markets. The building of more and
better roads was one manifestation of this
drive for better transportation. Six main
roads radiated from Cincinnati to
Columbia, Lebanon, Dayton, Hamilton,
Lawrenceburg and North Bend. Even
though federal law returned three percent
of the money raised from the sale of land
to the state for road building, the resulting
$343,000 yielded between 1804 and 1830
proved inadequate. The boomers therefore
promoted the organization of private
turnpike companies.
The real energy of the boomers,
however, was directed at developing
better water transportation routes to the
interior of the state. The Great and Little
Miami Rivers were navigable for only
short distances. Moreover, they
encouraged farmers to bypass Cincinnati.
C H A P T E R 1
2 3

Ephraim Cutler, View of Cincinnati in 1809. Woodcut.
Jacob Burnet.
J A C O B
B U R N E T
( 1 7 7 0 - 1 8 5 3 )
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Jacob
Burnet moved to Cincinnati in 1796
where he practiced law. He served as
judge of the Northwest Territory and
of the Ohio Supreme Court, and was
an author of the state’s first
constitution. Burnet was a cultural
booster who served as president of
such diverse institutions as the
Cincinnati College, Colonization
Society, Astronomical Society and the
Society for the Cultivation of Sacred
Music. An account of his frontier
experience, Notes on the Early
Settlement of the North-western
Territory, was published in 1847.
Glimpse on the Little Miami (from a painting by J. H. Hine). Engraving.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF ELIZABETH WILLIAMS.
The solution was both ancient and
common to many growing cities in the
nation: building canals to augment the
Ohio’s tributaries and to concentrate the
shipment of goods on Cincinnati.
One of the earliest efforts at building
canals focused not on Cincinnati but,
rather, on a canal around the Falls of the
Ohio at Louisville. Although steamboats
could go over the falls when the river was
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
24
high, a portage around the falls was
required most of the time. The falls
tended to make Louisville, rather than
Cincinnati, the commercial focus of the
Ohio Valley. Cincinnati’s merchants and
boomers were determined to remove this
advantage of their rival city.
Beginning as early as 1804, the Indiana
and Kentucky legislatures began
chartering companies to build a canal at
Louisville. In every instance Cincinnatians
strongly supported the efforts. Lack of
capital, construction difficulties, and state
and urban rivalries all delayed the project.
Finally, in 1825 the Louisville and
Portland Canal Company renewed its
charter and began construction. The
project cost $1 million (of which about
$230,000 came from the federal
government) and was completed in 1831.
Meanwhile, Cincinnatians promoted
the most ambitious of all the internal

Chester Harding, Timothy Walker. Oil
on canvas.
GIFT OF ANNIE WALKER.
T I M O T H Y
W A L K E R
( 1 8 0 2 - 1 8 5 6 )
Born in Wilmington, Massachusetts.
Timothy Walker arrived in Cincinnati
in 1830 with a Harvard degree and
training in its law school. In 1833 he
helped establish the Cincinnati Law
School, and in 1843 he became the first
editor of the Western Law Journal. One
of the city’s most prominent lawyers, he
contributed to making Cincinnati a
center for legal reform in the West.
Walker’s Introduction to American Law
was initially published in 1837 and
quickly became the standard text for
beginning law students across the
United States continuing through an
eleventh edition in 1905, fifty years
after his death.
Francis D’Avignon, Daniel Drake (c. 1850).
Lithograph from a daguerreotype by Philip Haas.
D A N I E L
D R A K E
( 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 5 2 )
Dr. Daniel Drake was born in New
Jersey but migrated to Mayslick, Kentucky,
near Maysville in 1788. In 1800
his family sent him to Cincinnati to
study medicine with Dr. William Goforth.
He supplemented his training by
attending the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1819 he obtained a charter and
founded the Ohio Medical College
(now the Medical College of the University
of Cincinnati). During his adult life
he lived intermittently in Cincinnati and
was among the city’s major promoters.
He helped found a circulating library,
museum, debating club, hospital, medical
journal, lunatic asylum, grocery
store and apothecary shop. Drake’s Picture
of Cincinnati, published in 1815, illustrated
his enthusiasm for furthering
the commercial, intellectual and cultural
growth of the city.
Micajah Terrell Williams (1819). Oil
on canvas.
GIFT OF MRS. TERRELL THOMAS AND MRS. A. F. PERRY.
M I C A J A H
T E R R E L L
W I L L I A M S
( 1 7 9 2 - 1 8 4 4 )
Micajah Terrell Williams, a native of
North Carolina, came to Cincinnati in
1812 where he reportedly became one
of the city’s “greatest ornaments.” He
was editor of the Western Spy
newspaper and served as Cincinnati
township trustee, 1817-21, at which
time he entered the state legislature. A
boomer for physical and cultural
improvements, Williams authored the
report that led to construction of the
Miami Canal. In 1828, along with
Nathan Guilford and Samuel Lewis, he
engineered the amendment to the city
charter that provided tax revenue to
establish and maintain a public school
system. Williams was regarded as one
of the most influential and reliable
politicians in the state.
improvement projects, a canal system
linking the Ohio River to the Great Lakes.
Popular enthusiasm during the early
1820s forced the Ohio legislature to order
surveys of possible canal routes. In 1825
it authorized the building of the Ohio
Canal from Portsmouth to Cleveland and
the Miami Canal from Cincinnati to
Dayton. Extension of the Miami Canal
from Dayton to Toledo was discussed, but
it was not authorized until 1831.
Predictably, the state representative from
Hamilton County, Micajah T. Williams, and
other civic leaders lobbied strongly for building
canals. Promoters viewed canals principally
as transportation links that would
provide a way for Cincinnati to get raw
C H A P T E R 1
2 5

Cincinnati and Dayton was completed in
3½ years at a cost of $76,582. Soon after it
opened in January 1829, newspaper editors
declared the canal a success. They pointed
out that it had reduced freight rates and
increased the volume of produce brought
into Cincinnati not only from the
immediate vicinity but from the whole
Miami Valley. According to one local
newspaper, in one week more than 575
tons of produce were brought to the city:
The cost of transporting the whole
amount for a distance not exceeding 25
miles was $2,800 and it only took 10
boats, 60 men, and 30 boys three days to
do the job. By comparison, to bring a similar
amount by wagon the same distance,
it would take 575 wagons, 2,340 horses,
and 575 men. And the cost would have
been $7,200.
materials from the agrarian interior of the
state. Initially they would bolster the city’s importance
as a commercial center where agricultural
and eastern manufactured products
would be exchanged. More gradually the
agricultural products and commercial activity
would fuel Cincinnati’s growth as a manufacturing
center as well.
In July 1825 groundbreaking
ceremonies for the Miami Canal were held
in Middletown. The canal connecting
Canal boat. Model built by Charles E. Mappes, 1971.
GIFT OF CHARLES E. MAPPES.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
26
Pleased with the results of the Miami
Canal, Cincinnatians sought the construction
of a second canal that had not been included
in the earlier transportation
proposals. But its purpose was the same—
promoting trade with the interior. The
Cincinnati Whitewater Canal, chartered in
1837, was 25 miles long and joined Cincinnati
to Indiana’s Whitewater Canal that ran
through the rich agricultural area along the
Whitewater Valley from Lawrenceburg to
Cambridge. The canal opened in 1843, and
farmers used it to ship flour, hams, hogs and
grain to Cincinnati. Floods along the Whitewater
Valley seriously damaged the canal in
1846 and in 1847. Despite low toll receipts,
Cincinnati boosters never doubted that the
city would benefit from this trade.
Boomers also promoted the development
of manufacturing. Before 1812 the
frontier lacked sufficient capital and cheap
labor to support the development of
industry. Land speculation and trade
offered easier and less risky ways of making
a profit. The manufacturing that did exist
was carried on in small shops by artisans
who produced items needed by the new
settlers setting up households and farms.
By 1806, for example, the 81 artisans
working in Cincinnati included tanners,
hatters, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths,
printers, brewers, and bricklayers.
The first substantial development of
industry in Cincinnati occurred in
connection with the chaos caused by the

PURCHASE.
Martin Baum. Oil on wood.
M A R T I N
B A U M
( 1 7 6 5 - 1 8 3 1 )
A Maryland resident of German
ancestry, Martin Baum arrived in
Cincinnati in 1795. He established the
city’s first bank, iron foundry and steam
mill, and recruited German craftsmen
from eastern cities to work in the new
manufactories. He was perhaps the first
to comprehend the extent to which the
development of local industries would
benefit the city. Baum suffered financial
reverses in the Panic of 1818-19, and
could not afford to move into the
mansion, now the Taft Museum, which
he had constructed to be his home.
Bank notes issued by the Miami Exporting Company and the Cincinnati and Whitewater Canal Company. Engravings.
GIFTS OF THE OHIO MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE.
110 feet on Front Street between Ludlow
and Broadway. The mill, powered by a 70-
horsepower Evans steam engine, was
capable of producing 20,000 barrels of
flour, 500 barrels of whiskey and 1,000
pieces of cloth annually. The mill burned
in 1823, was rebuilt in 1826, but was
finally destroyed by fire in 1835.
The development of early banking
services also facilitated Cincinnati’s
Napoleonic wars raging in Europe from
1807 to 1812. The warfare diverted
European manufacturing from traditional
goods to the supply of the troops. President
Thomas Jefferson’s desire to remain clear of
the war resulted in an embargo on
American shipping that encouraged
Americans to produce for themselves.
One of Cincinnati’s earliest examples of
manufacturing capability was its steam
mill. This massive stone structure rose out
of the Ohio River nine stories to a height of
Cincinnati (c. 1835) with the Steam Flour Mill at the extreme right.
GIFT OF PHILIP HINKLE.
C H A P T E R 1
2 7

N I C H O L A S
L O N G W O R T H
( 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 6 3 )
Nicholas Longworth provided the antebellum West one of its most spectacular rags-to-riches
stories. He came to the city about 1803 with little more than the clothes on his back. He built
a law practice and, engaging heavily in real-estate speculation, became a leading landowner in
Cincinnati at a time when property values were destined to rise dramatically. He was one of the
wealthiest men in the United States while still in his 40s paying the second highest property
taxes in the nation.
Longworth was one of the early boomers who believed that cultural growth was as important
to a city as material growth. In the years before the Civil War, his name and fortune were associated
with nearly every arts and educational institution that appeared.
Longworth was exceptionally supportive of individual artists. A contemporary noted that
“there was never a young artist of talent who appeared in Cincinnati and was poor and needed
help, that Mr. Longworth, if asked did not willingly assist him.” His most famous protéges were
Robert Duncanson and Hiram Powers. Duncanson, a fine landscape and genre painter, was
commissioned to do a series of classical landscape murals in the entrance hall of Longworth’s
home, “Belmont.” Duncanson was black and his success as an artist was extolled by members Nicholas Longworth (1782-1863) from Charles
of the anti-slavery movement.
Cist’s Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1851
Hiram Powers was working at the Western Museum in the 1820s when Nicholas Longworth (Cincinnati, 1851), facing page 333.
discovered his exceptional talents. He financed the young sculptor’s residency in Washington, D.C.,
and together with fellow boosters, Jacob Burnet and William Henry Harrison, put Powers in contact with members of the political elite. President
Andrew Jackson, John Marshall, Martin Van Buren and John Quincy Adams all commissioned portraits by Powers. Executed in the trenchant
realism that typified his American years, they created a sensation in Washington.
In 1837 Longworth and several eastern backers sent Powers to Florence, Italy,
to study and work. Powers’ ability to capture a likeness was tempered by the
classicizing influence of his environment. He became one of the most famous
American artists of the age. For the next three decades, Cincinnati was one of the
principal markets for his work. He never returned to Cincinnati, but some years
later his son came at the urging of Nicholas Longworth’s granddaughter to instruct
a class for the Women’s Art Museum Association.
industrial growth. By 1807 the Miami
Exporting Company, which had been
founded by Martin Baum, was operating
exclusively as a bank. Others soon followed:
the Farmers and Mechanics Bank was
founded in 1812, the Bank of Cincinnati in
1814, and a private bank run by John H.
Piatt in 1815. With the chartering of the
Second Bank of the United States in 1816, a
group of local merchants lobbied for a
Cincinnati branch. Early in 1817 it was
organized with a board of directors
composed of the town’s leading citizens.
Jacob Burnet was elected president and
Gorham Worth came to Cincinnati from
New York to administer the bank as cashier.
The Second Bank of the United States
became notorious for unsound banking
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
28
practices that allowed the irresponsible
expansion of credit. Its foolish practices
and the economic contractions after the
War of 1812 led to the collapse of the
nation’s economy in the Panic of 1819.
Many of Cincinnati’s leading men were
ruined financially, at least temporarily.
Martin Baum, William Henry Harrison,
John Piatt and Jacob Burnet were among
those who had to sell most of their land in
order to satisfy the bank’s claims.
Cincinnati’s economy stagnated in the
aftermath of the bank’s closing in 1820.
But it recovered rapidly. After the worst of
the crises had passed in 1820-1821,
production began to expand. For example,
pork packing increased so that by 1825
bacon production was up 400 percent over
Improved Mantel Clocks…by L. Watson from
The Cincinnati Annual Advertiser, Annexed to
the Cincinnati Directory, for the year 1829
(Cincinnati, 1829).

Hiram Powers (1805- 1873), Robert Todd Lytle
(1833). Lawyer and political leader Robert Todd Lytle
was born in 1804. After serving in the Ohio Legislature
he was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1832. When he
was defeated for re-election in 1834, Andrew Jackson
appointed him Surveyor-General of the Northwest
Territory. His political career was cut short by his death
in 1839. Marble.
GIFT OF THE LYTLE FAMILY.
1819 and land production doubled.
Moreover, the city’s traditional industries
of flour milling and pork packing were
joined in these years by the production of
cotton cloth, machine tools and engines.
By 1826 Cincinnati’s factories produced
almost $1,850,000 worth of goods and its
population had reached 16,230—up 68
percent from 1820.
By 1830 Cincinnati had reached a
benchmark in its development. It was no
Hiram Powers, George Washington
(1834-35). Marble.
GIFT OF THE ESTATE OF PETER G. THOMSON.
longer a frontier settlement in the
wilderness but had become an important
western river town with a great deal of
promise. The concerns of the first settlers—
basic survival against the elements and the
threat of Indians—had long since passed.
Now, the efforts of the city’s leaders were
directed at establishing Cincinnati not
merely as the leading city of the Miami
country but of the Ohio Valley and the
entire West. The land was cleared and was
being populated rapidly; the steamboat
dominated the river; the canals threaded
the produce of the hinterland to markets
along and beyond the Ohio River through
the hands of Cincinnati merchants; and a
Hiram Powers, right, with William Cullen Bryant
in Florence (c, 1870). Photograph.
GIFT OF ANNIE WALKER.
primary industrial foundation had been
established. Cincinnati was already being
called “Queen of the West.”
C I N C I N N A T I I N 1 8 2 6
The first thing that strikes an observer in Cincinnati, after having become acquainted with
its relative locality, is the comparatively little attention which has been paid to the erection of
Manufactures. Commanding the trade of a district of country, which extends at least one
hundred miles, in every direction, and much farther in some, it would seem to be destined to
occupy a prominent stand, amongst the manufacturing cities of the Union; and yet, for years
past, this fact has been as little noticed as if the “queen of the West” had been located in a
desert, and held no intercourse with the rest of mankind.
- Benjamin Drake and Edward D. Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826 (Cincinnati, 1827), p. 67.
Plane and Brush Manufactory from The
Cincinnati Annual Advertiser, Annexed to the
Cincinnati Directory, for the year 1829
(Cincinnati, 1829).
C H A P T E R 1
2 9

John Caspar Wild (d. 1846), Public Landing (1835). Swiss artist, John Caspar Wild, came from Paris to Philadelphia in the early 1830s where he established a reputation as a landscape
painter and lithographer. Coming to Cincinnati in 1835, Wild painted two views of the city from Kentucky, the Public Landing and four scenes along residential Third and Fourth
Streets. He stayed no longer than two years, returning to Philadelphia. Later he traveled to St. Louis and, finally, to Davenport, Iowa. Gouache on paper.
GIFT OF MRS. CHARLES GRAHAM.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
30

CHAPTER 2
O F V I S I O N S A N D D R E A M S , 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 8 0
The first four decades of Cincinnati’s
history brought spectacular development
that, in turn, generated a sense of pride in
the residents. Beginning in the mid-1820s,
observers began to refer to Cincinnati as
the “Queen City of the West.” In the minds
of the city’s many visitors and boosters,
however, what had occurred prior to 1830
was simply prelude. Steamboats on the
river and the opening of canals provided
the foundation upon which a truly great
city could be built. Cincinnati had become
a good city for people with big dreams,
and some already envisioned Cincinnati
in terms of world leadership. In 1841
one Cincinnati booster, Jacob Scott,
predicted “that within one hundred years
from this time, Cincinnati will be the
greatest city in America; and by the year of
our Lord two thousand, the greatest city in
the world.”
For most of Cincinnati’s residents, the
dreams were more personal. Cincinnati’s
expansive economy offered plenty of
opportunity for those with limited means.
It was a place to get rich. Such dreams
held particular meaning for the thousands
of immigrants who streamed to America
between 1830 and 1860. And while the
newcomers quickly discovered that
Cincinnati was not utopia, many found the
reality was an acceptable substitute.
The most ambitious visions of
Cincinnati’s boosters would never be
realized. For the first 20 years of this
period, between 1830 and 1850, the
dreams seemed to be coming true.
Cincinnati was America’s boom town. Her
population grew faster than any other
American city. She became the country’s
second largest industrial center and the
recognized leader of the world in certain
categories. Then, just as Cincinnatians
were becoming accustomed to believing
that their city was destined for
unparalleled greatness, the world shifted.
The city’s rate of growth slowed while
other cities spurted ahead, overtaking
Cincinnati. In the 1860s the source of her
strength, the Ohio River with its tributaries
and canals, seemingly became her
weakness as railroads transformed the
nation’s transportation routes. The new
conditions facing Cincinnati challenged
her leaders during the 1870s and 1880s.
Cincinnatians had to reformulate their
sense of who they were and where their
city fit in the world.
In the early 19th century, Cincinnati
was a city built on commerce. The Ohio
River and the steamboat were the bases of
her greatness. During the 1820s industry
had begun to develop, but initially this was
perceived as secondary to and supportive
of trade. From 1830 to 1860 Cincinnati’s
industrial development accelerated and
redefined the character of the city.
The industry most responsible for
bringing about this change during the
second quarter of the century was pork
John Caspar Wild (d. 1846), View of Cincinnati from Covington, Kentucky (1835). Gouache on paper.
GIFT OF MRS. CHARLES GRAHAM.
C I N C I N N A T I I N T H E 1 8 3 0 S
The inhabitants are already consulting as to where the Capitol shall stand, whenever the
nation shall decree the removal of the General Government beyond the mountains. If it were
not for the noble building at Washington, this removal would probably take place soon,
perhaps after the opening of the great Southern rail-road.
- Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel (London, 1838), v. 2, p. 240.
C H A P T E R 2
3 1

packing. It grew naturally out of the city’s
close relationship with the rich agricultural
region surrounding Cincinnati. From its
earliest days, Cincinnati served as one of
many local centers for hog slaughtering and
packing. But it was not until the 1820s that
it was possible to transport pork products
rapidly and in large quantities to consumer
markets and to acquire a regular supply of
salt—primarily from the Kanawha Valley of
Virginia—for the packing process. In
addition, an important shift towards crop
and livestock specialization in the region
provided a large supply of hogs. Early
farming in the area was diversified and
generally for subsistence. Many farmers
raised a few hogs because they could be left
to roam freely in the local forests and
required little care. In the 1820s farmers in
the Scioto and Miami valleys grew larger
amounts of corn which they fed to hogs.
This increased the number of hogs raised,
and by feeding corn to the hogs, farmers
produced fatter animals with a higher
quality of meat.
Each fall drovers from all over
southwestern Ohio and eastern Indiana
herded thousands of hogs over roads—and
others were transported on canal boats—
to Cincinnati. By 1835 Cincinnati had
become the nation’s chief packing center.
Ten years later it surpassed Cork and
Belfast in Ireland for the leadership of the
world by slaughtering and processing a
quarter-million hogs. The lack of artificial
means of refrigeration confined
slaughtering and packing to the period of
November to mid-March; still, by 1854
this work provided seasonal employment
for 2,450 workers.
As the pork-packing industry rapidly
expanded, it received a good deal of
comment by the city’s boosters. One of
them, George Jones of the Cincinnati
branch of the Second Bank of the United
States, wrote so enthusiastically to a
Liverpool correspondent about the
prospects of the industry that he was sent
two papier-mache models of hogs with
the inscription: “To George Jones, as the
worthy representative of Porkopolis.”
Milward and Oldershaw (1851). In 1850 this
large pork and beef house, located in Covington,
Kentucky, packed 11,746 hogs and 3,000 heads of cattle
primarily for European markets. Hogs were driven up a
ramp, visible at the right of the illustration, to pens on
the roof. Otto Onken lithograph.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF CLIFFORD M. STEGNER.
Durham Bull (1839). Miami Valley farmers also bred and raised cattle for sale to meat packing firms. Broadside.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATES OF MR. AND MRS. CHARLES AMORY BLINN.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
32

Robert S. Duncanson, Cincinnati From Covington, Kentucky (1848-1850). By mid-century Cincinnati had grown
to a population of over 115,000 and was the nation’s sixth largest city. Duncanson (1817-22 to 1872) was Cincinnati’s
first notable black artist. Born in New York and raised in Canada, from the early 1840s he spent most of his time in
Cincinnati. He also worked in Detroit and traveled extensively, including several trips to Europe. Oil on canvas.
CHALMERS HADLEY MEMORIAL FUND PURCHASE.
Advertisements for lard oil, a by-product of
pork packing. From the Cincinnati Business
Directory (1853).
Prior to 1850 the slaughtering and
packing processes were functionally and
geographically divided. Draymen transported
carcasses from slaughterhouses in
the Deer Creek Valley on the eastern edge
of the city to packing houses located near
the riverfront. After 1850 companies
combined these functions into the same
buildings as the industry relocated along
the Miami-Erie Canal. These new
slaughterhouses became world famous for
their efficient use of labor in the
“disassemblage process.” The hogs were
first driven up ramps to the top floor of the
slaughterhouses, many of which were three
or four stories high. As they entered the
building, the pigs were knocked
unconscious with a sledgehammer and
suspended from a moving hook. As they
passed down the line, the hogs were bled,
scalded, the hair scraped from their hides,
then gutted and cleaned before being sent
to cooling chambers. The butchering,
rendering and salting processes were
performed later but with equal efficiency.
Pork packing fostered other industries.
Economical Cincinnatians utilized every
part of the animal. The bristles were used
as binding in plaster, in the manufacture of
brushes and in the furniture industry. The
city’s tanneries used the hides. Two byproducts
of rendering lard were the bases
for several important Cincinnati firms—
sterine was used in the manufacture of
lamp oil and candles, while cracklings were
used for producing soap.
Cincinnati’s identification as
“Porkopolis” became so strong that many
commentators subsequently have given
the impression that pork packing and its
related industries dominated local
manufacturing. Actually, in 1855 meat
packing accounted for only 15 percent of
the total value of goods produced in the
city. By this time Cincinnati had developed
a manufacturing base much broader than
pork packing.
J. W. Hill, Cincinnati, Covington & Newport (1853). Harrison P. Diehl began manufacturing fireworks in the early
1850s and built a wooden structure on Mt. Adams from which to display them. The Pyro Garden lasted only a few years
but Diehl’s company was in business in Cincinnati, and later Reading, Ohio, until 1890. Lithograph.
GIFT OF ROBERT CLARKE.
C H A P T E R 2
3 3

Arrival of Hogs at Cincinnati from Harper’s
Weekly (February 4, 1860), p. 72. Engraving.
ELIZABETH HAVEN APPLETON FUND PURCHASE.
The iron and metalworking industries
were second in importance to pork
packing. By 1850 Cincinnati had 44
foundries, one-third of which
concentrated on the production of stoves.
Other products included iron railings,
mantels, burial cases, castings, steam
engines and boilers. Miles Greenwood
settled in Cincinnati in 1829, later bought
the Eagle Iron Works and built the
company into the second largest iron
manufactory in the West. It made heavy
machine castings as well as an array of
items for the home—pulleys, shutter lifts
and catches, sash weights, spittoons,
teakettles, and tailor shears.
Five Thousand Hogs Wanted!! from The Daily Cincinnati Republican, and Commercial Register (November
28, 1835), p. 3.
The production of steamboat engines
was one of the most important branches of
the metalworking industry. By 1841 five
shipbuilding yards employed 306
workers, making Cincinnati second only
to Pittsburgh as a western steamboat
manufacturing and repair center. This
industry trained Cincinnati workers with
skills that would later be employed in the
machine-tool industry.
The availability of fine woods spurred
the development of an important furnituremanufacturing
industry in the Queen City.
From surrounding forests came cherry,
walnut, maple, sycamore and poplar; pine
came from Pittsburgh and mahogany from
New Orleans. The industry boomed with
the introduction of steam power, which
Journey to the Slaughter-House from Harper’s
Weekly (February 4, 1860), p. 72. Engraving.
allowed manufacturers to cut prices by a
third compared to the costs of handwork.
By 1841 census taker Charles Cist reported
48 cabinetware factories and 11 chair
H O G S
I am sure I should have liked Cincinnati much better if the people had not dealt so very largely in hogs. The immense quantity of business done
in this line would hardly be believed by those who had not witnessed it. I never saw a newspaper without remarking such advertisements as
the following:
“Wanted, immediately, 4,000 fat hogs.”
“For sale, 2,000 barrels of prime pork.”
But the annoyance came nearer than this; if I determined upon a walk up Main-street, the chances were five hundred to one against my reaching
the shady side without brushing by a snout fresh dripping from the kennel; when we had screwed our courage to the enterprise of mounting a
certain noble-looking sugar-loaf hill, that promised pure air and a fine view, we found the brook we had to cross, at its foot, red with the stream
from a pig slaughter-house; while our noses, instead of meeting “the thyme that loves the green hill’s breast,” were greeted by odours that I will not
describe, and which I heartily hope my readers cannot imagine; our feet, that on leaving the city had expected to press the flowery sod, literally
got entangled in pigs’ tails and jaw-bones: and thus the prettiest walk in the neighbourhood was interdicted for ever.
- Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London, 1832), v. 1, pp. 120-121.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
34

P O R K
P A C K I N G
Frances Trollope. Engraving.
F R A N C E S
T R O L L O P E
( 1 7 8 0 - 1 8 6 3 )
We entered an immense low-ceiled room and followed a vista of dead swine, upon their
backs, their paws stretching mutely toward heaven. Walking down to the vanishing point, we
found there a sort of human chopping-machine where the hogs were converted into commercial
pork. A plank table, two men to lift and turn, two to wield the cleavers, were its component
parts. No iron cog-wheels could work with more regular motion. Plump falls the hog upon the
table, chop, chop; chop, chop; chop, chop, fall the cleavers. All is over. But, before you can say
so, plump, chop, chop; chop, chop; chop, chop, sounds again. There is no pause for admiration.
By a skilled sleight of hand, hams, shoulders, clear, mess, and prime fly off, each squarely cut
to its own place, where attendants, aided by trucks and dumbwaiters, dispatch each to its
separate destiny—the ham for Mexico, its loin for Bordeaux. Amazed beyond all expectation
at the celerity, we took out our watches and counted thirty-five seconds, from the moment
when one hog touched the table until the next occupied its place. The number of blows required
I regret we did not count.
- Frederick Law Olmsted, writing about his visit to Cincinnati in A Journey Through
Texas… (New York, 1857), p. 9.
Frances Trollope came to the
United States in 1827 to make a
fortune. Soon after her arrival in
Cincinnati in 1828, she built a
“Bazaar” on Third Street which
contained a shop, a ballroom and
exhibition gallery. Her Bazaar was a
failure, and Mrs. Trollope returned to
England in 1831.
industry also illustrated the city’s close ties
with the South, which supplied the cotton
and bought much of the finished work. In
the mid-1850s, between 5,000 and
6,000 seamstresses worked in miserable
conditions for extremely low wages in the
clothing industry. When they attempted to
organize, even the Cincinnati Enquirer,
which normally opposed worker causes,
editorialized in the women’s favor.
Technology more than agitation produced
the increase in wages that followed the
introduction of sewing machines in the
late 1850s.
In an amazingly short amount of time,
Cincinnati had become a major
manufacturing center. This could not have
occurred had Cincinnati not built excellent
manufacturers producing $515,600 worth
of goods. A decade later he counted 136
shops employing 1,158 workers who
were producing $1,660,000 worth of
furniture. As the market for Cincinnati
furniture expanded throughout the
Mississippi Valley, manufacturers
discovered it was more economical to ship
their wares in pieces for assembly on
location. By mid-century, Cincinnati
furniture graced homes and hotels
throughout the Midwest and South.
The manufacture of clothing was a
fourth important industry in Cincinnati.
During the 1850s the value of locally
produced clothing jumped from
approximately $2 million to approximately
$15 million. In 1860 Cincinnati produced
one-half of all the ready-made clothing
available in the western markets. The
Henry Farny, The Disassembly Line. Among the first places that assembly-line principles were applied was the
meat-packing industry. Lithograph.
GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. FRED HEINZ.
C H A P T E R 2
3 5

Niles and Company, founded in 1834, manufactured sugar mills, stationary engines, machine tools and rolling mills
for southern markets. Production of locomotive engines began in 1851 and continued in their new shop on Congress Street
near Butler from 1852 until 1858. Lithograph from Charles Cist’s Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1851
(Cincinnati, 1851), facing p. 193.
transportation facilities, developed thriving
commerce and generated sufficient capital
to finance new growth. Nor could
Cincinnati have built industries so rapidly
without an ample labor supply.
Traditionally, American labor was scarce
and, therefore, expensive. Between 1830
and 1850, however, Cincinnati’s booming
economy attracted thousands of newcomers
who made the Queen City the fastest
growing urban center in the United States.
These people not only transformed the size
and appearance of Cincinnati, they
fundamentally changed its religious and
ethnic composition.
During Cincinnati’s earliest years,
settlers came from many places, but the
vast majority were native-born Americans
of English and Scottish ancestry. In the
1830s and 1840s the bulk of the new
arrivals came from Germany. A few
Germans had lived in Cincinnati since its
founding, and some had risen to positions
of prominence and influence. David
Ziegler, for example, was born in 1748 in
Heidelberg, Germany, immigrated to
Pennsylvania before the Revolution and
came to Fort Washington in 1790. When
Cincinnati was incorporated as a village in
1802, Ziegler was elected president of
From 1836 to 1863 black furniture-maker Henry
Boyd produced superior bedsteads made of sycamore,
maple, cherry, black walnut and mahogany for local,
southern and south-western markets. Robinson and
Jones’ Cincinnati Directory for 1846. (Cincinnati
1846), p.466.
council and served two terms. Similarly,
Martin Baum, who was of German
parentage, rose to great prominence
through his diverse business interests and
was elected mayor in 1807 and 1812. In
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
36

Major David Ziegler from Henry Howe’s
Historical Collections of Ohio... (Cincinnati, 1908),
v. 1, p. 846.
1825 the German community consisted
of only 64 persons, and in 1830 amounted
to only 5 percent of the city’s populace.
Ten years later Germans constituted
30 percent of Cincinnati’s population,
prompting the city council to publish
ordinances in German as well as in
English. Although the German-born
population more than doubled between
1840 and 1850, Irish immigration during
the same years reduced the German
proportion to approximately one-fourth—
but of a city whose total population
had exploded from 46,382 to 115,435 in
that decade.
In Cincinnati, as in other midnineteenth
century cities, the poorer
people and the new arrivals tended to live
on the periphery, while the wealthier and
more prominent residents occupied the
center. Thus, the thousands of Germans
who flooded into Cincinnati settled away
from the center of the city in an area north
and east of the Miami-Erie Canal. This area
was never exclusively German, but their
predominance gave the region such a
Germanic flavor that it became known as
“Over-the-Rhine.” The district evolved
into a web of streets and alleys lined
with closely built, neat rows of residences
and shops.
Henry Mosler, Canal Street Market (1860). The Canal Street Market, located between Vine and Walnut at present
day Court Street, was typical of several that operated in mid-nineteenth century Cincinnati. Oil on canvas.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
U.S. Agricultural Fair. The Hamilton County Agricultural Society began holding fairs near Carthage in 1853. Their
fair was supplemented in 1860 by another, the eighth annual fair of the United States Agricultural Society, held September
12-20 at the Queen City Trotting Park near Winton Place. Lithograph.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF GRACE F. SPIEGEL.
Like immigrants in any time, these
Germans faced an array of problems. Many
suffered extreme hardships, especially in
their early years while establishing
themselves and looking for jobs. Collectively,
however, German immigrants possessed
advantages over other groups. Many of them
were skilled tradesmen and craftsmen who
could find work as bakers or tailors, or in the
rapidly developing industries. Their
mechanical skills and the training some
brought with them established the
foundation for Cincinnati’s development as
a printing and machine-tool center.
Based in Over-the-Rhine, the Cincinnati
Germans developed a rich subculture. They
founded organizations and institutions
which helped cushion the impact of the
American environment for themselves and
others from the “Fatherland” while making
lasting contributions to the quality of life in
Cincinnati. Churches, schools, breweries
and beer gardens sprang up throughout the
area. The immigrants preserved their
C H A P T E R 2
3 7

Isaac Mayer Wise. Reprinted with permission
from Cincinnati in Bronze (Cincinnati, c. 1959),
p. 14.
I S A A C M A Y E R W I S E
( 1 8 1 9 - 1 9 0 0 )
In the 1840s German Jews
heatedly debated proposals to reform
Judaism. Isaac M. Wise came to
America from Bohemia in 1846
convinced of the need for reform and
hoping that American society would
foster the necessary experimentation.
After a stormy eight years in Albany,
New York, Wise came to Cincinnati
in 1854 to begin a lifelong
collaboration with the K. K. Bene
Yeshurun (Children of God)
synagogue. Over the next 46 years,
Wise refined and promoted his ideas
about reform and developed
institutions to support them. A
new prayerbook, the Minhag America,
a conference of reform Jewish
congregations and a Hebrew College
to train an indigenous rabbinate were
the principal elements of his plan.
Through Wise’s influence, Cincinnati
became known, and remains, the
center of reform Judaism.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
38
language in their homes, churches and
schools. In 1836 the Cincinnati Volksblatt
began publication. By 1850 Cincinnati had
four German-language newspapers.
The Germans also formed special-interest
societies. Between 1836 and 1860, four
German militia units were formed, which
became the basis for the Ohio Ninth
Regiment during the Civil War. Numerous
savings societies were organized to help with
financial needs. Cincinnati also became the
home of the first American Turnverein.
Organized by Frederick Hecker, a hero of
the ill-fated 1848 revolutions in Europe, the
Turnverein sought to develop a “refined
humanity” in its membership through
physical exercise and intellectual pursuits.
Perhaps the organizations that had the most
enduring impact on Cincinnati life were the
German singing societies. In 1838 the
first German male chorus was formed,
and by mid-century there were dozens
of bands, orchestras and singing societies.
In 1849 many of them joined to hold
the first German music festival in the city,
the Saengerfest.
Cincinnati Germans represented many
different backgrounds and outlooks. One
of the most important subgroups was the
large number of German Jews who
immigrated to Cincinnati. Prior to 1830
no more than 150 Jews, mostly English in
background, lived in the city. Over the
next three decades, between 8,000 and
10,000 new Jews, mostly from Germany,
streamed into Cincinnati.
Jewish residents before 1830
worshipped in an orthodox fashion in two
synagogues. The arrival of the German
Jews brought new influences. The German
Jewish leadership who came to Cincinnati
pressed for “modernization” of Jewish laws
and ritual to conform them to the larger
American culture. Under the leadership of
rabbis Max Lilienthal and Isaac M. Wise,
who arrived in Cincinnati in the mid-
1850s, the Cincinnati Jewish community
became a prominent center for the reform
movement in America. Reforms included
the dropping of certain holy days, the
introduction of organ music and choirs
Citizenship certificate issued to Gerhard Jacobs.
with men and women, an end to the
custom of wearing hats during services
and, most importantly, the reform of the
prayer book. The ideas of these men and
their collaborators were communicated
through the Israelite, which began
publishing in Cincinnati in 1854, and
through rabbinical training at Hebrew
Union College, founded in 1876.
Beginning in 1846 a potato blight drove
thousands of Irish from their homeland.
Many of them comprised the second group
of immigrants to reach Cincinnati. Like the
Germans, the Irish organized to meet their
needs. They formed several militia units,
which became the core of the Ohio l0th
Regiment in the Civil War, and, in 1849,
the Hibernian Society to assist the Irish
here and those left behind. Unlike the
Germans, the Irish were mostly of peasant
backgrounds. They did not bring the skills
and experience that would allow them
rapid adjustment to American and urban
life. Consequently, the Irish were poorer
and less secure than the Germans.
The native-born residents watched this
influx of new people closely and fearfully,
with newspapers regularly reporting
immigration statistics. These foreign people
seemed to carry the threat of labor unrest,
intemperance, illiteracy, pauperism and
crime. The response of the immigrants to

their new surroundings often fed such
suspicion. German and Irish customs
sometimes conflicted with those of the
Americans. Native-born Cincinnatians
found the way immigrants observed the
Sabbath particularly aggravating. Yet, the
newcomers thought the American
Protestant Sunday—with no entertainment,
no saloons and no theaters—was drab and
oppressive. Americans mistakenly
concluded that the complex of ethnic
societies showed that the immigrants
wanted to share in the wealth of America
without becoming “American.”
Many Americans also viewed as
dangerous the loyalties of the immigrants to
their homeland and to European
institutions—especially the Roman Catholic
Church. This distrust was expressed in
several ways. Judge Bellamy Storer required
Irish Catholics who were applying for
citizenship to swear on and kiss the
Protestant Bible. Officeholders routinely gave
native-born Americans preference when
hiring for publicly financed construction
jobs. Individual immigrants regularly found
themselves the objects of violence.
Such anti-foreign sentiment reached its
peak in the early 1850s, poisoning the city’s
political climate. In 1854 one newspaper
ridiculed the Democratic Party with a
mock “Holy Church Democratic State
Ticket” slating Pope Pius IX for “Supreme
Judge” and Bishop John Baptist Purcell for
the board of public works. In April 1855
an effort to elect city officials resulted in
three days of violence. The nativists
imported 300 Kentucky toughs to “protect
the polls.” These men seized the ballot
boxes in the predominantly German 11th
Ward and tried to do the same in the
Ninth. Violence continued into the
following day when German militias
barricaded the bridges into Over-the-
Rhine. The nativists stormed the barricades
at night yelling such rallying cries as “Kill
the Dutch,” but the trained militia easily
repulsed them. The anti-Catholic and antiforeign
sentiment—which had surfaced in
many American communities at the same
time—soon subsided in the face of the
T H E U N D E R G R O U N D R A I L R O A D
In the years after the Civil War, stories of the underground railroad that helped
runaway slaves travel north to safety and freedom came to rank among the most
popular elements of local legend. They were also among the most exaggerated,
misunderstood and difficult to document.
Contrary to legend, no tunnels burrowed under the Ohio River and no highly
organized institution existed to spirit runaways northward. Most importantly, the idea
that runaways were helpless cargo in the caring hands of highly principled and
fearless whites distorted reality.
Runaways found assistance principally from fellow blacks, who rarely trusted even
well known abolitionists with news that a new group of slaves was passing through.
In 1837 James G. Birney, publisher of the abolitionist newspaper The Philanthropist,
speaking of runaways passing through Cincinnati, commented that “I know nothing
of them generally till they are past.” Certainly some whites in Cincinnati assisted
escaping slaves, such as Levi Coffin, the reputed “president” of the underground
railroad. While probably more developed in Cincinnati than in most northern
cities, the underground railroad remained an informal network primarily by blacks,
for blacks.
Owners advertised in local newspapers for the
return of runaway slaves. Liberty Hall (September 26,
1810), suppl. p. 2.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
rising national controversy with the South
over the extension of slavery.
The Ohio River formed the border
between the slave South and the free North.
Cincinnati lay along the path for thousands
of freed blacks and runaway slaves escaping
the South before the Civil War. Most blacks
traveled farther north, possibly as far as
Canada, but some settled in Cincinnati.
Generally, between 1820 and 1870, the
black proportion of the city’s population
amounted to only a modest 2½ percent. On
Charles T. Webber (1825-1911), Slave Auction.
Oil on canvas.
PURCHASE.
several occasions, however, that percentage
increased significantly. At the end of the
1820s it rose to 9.6 percent and in 1840 to
4.8 percent.
C H A P T E R 2
3 9

C. Foster, Lane Theological Seminary, Walnut Hills. Lithograph from Charles Cist’s Cincinnati in 1841: Its
Early Annals and Future Prospects (Cincinnati, 1841), following p. 120.
T H E B E E C H E R S A N D
T H E A N T I S L A V E R Y M O V E M E N T
Cincinnati was the birthplace of an antislavery movement with nationwide
repercussions. In the 1830s the Reverend Lyman Beecher, the most powerful preacher of
his day, was persuaded to come to the city to head Lane Theological Seminary and several
of his talented children accompanied him.
In this border city, the issue of slavery was subject to ongoing debate. While Lyman
Beecher was opposed to slavery, he favored gradual emancipation and colonization over
immediate abolition. Nonetheless, for a time he allowed Lane to serve as a center for
antislavery agitation and uplift programs for free blacks living in Cincinnati.
Reverend Lyman Beecher’s reform-minded daughters, Harriet and Catharine, participated
fully in the intellectual and cultural life of the
city, moving in circles which included Daniel
Drake and Salmon P. Chase. They were
knowledgeable of the latest thinking on such
diverse topics as theology, geography and
home economics, and they were particularly
interested in efforts to improve the conditions
of women and children.
In Cincinnati, Harriet Beecher married
Calvin Stowe, a Lane Seminary theology
professor, and bore six children. When her
youngest baby fell victim to the cholera
epidemic of 1849, she was struck by the
similar sorrow experienced by slave women
who had their children torn from them.
Inspired to write a novel of life in slavery, in
1852 she produced Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of
the most effective propaganda pieces for the
antislavery movement. Although it was The first edition of the controversial Uncle Tom’s
written and published shortly after she left Cabin, published in 1852, was later printed in
the city for Maryland, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was numerous English and foreign language editions.
based upon her Cincinnati experience.
GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN J. EMERY.
Professors at Lane Seminary, 1840-1850. Left
to right: Calvin E. Stowe, Lyman Beecher, and Diarca
Howe Allen. Photograph.
GIFT OF THE REVEREND JAMES C. WHITE.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896). Engraving.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
40

This third stream of “outsiders”
troubled the native white citizens of
Cincinnati. The problems that confronted
the foreign immigrants were compounded
for blacks. They were forced to occupy the
worst housing, particularly in the
infamous “Bucktown” (or “Little Africa”)
area that lay between Sixth and Seventh
Streets from Broadway to Culvert.
Conditions were appalling. Visitors spoke
of courtyards filled with garbage, one
water hydrant to serve 300 people, and
several open sewers. The area drew the
poorest and most disreputable elements of
the city’s population, including some poor
whites—mostly Irish. The predominance
of blacks in the area led many
Cincinnatians to associate the reputation
of Bucktown with that of the black
community. Bucktown became a code
word for vice and crime, and this
reputation affected all blacks in the city.
Blacks faced difficulties in securing jobs
as well. Although a few blacks amassed
small fortunes, most were forced into
menial, low-paying positions. Before 1840
black women found work easier to obtain
than did black men. Jobs as chambermaids,
washerwomen and domestic servants were
open to them. After 1840, however, labor
shortages caused by the economic boom
became serious enough to open the
mainstream of Cincinnati’s economy to
black men—particularly on the riverfront,
where many found work as roustabouts
and deckhands.
The Civil War disrupted even these
modest gains. The loss of southern
markets and the closing of the river trade
markedly reduced the availability of work
on the river. Keen competition for the
remaining positions resulted, particularly
between the blacks and the Irish. The
growing tension came to a head in July
1862. Lexington, Kentucky, faced a
possible invasion by Confederate troops
under John Hunt Morgan. The danger
prompted Cincinnati to send a contingent
of 120 of the city police force to Lexington,
leaving too few policemen to deter
lawlessness in Cincinnati. Violence broke
out on July 10 and continued for a week.
Blacks on the riverfront or in Bucktown
were in the path of the mobs, whose
numbers swelled each night. Many blacks
left the city for the safety of the
surrounding hills, while others armed and
barricaded themselves in Bucktown.
The city’s history had been punctuated
by earlier race riots in 1829, 1836 and
1841—all coinciding with peaks of black
residency. But the 1862 riot marked an
important turning point. The advances in
employment which black men had
achieved over the preceding 20 years were
steadily reversed. In 1860 employment of
blacks in the mainstream of the
commercial and industrial activity of
Cincinnati had reached 33 percent of the
Negro labor force. By 1870, this figure had
dropped in half.
Despite these hardships, blacks in
Cincinnati achieved something unique in
the United States before the Civil War. In
1852 they won from the state legislature
the right to organize and operate the
Independent Colored School System. The
proceeds from taxes on black property
financed the system, and a black school
board elected by the black community
administered it. This institution had a farreaching
impact. The black community
gained political experience and developed
leadership far superior to almost any other
place in the country. The more than 60
graduates of Gaines High School in the 10
years after it opened in 1866 provided a
base for the emerging black middle class,
as well as winning a reputation for
Cincinnati wherever the graduates taught.
The independent black school board was
abolished in 1874, weakening the power
base of the black politicians. Yet the
success of the black community in
running the system helped to undermine
the racial stereotypes held by whites and
helped build pride and confidence.
Cincinnati’s burgeoning population
and its expanding industries made the city
not only bigger but more complex.
Municipal government was inadequate
to cope with the changes. When
T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S
S A N I T A R Y C O M M I S S I O N
The United States Sanitary
Commission, a citizens’ group devoted
to preventing disease and alleviating
suffering among Union soldiers and
sailors, carried out its mission by
acquiring goods and funds through
contributions and fairs. The Cincinnati
branch, formed in 1861, aided in
establishing a soldiers’ home, eight
hospitals in Cincinnati and Covington,
one at Camp Dennison and a burial
ground in Spring Grove Cemetery. Its
Great Western Sanitary Fair, December
22, 1863-January 6, 1864, took place
at the Fifth and Sixth street markets and
Mozart and Greenwood halls. The
“Refreshment Saloon” was at the Palace
Garden on Vine Street. Citizens
sponsored exhibits of relics, war
memorabilia and a tour of the Niles
Works where two gunboats were being
constructed. The sale of handmade
articles, produce, flowers, as well as
paintings, prints, original letters and
poems donated by artists, politicians
and authors netted nearly $250,000 for
the relief fund.
C H A P T E R 2
4 1

C I N C I N N A T I D U R I N G T H E C I V I L W A R
In the early 1860s, Cincinnati was in the middle of the United States’ great fratricidal struggle.
As the nation drifted towards civil war, Cincinnatians realized they had much to lose. Although
direct rail ties to the East had weakened its traditional economic link to the South, Cincinnati
merchants still looked primarily to the river and their southern markets. Also, as a prosperous
northern city on the border of the slave South, Cincinnatians knew their city could become a
prized pawn in a full-scale military confrontation. In the frantic days following Abraham Lincoln’s
election to the presidency, Cincinnati’s politicians searched for an acceptable compromise.
The attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, transformed the mood of the
city. Militia companies that already existed quickly became the core of fighting regiments. The
Rover Guards, Zouave Guards and Lafayette Guards became companies of the Ohio Second
Regiment. Over 1,000 Cincinnati Germans rallied around the Turner unit to form the Ohio
Ninth Regiment, while the city’s Irish residents became the backbone of the Ohio l0th Regiment.
Those who did not join active fighting units formed home guards to protect the city. In this same
spirit, the black community attempted to form a unit called the “Attucks Blues” in honor of the
ex-slave who became the first American killed in the Revolution during the Boston Massacre in
1770. However, they were forcibly stopped and informed that they were to keep out of this
“white man’s war.”
The first 18 months of the Civil War hit Cincinnati hard. The river trade collapsed, banks
failed, and farm surpluses glutted the markets. According to one visitor, “The trade of
Cincinnati was paralyzed for a time... and there was much poverty, I was told, among the
working classes.” In addition, the war went badly for the Union. It seemed Confederate
troops could move at will. On August 30, 1862, at Richmond, Kentucky, seasoned
Confederate troops under General Kirby Smith routed an inexperienced Union army.
10th Ohio Battery! The 10th Ohio Volunteer
Infantry, recruited under the command of Colonel
William Haines Lytle, was mustered into three years’
service in 1861. The regiment campaigned in West
Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, taking part in the
Battle of Chickamauga in which Lytle lost his life.
GIFT OF MRS. LEROY SAUNDERS.
Alfred E. Mathews, The 73rd Reg’t. Illinois Vol., Crossing the Pontoon Bridge, at Cincinnati, Friday Sept. 12, 1862. When Cincinnati seemed threatened by General Kirby
Smith’s Confederate forces, Major General Lew Wallace organized the defense of the city and northern Kentucky. To reach Kentucky, a pontoon bridge was hastily constructed. Middleton,
Strobridge and Company lithograph.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
42

View of Camp Dennison, 16 miles northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio (1865). A vast tract near Madisonville was arranged for military instruction. Middleton, Strobridge and
Company lithograph.
GIFT OF HENRY M. PINKVOSS.
Cincinnati, all but defenseless, was exposed to direct attack. Smith sent General Henry Heth, with 8,000 Confederate soldiers, northward
to Cincinnati. Although the Confederacy could not have held the city for an extended period of time, its capture would have given the South
massive supplies—boots and shoes alone filled 12 warehouses—and an awesome psychological victory.
In early September 1862, Cincinnatians rallied to protect their city. General Lew Wallace raised a force of 72,000 that included men
from the city and “squirrel hunters” from the surrounding countryside. This huge force moved across the Ohio River on a hastily constructed
pontoon bridge and marched to positions about three miles south. The men hastily completed earthwork defenses centered on Fort Mitchell
while officers attempted to give orders to the citizen-defenders. A Black Brigade, consisting of African American men, helped prepare the
defenses and served alongside the white soldiers and volunteers. In the face of this formidable force, General Henry Heth
withdrew his men. Only minor picket skirmishing occurred.
Although the next summer brought a flying raid by General John Hunt Morgan through the northern fringes of the city, Cincinnati was
never again in serious military danger. Economic conditions improved as factories filled military orders and merchants won contracts to
supply the army. Through army enlistments and holding such home-front functions as “The Great Western Sanitary Fair,” Cincinnatians
supported the war.
Yet the desire to end the bloodshed through compromise never disappeared. In elections during the war years, Cincinnati voters consistently
favored those Democrats known as Copperheads who supported compromise with the Confederacy. George H. Pendleton, who represented
Ohio’s First Congressional District, became the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 1864. Second District
Congressman Alexander Long’s outspoken support of peace-at-any-price led to his censure by the House of Representatives.
The nation’s agony finally ended with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. When news of the surrender reached
Cincinnati at 9:30 that night, huge bonfires and fireworks lit the sky. Despite pouring rain Cincinnatians by the thousands filled the streets
and were described as “perfectly mad with joy.” Five days later the city was again plunged into anger and despair when news of President
Lincoln’s assassination reached Cincinnati. The assassin’s brother, Junius Brutus Booth, was then performing at Pike’s Opera House in
Cincinnati and had to leave town quickly.
C H A P T E R 2
4 3

Peter H. Clark, Cincinnati’s Most Famous
Colored Citizen. Photograph from Wendell P.
Dabney, Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens (Cincinnati,
1926), p. 104.
P E T E R
H . C L A R K
( 1 8 2 9 - 1 9 2 6 )
Peter Clark gained a national
reputation for his three decades of
leadership in organizing black
education in Cincinnati. Clark’s
interests, however, were not limited
to the schoolroom. Throughout his
life, Clark struggled to discover the
right political road for American
blacks. Although most blacks
embraced the Republican Party, Clark
experimented with socialism out of
principle and with the Democratic
Party hoping that a divided black
constituency would force each party
to compete for the black vote. His
political unpredictability angered
whites and unsettled blacks, but
few disagreed with Wendell P.
Dabney’s assessment that Clark was
“Cincinnati’s greatest colored product
from the standpoint of intellectuality,
courage, and racial loyalty.”
Cincinnati—with fewer than 10,000
people—was chartered as a city in 1819,
governmental responsibilities were
Classification and Course of Study for the Colored Schools of the City of Cincinnati from First Annual Report
of the…Colored Public Schools… (Cincinnati, 1855), pp. 20-21.
confined to two general areas. First, it
regulated aspects of commercial activity by
building and maintaining markethouses,
docks, wharves and streets and by
licensing and regulating carts, wagons,
drays, taverns and theaters. Second, the
city government stepped in during
emergencies that were beyond the control
of individuals, such as fires, riots,
epidemics and unemployment resulting
from natural disasters.
After 1830, with the influx of
immigrants, this limited view of the role of
city government became inadequate.
Thus, it grew in size and in functions that
reflected the massive social and economic
changes occurring in the city. In 1820 city
government included 47 officials; by 1860
First Annual Report of the…Colored Public
Schools… (Cincinnati, 1855).
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
44

From Charles Cist’s Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1851 (Cincinnati, 1851), p. 257.
C I N C I N N A T I I N 1 8 5 0
It requires no keenness of observation to perceive that Cincinnati is destined to become the
focus and mart for the grandest circle of manufacturing thrift on this continent. Her delightful
climate; her unequaled and ever-increasing facilities for cheap and rapid commercial
intercourse with all parts of the country and the world; her enterprising and energetic
population; her own elastic and exulting youth; are all elements which predict and insure her
electric progress to giant greatness. I doubt if there is another spot on the earth where food,
fuel, cotton, timber, iron, can all be concentrated so cheaply—that is, at so moderate a cost
of human labor in producing and bringing them together—as here. Such fatness of soil, such
a wealth of mineral treasure—coal, iron, salt, and the finest clays for all purposes of use—
and all cropping out from the steep, facile banks of placid, though not sluggish, navigable
rivers. How many Californias could equal, in permanent worth, this valley of the Ohio!
- Horace Greeley, New York Tribune (1850).
The year 1853 marked the establishment of Cincinnati’s paid fire department and completion of A. B. Latta’s innovative
steam fire engine, “Uncle Joe Ross.” After the 5-ton prototype proved too heavy for regular use, lighter horse-drawn engines
were acquired by the city. This is the first photograph of a Cincinnati fire company with its equipment, 1860.
that number had jumped to 1,139, serving
a city of 161,044 people. In 1820
approximately seven percent of the city
government’s spending paid for all of the
social services it provided; by 1860 about
60 percent of the city budget went for
such services that now included
education, health, poor relief, police and
fire protection. Part of this expansion
occurred as the city absorbed services that
private groups had initiated. For example,
through an endowment first established in
1826 by William and Abigail Woodward
and another by Thomas Hughes in 1824,
secondary education was made available
to children. As the common school system
became well established, it became logical
for the city to take over its operation. In
July 1851 the boards of trustees of the two
independent high schools were dissolved
and a new Union School Board began the
direction of the schools.
In other instances the transformation of
government resulted from the
modernization of an established public
function. Fire protection had rested on a
gradually evolving system of volunteer
fire companies throughout the first half
of the 19th century. By mid-century these
volunteer fire companies reflected the
ethnic and social fragmentation of
Cincinnati’s population. Rivalry and
jealousy between the companies
increasingly led to violence. Such
competition also hurt the ability to fight
fires. The older members of the
Independent No. 3 company formed a
committee to study reforms. Headed by
Miles Greenwood, the committee surveyed
methods of firefighting throughout the
United States. In New York they found
that firefighters experimented with steam
fire engines; in Boston they discovered
that the city paid their firemen; in New
Orleans companies used horses to pull
their equipment. By combining these
elements, Cincinnati created the model for
American urban fire companies for the
next 50 years.
At mid-century, as Cincinnatians worked
to modernize their governmental apparatus
C H A P T E R 2
4 5

John Aubrey, Miles Greenwood. Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF MRS. FRANKLIN GREENWOOD.
M I L E S
G R E E N W O O D
( 1 8 0 7 - 1 8 8 5 )
Miles Greenwood was a machinery
and iron products manufacturer. His
Eagle Iron Works became an important
munitions center during the Civil War.
In the 1850s Greenwood was a
principal proponent for the establishment
of a paid fire department to
replace volunteer organizations. He
subsequently served the new department
as its first Chief Engineer.
and to accommodate increasing numbers of
immigrants, the city reached its zenith. The
1850 census revealed that the Queen City
had become the sixth largest city in the
United States, the third largest manufacturing
center and America’s fastest growing urban
center. Cincinnati appeared to be fulfilling the
dreams of her most ardent boosters.
But never again would purely
quantitative measurements rank Cincinnati
so high among American cities. During the
1850s, Cincinnati grew by 40 percent,
adding 45,000 people but, the momentum
had passed to others. St. Louis added
83,000 residents to catch up with
Cincinnati’s 161,000. Chicago exploded
Bill of lading issued by B. & D. Urner, commission merchants, for goods to be shipped on the steamboat General
Pike. Engraving.
JOHN J. ROWE COLLECTION.
from a town of 30,000 to a city of
109,260—and was just taking off.
What happened to Cincinnati’s
fortunes? Did Cincinnati’s decline relative
to the growth of others result from a failure
of vision by the city’s leadership, or from a
failure to modernize its transportation
system? Or did the city become
complacent and self-satisfied, cutting short
its own potential for greatness?
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
46

By 1860 many observers had begun to
focus on Cincinnati’s lack of rail
connections as the chief cause of its
“decline.” They tended to blame
Cincinnati’s business community for
having failed to invest enough at a critical
time to make the city the center of the
nation’s rail system. In this judgment
boosters failed to evaluate realistically the
extent to which the economic and
financial decisions that shaped rail
construction in the United States during
the 19th century could have been
controlled by Cincinnatians on behalf of
their city. Had they examined the forces
that produced Cincinnati’s economic and
population boom in the years before 1850,
they might have understood more fully
why the boom faded.
Cincinnati largely became the Queen
City of the West because the steam engine
revolutionized transportation at the same
time that settlers were pouring into the
Ohio Valley. The development of the
steamboat allowed Cincinnati to exploit
the commercial opportunities of the Ohio
River. Thanks to the steam engine and the
productivity of the agricultural region in
the watershed of the Ohio River,
Cincinnati emerged as a commercialindustrial
city with a diversified economy.
But if Cincinnati initially benefited from
the impact of the steam revolution on
transportation and from bringing
thousands of acres of rich land under
cultivation, the continuation of these same
processes would, in time, cause her
decline. As the energy of steam was
adapted to travel on land and as the vast
regions of the Mississippi Valley came
under the plow, Cincinnati’s era of
boundless growth ended.
Railroad service was introduced in the
United States in 1828. Until that time,
land travel had always been slower, less
predictable and more expensive than water
travel. Railroads’ potential to change that
situation was perceived quickly, but most
people assumed that oceans, rivers, and
lakes were the “natural arteries” and would
remain dominant. They believed that
railroads were “artificial arteries” that
would complement the water routes:
railroads would carry people and goods to
the waterways, thus enhancing, not
displacing, the steamboat and canal boat.
Joseph Oriel Eaton (attr.), Jacob Strader. Oil
on canvas.
GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN J. STRADER.
J A C O B
S T R A D E R
( 1 7 9 5 - 1 8 6 0 )
Jacob Strader was born in New
Jersey. He came to Cincinnati in 1816
and soon began to learn about
riverboating. He became engaged in
boat building in 1824 and over the next
20 years built 23 boats. In the 1840s
Captain Strader shifted much of his
interest to railroads and banking. He
became president of the Little Miami
Railroad in 1846 and served as
president of the Commercial Bank for
many years.
Public Landing, Cincinnati (c. 1855). At mid-century the public landing was the busiest in its history. Middleton,
Wallace and Company lithograph.
GIFT OF WATSON SMITH.
The first successful Cincinnati-based
railroad company was the Little Miami
Railroad, chartered in 1836. The line
linked Cincinnati and Springfield, where it
connected with another line extending to
Lake Erie and gave Cincinnati direct access
to the Great Lakes. Early financial troubles,
aggravated by the Panic of 1837, were only
overcome by investing $200,000 of public
money and the private investment of
Cincinnati businessman John G. Kilgour.
In the 1840s one other railroad was
begun from Cincinnati. The Cincinnati
C H A P T E R 2
4 7

Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad.
The railroad constructed a new depot in 1864 in the
West End. F. Tuchfarber and Company. Oil on iron.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
and Hamilton Railroad was chartered in
1846 and expanded in 1847 into the
Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton
Railroad. Built entirely with private funds,
the line reached Hamilton in 1846 and
Dayton in 1851, where it joined a rail line
to the north.
During the second quarter of the
century, railroad mileage grew rapidly in
Ohio despite little help from the state itself.
In the 1820s and 1830s, Ohio had
encouraged and helped finance the
development of a progressive transportation
system that included turnpikes and canals.
When railroads came along, the state
sought to protect its heavy investment in
canals, and several early railroad charters
provided for compensating the state for any
loss of canal revenues. Then the mood of
the public changed regarding the role of
state government in promoting and
financing transportation projects. Many
western states, including Ohio and Indiana,
had overextended public funds by
promoting development schemes. In Ohio
this shift culminated in a new constitution
in 1851 which made it illegal for the state
or the cities to invest in such projects.
Delegates from Hamilton County saw these
changes as ways to protect Cincinnati’s river
and canal advantages against competition
from railroads.
Such actions, however, failed to
discourage railroad building in Ohio.
Between 1850 and 1860, more than $100
million was spent in building rail lines.
Track mileage increased from 575 to
2,946, giving Ohio the most track of any
state in the country. People both within
and without Ohio invested heavily in
building railroads even though the lines
generally failed to yield great profits.
Some, such as the Little Miami Railroad,
showed modest profit, but they were
exceptions: by 1860 three-quarters of the
railroads in the state were insolvent and
paid no dividends.
Even so, this great effort to construct
railroads in the Midwest began to affect
Cincinnati. First, railroads enabled the
Queen City’s rivals to expand their own
lines of trade, sometimes at the expense of
Cincinnati. For example, Louisville built a
rail line to Lexington earlier than a line
connecting Covington to Lexington was
completed. Thus, central Kentucky began
to funnel its goods through Louisville rather
than Cincinnati. The problem was partly
corrected by the opening of the Covington
and Lexington Railroad in 1854, to which
the city of Cincinnati loaned $100,000.
However, once goods arrived in Covington,
they had to be ferried across the Ohio River
to Cincinnati, since there was no bridge.
Landlocked Indianapolis had failed to
become more than a sleepy government
center of 4,000 by 1846. But in September
of that year, a rail line opened that
connected Indianapolis to the Ohio River at
Madison, Indiana. This line gave farmers of
central Indiana direct access to the Ohio
River without going through Cincinnati.
Indianapolis enjoyed a boomlet. Its
population grew to 10,800 by 1852 and to
18,611 by 1860.
Second, as railroads demonstrated their
advantages over water routes, people ceased
to view railroads primarily as a means of
connecting inland towns to terminals
located on water routes. Ohio’s first railroad
lines had been built along north-south
routes to connect the Ohio River and Lake
Erie, just as canals had done. But by the
1850s, railroads had demonstrated certain
advantages over water transportation: they
Cincinnati Locomotive Works. Founded in 1853 when Robert Moore and John G. Richardson leased Anthony
Harkness & Son’s buildings and grounds, the Cincinnati Locomotive Works manufactured locomotives for the Little Miami
Railroad as well as other railroads serving the city. Middleton, Wallace and Company lithograph.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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were not idled for weeks or months at a
time during the winter as canals and rivers
were by freezing weather; they could move
people and freight at lower costs than
canals; they were faster than steamboats;
and they could connect cities by shorter
routes. For example, by river, the route
between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati was 470
miles and took three days. By rail, the trip
was reduced to 316 miles and 15 hours.
Similarly, the route from Cincinnati to New
Orleans was reduced from 1,484 miles and
eight days to 922 miles and 2½ days. If
railroads could challenge traffic between
river cities, their greater advantage was that
they could carry people and products
between cities not connected by rivers and
canals. Increasingly, rail lines reached out
from eastern cities into the nation’s rich
agricultural heartland passing east-west
through central and northern Ohio.
Midwestern producers whose goods were
ultimately bound for eastern markets soon
were able to ship directly east and avoid the
circuitous route down the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers through New Orleans.
In 1848 William Bebb, governor of
Ohio, addressed the Young Men’s
Mercantile Library Association in
Cincinnati on the importance of railroads
to the city’s future:
The railroad has made the land as
subservient to commerce as the water.
Railroads are to be the artificial rivers of
these latter days, and wo to that
commercial city that suffers these rivers to
be diverted from it. Cincinnati may, by
these instrumentalities, if she will,
command the Mississippi valley. Her
present greatness is already attracting
them and it will require a good deal of
neglect and repulsion from her to drive
them off, yet she may do it, and thus dash
her golden hopes.
Erasmus Gest (1820-1908), Gest’s Map of Railways Centering at Cincinnati with their Tributary Lines in
Adjoining States and Canada West (1853).
GIFT OF THE CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM.
Bebb’s remarks may have overestimated
Cincinnati’s capacity to shape her future,
but the city appeared to lack its earlier
vigor in completing several development
projects that affected her economic well-
C H A P T E R 2
4 9

Railroad passes.
MARIETTA AND CINCINNATI RAILROAD EMPLOYEE’S TICKET, GIFT OF SARAH A. THOMAS; CINCINNATI, HAMILTON AND DAYTON RAILROAD TICKET, GIFT OF THE OHIO MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE.
being. The enlargement of the canal at the
Falls of the Ohio in Louisville, the building
of a bridge across the Ohio River, the rail
lines to connect Cincinnati with Lexington
and with Indianapolis were all pursued
with conspicuous deliberateness and
frequently over the opposition of business
interests tied to the river.
Still, at mid-century, Cincinnati
controlled the trade of the upper Ohio,
and that trade was flourishing. From 1848
to 1851, an average of 3,649 steamboats
docked at Cincinnati each year. The yearly
average dropped to 2,961 in the 1856-
1859 period. A depression and a
prolonged drought in the late 1850s that
restricted river travel blurred the impact
railroads may have had on this decline.
And Cincinnati did respond by building
enough rail lines to supplement its existing
transportation system. Most importantly,
Cincinnati’s economy had reached a stage
of development that afforded a wide range
of investment opportunities. Cincinnatians
perceived their city more as a
manufacturing center than as a trading
center. Its leaders did not generally believe
that railroads would substantially affect
that status. Cincinnati investment capital
had become important throughout the
Ohio and Mississippi valleys in developing
factories and commercial facilities, even in
rival cities like Chicago.
As the pace of Cincinnati’s growth
slowed during the 1850s, people became
aware that Chicago had emerged as
Governor Morrow, built in 1841 by Thomas Rogers of Patterson, New Jersey, was the first locomotive of the Little
Miami Railroad. Model built by John H. White, Jr., 1974.
GIFT OF JOHN H. WHITE, JR.
Cincinnati’s primary challenger. In 1854 the
value of Chicago’s export and import trade
was about one-half of Cincinnati’s, but by
1858 parity had been achieved. Some
Cincinnatians did not find such statistics
alarming, for Cincinnati’s industrial output
was four times larger than Chicago’s. Even
Stephen Douglas observed in 1859, “There
is no better place than Cincinnati for
manufacturers, and no better place to
distribute than Chicago.” Other observers
were not comforted, noting that Chicago
was pushing out railroad enterprises in all
directions. But more fundamental forces
were at work: railroads were effects as well
as causes. Chicago benefited from railroads
just as Cincinnati had benefited from
steamboats, and Chicago was building its
trade on the agricultural productivity of the
Mississippi Valley, just as Cincinnati had
earlier profited from the productivity of its
surrounding region.
A comparison of the pork-packing
industries in the two cities illustrated the
remarkable ascendancy of Chicago in the
1850s. In 1845 Cincinnati was worldfamous
as “Porkopolis” for processing
more than 250,000 hogs. By 1858
that figure had risen to 414,752, while
Chicago packed 135,474. Just eight years
later, however, Chicago had become, in
Carl Sandburg’s phrase, the new
“hog butcher of the world” by packing
573,344 head, while Cincinnati remained
constant at 408,345. Cincinnati’s porkpacking
industry did not decline
noticeably—it remained the second largest
center for another 20 years. In this
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and other areas of economic activity,
Cincinnati’s development leveled out and
grew more slowly.
Cincinnati’s loss of leadership in the
West deeply disturbed its boosters. Some
vehemently condemned the city’s leaders,
as did William M. Corry in 1860, when he
contended that Cincinnati had “long been
laboring under bad advisers, careless
agents, and small officers. Her citizens
have put their trust in themselves too little,
and in schemers and charlatans too much,
and her widow weeds and discrowned
head attest their errors and her sorrows.”
The frustration was, perhaps,
understandable, but the hyperbole was
misleading. Cincinnati continued to grow
for the remainder of the century, reaching
a population of 255,139 by 1880 and
325,902 by 1900. Yet, Corry touched
upon an essential reality about the city. In
1850 Cincinnati had been self-confident,
energetic and at center stage. By 1860 the
city seemed adrift and disoriented as it
adjusted to its destiny of playing only a
supporting role among western cities.
The convolutions surrounding the Civil
War further distressed Cincinnati. Its trade
had been almost equally divided between
that going east and that going downriver.
Its people had developed close economic
and personal ties with Southerners. At first
the loss of river traffic caused severe
economic problems, but after 1863 a rising
number of war contracts and renewed river
trade reduced the economic impact.
Following the war Cincinnati
businessmen embarked on several projects
to re-establish southern trade based on
Cincinnati’s manufacturing and the South’s
mineral resources. The boldest such
enterprise involved building a rail line into
the upper South similar to a concept that
Daniel Drake had promoted 30 years
earlier. Now, because of Chicago’s growth
and that of other Great Lakes cities,
Cincinnati embraced the scheme. Its
business leaders felt that such a rail line
would help Cincinnati exchange its
manufactured products for raw materials.
They chose Chattanooga as the terminus
Depot of the Little Miami Railroad, located between Front Street and the Ohio River near present day Daniel Carter
Beard Bridge (I-471). Clipping.
GIFT OF MRS. RUSSELL WILSON.
Music Hall, March 18, 1880, In Commemoration the Completion of the Cincinnati Southern Railway.
Construction of the railway began in 1873, and in 1880 the first passenger train ran from Chattanooga to Cincinnati. A
banquet to celebrate the event was given by the citizens of Cincinnati for their southern visitors. M. P. Levyeau and
Company lithograph.
GIFT OF W. W. TAYLOR.
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Baseball–the Match Between the “Red Stockings” and the “Atlantics.” Engraving from Harper’s Weekly (July 2,
1870), pp. 424-25.
T H E C I N C I N N A T I R E D S T O C K I N G S O F 1 8 6 9
The Red Stockings. Cover of sheet music
illustrating the 1869 Red Stockings. Oliver Ditson and
Company (Boston) lithograph.
During the early 19th century, American baseball slowly emerged from the English game of
rounders. Wealthy gentlemen organized the first teams in New York in the early 1840s. By the
early 1860s, when the first teams were assembled in Cincinnati, there was increasing pressure to
pay talented players recruited from the lower classes. A pretense of amateurism was maintained
by finding jobs for these men with local establishments, but expecting no work from them.
In 1866 several young Cincinnati lawyers and businessmen interested in playing
baseball as amateurs formed the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Under the influence of
Englishman Harry Wright, who came to Cincinnati in 1866 as a professional cricket player
with the Union Cricket Club, the Red Stockings moved towards revolutionizing the game.
Beginning in 1869 the Red Stockings took the controversial step of forming an entire team
of openly paid players. Salaries ranged from $600 to $1,400. These new Reds soon established
themselves as the dominant team in the West and then undertook a tour of the East. By
defeating the New York City Mutuals and the Brooklyn Atlantics, the Red Stockings captured
the attention and admiration of the country. When the team returned triumphantly to the
Queen City, they were presented a 27-foot “champion” bat. By the end of this first season, the
team had outscored their opponents 2,395 runs to 575, winning 64 games and tying one.
At the opening of the 1870 season, the team reeled off another 27 victories. Then, on June
14, they fell to the Brooklyn Atlantics by the score of eight to seven in 11 innings. Nine
thousand partisan Atlantics fans viewed the game, and newspapers across the country reported
the loss. The Reds dropped only four more games during the remainder of the season.
At the end of the 1870 season, the combination of waning fan support and increased
salary demands that threatened to push the payroll above $8,000 caused the team president,
Aaron Champion, to announce the suspension of the team. Although the city was without
professional baseball for the next six years, the example of Cincinnati’s professional team
spurred the formation of similar, professional baseball clubs across the country.
Expense account for the Cincinnati Reds’ 1888 trip
to Louisville to play a series with the Eclipse Club. From
the Cincinnati Base Ball Club Records, 1882-1888.
Presentation of the championship bat to the Red Stockings on their return to Cincinnati from their
triumphal tour of 1869. Engraving from Harper’s Weekly (June 24, 1869), p. 477.
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Plan of Esplanade (1871). Ink on paper. Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection, 1866-1900.
GIFT OF WILLIAM S. ROWE.
for the Cincinnati Southern Railroad
because it rested at the edge of the central
Appalachian coal and iron deposits.
Although the project was undertaken in
1869, construction was not begun until
1873 and not completed until 1880.
While the Cincinnati Southern Railroad
was under construction, Cincinnati’s
boosters forged a new identity for themselves
and the Queen City. They worked to create
a city of culture and tradition, of beauty and
pageantry. Whether the boosters, having
given up on making Cincinnati the nation’s
largest city, turned inward and built an
artistic tradition for its own sake or whether
they consciously chose a path that would
distinguish Cincinnati among the sprawling,
rambunctious cities of the West, they may
not have known themselves. The cultural
development accomplished in the next 20
years was as awesome in its way as the
phenomenal growth had been a generation
earlier. Parks and playgrounds, a music hall
and an “art palace,” festivals and expositions,
and even a baseball team built civic pride
among Cincinnatians.
One of the first developments in
rekindling pride came about
unintentionally. Successful businessman
Henry Probasco sought only to give the city
a fountain in honor of his deceased business
partner and brother-in-law, Tyler Davidson.
While touring Europe he visited several
foundries in search of a fountain free from
conventional mythological symbolism. His
search ended at the Royal Bronze Foundry
of Bavaria, headed by Ferdinand von Miller.
The fountain’s design had been developed
around 1840 by August von Kreling, the
nucleus of a group of young artists who
strove for realism in their work. The
fountain Kreling had designed and which so
pleased Probasco portrayed the blessings of
water. It was headed by the “Genius of
Water.” Water fell from her fingers onto
sculpted figures depicting the importance of
water in quenching thirst and fire, for
bathing and for growing crops. The city tore
down a market house in the middle of Fifth
Street and, in 1871, erected the fountain
that quickly became Cincinnati’s symbol.
The city’s appearance needed attention.
Cincinnati had become seriously
overcrowded with its people working
and living in the smoky basin. Prior to
the Civil War, Cincinnati’s officials,
like those in most other American
cities, did not appreciate the need for
parks. On various occasions Cincinnati
had turned down offers for the sale
of land well below market value by
such men as Nicholas Longworth and
Jacob Burnet.
Esplanade from William F. Poole’s The Tyler Davidson Fountain Given by Mr. Henry Probasco to the City of
Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1872), facing p. 4.
GIFT OF THOMAS LAMPERTZ.
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5 3

Davidson Fountain—(Front view) from Poole’s
The Tyler Davidson Fountain, facing p. 1.
The earliest efforts in America to create
planned green spaces began in eastern
cities in the 1830s and focused on
developing cemeteries in countrylike
settings. Mt. Auburn in Boston (1831),
Laurel Hill in Philadelphia (1836) and
Greenwood Cemetery in New York (1838)
became models for this new type of
cemetery. Rural cemeteries were designed
to preserve the sense of informality,
simplicity and openness of the natural
setting, enhanced by careful improvements
through plantings and the construction of
ponds and lakes. Adolph Strauch, a
Photographs of plaster models of the front and rear figures (September 1869). Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection.
German-trained landscape gardener, had
settled in Cincinnati to develop and care
for the hilltop estates of people like
Probasco. In the 1850s he applied the
rural cemetery concept at Spring Grove in
the Mill Creek Valley on the northern edge
of the city.
Strauch also shaped the city’s first parks
outside the basin. The need for a better
supply of water prompted the acquisition
of property on Mt. Adams from Joseph
Longworth in 1869. His father, Nicholas
Longworth, had once maintained
vineyards there in his “Garden of Eden.”
From the beginning it was decided that
any land the waterworks did not require
would be developed as a park. Here and
in Burnet Woods, Strauch directed the
planting of trees and greenery, the
development of lakes and ponds, and the
careful maintenance of the grounds in
such a way that nature would be enhanced
but not altered.
Designs for drinking cups of white tin plate, ornamented of the same metal bronze as the fountain itself (1870). Signed Fritz Miller. Tyler Davidson Fountain Collection.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Spring Grove Cemetery (1858). The original development plan was made by John Notman, designer of
Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. Adolph Strauch’s landscaping plan was adopted soon after he became superintendent
in 1855. Middleton, Strobridge and Company lithograph.
Eldridge Derry Grafton, Adolph Strauch (1822-
1883), “In Compliment to Adolph Strauch, The Pioneer
Landscape Gardener of the West.” Watercolor (1883).
GIFT OF OTTO STRAUCH.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF GRACE F. SPIEGEL.
The creation of the Cincinnati
Zoological Gardens provided Cincinnatians
with yet another type of open space.
Led by Andrew Erkenbrecher and others,
the Zoo was incorporated on July 11,
1873. Rejected as a tenant for Burnet
Woods, which was then being developed
as a park, the Zoological Society purchased
land of its own and opened on September
18, 1875, with a curious menagerie
that included an old circus elephant and
a blind hyena. The collections grew
rapidly in size, scope and popularity.
In succeeding years the institution
faced numerous financial problems, from
which businesses and philanthropists
rescued it, until 1932 when the city
purchased it.
A series of festivals and expositions
begun in the 1870s demonstrated how the
city combined commerce and culture in
this period. From 1838 to 1860, the Ohio
Mechanics’ Institute had sponsored a series
List of Animals Donated to the Zoological
Gardens from the First Annual Report of the
Zoological Society of Cincinnati, for the Year 1874
(Cincinnati, 1875), p. 32.
Listening to the Beautiful Song Birds at Cincinnati Zoo (c. 1908). Postcard.
GIFT OF DOROTHY HERMANIES.
C H A P T E R 2
5 5

Cincinnati Music Hall and Exposition Buildings (1879). Russell, Morgan and Company lithograph.
of 18 trade fairs, which ceased in Civil War
years. Under the leadership of Major Alfred
T. Goshorn and Miles Greenwood, and with
the cooperation of the Ohio Mechanics’
Institute, the Chamber of Commerce and
the Board of Trade, Cincinnati prepared a
fair for the fall of 1870 that was larger than
Centennial Exposition Bridge (1888). James Landy photograph.
any held before the war. That year
Saengerfest Hall was built in time for the
spring festival of German singing societies,
and in the fall it became the nucleus of a
fair that attracted visitors from outside the
Cincinnati area. This and succeeding fairs
had certain common features, including
Alfred Traber Goshorn from Harry Ellard’s
Baseball in Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1907), p. 136.
A L B E R T
T R A B E R
G O S H O R N
( 1 8 3 3 - 1 9 0 2 )
One of Cincinnati’s leading
citizens of the 1860s and 1870s,
Alfred T. Goshorn earned a reputation
as the “father” of the Cincinnati
Industrial Expositions and achieved
international prominence as Director-
General of the U.S. Centennial
Exposition held in Philadelphia in
1876. According to one early
biographer, his exceptional managerial
ability and wide-ranging participation
in civic affairs led to Cincinnati’s
“advancement in every phase.”
A. T. Goshorn held many offices of
importance and served as one of two
early mayors of Clifton. His
contributions as originator and three
term president of the Cincinnati
Industrial Expositions earned him such
wide acclaim that he was asked to
direct the U. S. Centennial Exposition
in Philadelphia, a post he held from
1873 to 1877. He received awards and
decorations from many foreign
countries to commemorate his service.
GIFT OF JUSTIN BEHLE.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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The Seventh Industrial Exposition of Cincinnati in the Grand Permanent Buildings, September 10th to
October 10th— View of the Exhibits Displayed in the Music Hall from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
(September 20, 1879). From the Cincinnati Musical Festival Association Records, 1875-1962.
An advertisement printed by Robert Clarke for the
Cincinnati Industrial Exposition (1873). Broadside.
GIFTS OF JOHN WARRINGTON, CORNELIUS J. HAUCK, SAMUEL POGUE, MRS. LOUIS NIPPERT AND TED GARDNER.
Fest-Halle (1870). In the 1870s music reigned supreme in Cincinnati’s cultural life. For the Saengerfest of 1870, a
great auditorium 110 feet by 250 feet was constructed on Elm at 14th Street, opposite Washington Park. On the first
evening, 12,000 people, sitting and standing, packed the hall. Charles F. Wilstach and Company lithograph.
GIFT OF THE COLLEGE OF MUSIC.
machinery, much of it manufactured in
Cincinnati, displayed in a “Power Hall,”
plus horticultural and art exhibits. The
expositions proved so popular and
successful in the early 1870s that Goshorn
became the director-general of the nation’s
Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia
in 1876.
As years passed, the expositions
changed. Less attention was given to the
From the Metropolis to the Porkopolis. When
Theodore Thomas became a resident of Cincinnati in
1878, Puck magazine publicized his move on the cover
of its October 9th issue.
business purposes that had largely
inspired them. They became increasingly
elaborate with greater emphasis on
pageantry. These expositions culminated
in the Centennial Exposition of the
Ohio Valley and Central States that ran
from July 4 through October 27, 1888,
C H A P T E R 2
5 7

celebrating the settlement of the city. The
exposition succeeded in every respect
except financial, but that critical measure
ended the annual fairs until the early
1900s, when they were revived for
several years.
The festivals provided an important
symbol of how the city now worked to
attract visitors and businessmen while also
promoting its cultural life. Every spring,
about the time the grapes bloomed, the
city’s German singing societies would
assemble for a saengerfest. Out of this
tradition Cincinnati held its first May
Festival in 1873. Theodore Thomas, a
prominent New York conductor, was
persuaded to coordinate all of the singing
societies into a grand festival. After the
second festival in 1875 proved as
successful as the first, Reuben Springer
offered $125,000 to build a better facility
to house both musical performances and
the industrial expositions. His gift was
conditioned upon the citizens matching
it and the city granting the land in
perpetual exemption from municipal
taxation. The city and the public met his
challenge, and between 1875 and 1878
Music Hall was built between Elm Street
and the Miami-Erie Canal in time for the
Paul Jones, Cincinnati Fall Festival, The Magnificent Venetian Spectacle Marco Polo, September 7 to 19,
1903 (1903). Strobridge Lithographing Company lithograph.
Strobridge Lithographing Company, The
Cincinnati Fall Festival, Aug. 28 to Sept. 22-
1906. Lithograph.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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W O M E N ’ S
W O R K
Finding suitable employment for women
was not posed as a problem in antebellum
society. In frontier Cincinnati spinsters were a
rarity, and married or widowed women whose
families needed their income “took in” sewing,
laundry and boarders. Mechanization,
industrialization, and a slowdown in economic
and population growth diminished demands
for these traditional cottage industries. From
about mid-century many women who needed
income were obliged to work long hours Rookwood artists at work (c. 1892). Photograph.
under deplorable factory conditions for
substandard wages.
Finding more suitable “women’s work” became a favorite cause of America’s genteel
reformers who feared that prevailing conditions jeopardized the health and morals of the
mothers and future mothers of the nation. Cincinnati reformers pioneered in the concept
that education in applied design would enable women to find suitable, profitable work in
the emerging industrial world, and that the infusion of superior artistic qualities in the
city’s manufactures would make them more competitive in the national marketplace.
Colonel George Ward Nichols, author of Art Education Applied to Industry (1877), was
the chief propagandist for the movement resulting in the establishment of the Cincinnati
Art Museum, Art Academy and Rookwood Pottery patterned after English prototypes at
South Kensington and Lambeth.
The Cincinnati experiment in art education and art applied to industry enjoyed a
considerable success. The academy graduated an exceptional number of young men and
women whose achievements in fine and commercial art have brought fame to the city. And
local industries such as Rookwood Pottery and Gibson Art Company which provided
“women’s work” shared in the glory as well as the profit. Wages for women remained
woefully inadequate but working conditions for artists were good, and the jobs carried a
measure of prestige.
M A R I A L O N G W O R T H
N I C H O L S S T O R E R
( 1 8 4 9 - 1 9 3 2 )
Maria Nichols was bright, bold
and affluent; and she was perhaps the
most powerful woman in Cincinnati
in the late 19 century. Rookwood Pottery,
which she started in 1880, is reputed
to be the first major American
industry owned and operated by a
woman. What’s more, by the turn of
the century, it was the most prestigious
art pottery in the United States,
and among the most highly regarded
in the western world.
Maria, her father, Joseph Longworth,
and her husband, Colonel
George Ward Nichols continued the
tradition of cultural boosterism
begun in the 1820s by her grandfather,
Nicholas. They were instrumental
in the founding of the May Festival
(1873), the College of Music (1878),
the Cincinnati Art Museum (1881),
and the transfer of the School of Design
from the university to the Art
Academy. Following the death of
Colonel Nichols, Maria married the
Cincinnati attorney and politician,
Bellamy Storer.
Cincinnati Art Museum, under construction (1884). Photograph.
C H A P T E R 2
5 9

Valentine Bonhajo, Artwork for an exposition
poster (1886). Watercolor.
O T H E R I N D U S T R I A L
E X H I B I T I O N S
In 1900 another series of industrial
pageants began under the sponsorship
of the Cincinnati Business Men’s Club,
the Fall Festival Association and the
Chamber of Commerce. The sixth in
this series, in 1910, was known as the
Ohio Valley Exposition, featuring the
produce, resources and products of
the South. It also celebrated the
completion of the Fernbank Dam
on the Ohio River and the success of
the Ohio Valley Improvement
Association, established in 1895, to
promote the canalization of the Ohio
River to make it navigable year-round
from Pittsburgh to Cairo.
A group of Cincinnati women organized to
prepare an exhibit of women’s art for the
nation’s Centennial Exposition. After the
exposition the committee transformed
itself into the Women’s Art Museum
Association of Cincinnati for the purpose
of founding a museum.
Cincinnati modeled its venture on the
South Kensington Museum in England.
Inspired by the 1857 “Crystal Palace”
exposition with its emphasis on the
decorative arts, the South Kensington
Museum stressed the importance of the
arts to industrial development. In 1878
the Women’s Art Museum Association
sponsored a lecture series that explored
this relationship. The speakers and their
topics said much about Cincinnati at the
time: the president of the Chamber of
Commerce, Sidney Maxwell, gave the
inaugural lecture on “The Manufacturers
of Cincinnati and Their Relation to the
Future Progress of the City.” George Ward
Nichols spoke on “Those Branches of
Manufacture Which Would Be Especially
Benefited by Trained Designers and
Workmen from the Art Schools.” The
series concluded with Charles P. Taft
Strobridge Lithographing Company, The
Cincinnati Fall Festival, Aug. 28 to Sept. 22
(1906). Gouache.
1878 festival. The building gave
Cincinnati a facility that attracted the
Democratic national political convention
to the city in 1880.
Many of the same people instrumental
in establishing Cincinnati’s parks and
expositions, its Zoo and May Festival also
helped found the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Eden Park Spring House. The thatched-roofed spring house was built in 1900 over a spring which, according to
local legend, provided medicinal benefits. When the spring was found to be impure, it was covered by an arched gazebo
completed in 1904. Photograph.
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Eden Park Bandstand. Free concerts, popular in Eden Park since 1872, were held in this tile-roofed bandstand from 1914 until the Seasongood Pavilion replaced it in 1960. Photograph.
GIFT OF THE MT. ADAMS GAZETTE.
explaining “The South Kensington
Museum: What It Is; How It Originated;
What It Has Done and Is Now Doing for
the World.” Through formal training at the
School of Design and inspiring exhibits at
the museum, these cultured women and
businessmen hoped that workers would
learn not only their narrow skills but also
pride in workmanship, thrift, industry
and respectability.
In 1882 the city provided the Art
Museum Association with 20 acres in Eden
Park. Such a building conflicted directly
with the prevailing theories of how the park
should be developed, but construction
proceeded and the “Art Palace of the West”
opened on May 17, 1886.
This amazing burst of energy to
establish cultural institutions that
would enrich lives and enhance the
reputation of Cincinnati marked the
city’s coming of age. By the 1870s
Cincinnati had reached a stage of
economic and social maturity sufficient
to create and support a rich cultural
life. These efforts were never purely
esoteric, they also focused on the material
needs of the city. By providing places of
beauty and retreat for the inhabitants of
the overcrowded basin, by providing
avenues through which citizens could
experience music and art, Cincinnati’s
leaders sought to make the city livable
and, perhaps, make better people out of
the tens of thousands who lived and
worked here.
Looking beyond the impact of these
projects on Cincinnati’s citizens, the city’s
boosters hoped they would maintain the
city’s national place. In 1878 Murat
Halstead, the editor of the Cincinnati
Commercial, declared with some
justification and even more hope that
“Cincinnati is the central city of the Nation.
It is one of the cosmopolitan places...There
is no other American city that is like
Cincinnati...Washington will remain our
political and New York our commercial
capital, but Cincinnati will be the city of
national conventions and the social center
and musical metropolis of America.”
C H A P T E R 2
6 1

Louis Charles Vogt, Mt. Adams Incline (c. 1909). Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF THE OHIO MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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CHAPTER 3
S C R A M B L E U P T H E H I L L S , 1 8 7 0 - 1 9 1 4
During the last third of the 19th century,
Cincinnati grew in population and in area.
A revolution in urban transportation made
it possible for large numbers of people to
escape the dirty, crowded basin and live
some distance from their work. As inclined
planes, trolley and railroad lines were built,
people sorted themselves out along
economic, religious and ethnic lines and
formed new communities on Cincinnati’s
hilltops. This reorganization of the city
transformed the basin. Offices and retail
stores were concentrated in the central
business district occupying ever taller
buildings, while poor people still living in
the basin were pushed to its fringes.
Rapid changes in where people lived
were compounded by revolutionary
changes in the way they worked. The
combination of these sweeping changes
precipitated a social and political upheaval
that exploded in the 1880s in the greatest
riot and labor strike in the city’s history. Out
of that chaos emerged a talented politician,
George B. Cox, who proved able to impose
some order and stability on the rapidly
developing city. In time, Cincinnatians grew
tired of Cox’s methods and brought an end
to boss rule, but for more than 30 years
Cincinnati was dominated by one of the
nation’s greatest political bosses.
From Cincinnati’s incorporation as a town
in 1802 until the middle of the 19th century,
its boundaries were fixed to the 3.88 square
miles of the basin. Between 1849 and 1855,
1.5 square miles were annexed, but by 1860,
with a population of 161,044, an average of
30,000 people lived in each square mile,
making Cincinnati one of the most densely
populated cities in America. Between 1869
and 1918, however, Cincinnati reached out
and annexed more than 65 square miles as
the population of the area approached a halfmillion
people.
The change was not confined to numbers.
Annexation transformed the structure
and quality of life in Cincinnati. In
1870 Cincinnati was still fundamentally a
“walking city” in which everyone, rich and
poor, German and Irish, black and white,
lived in the close confines of the basin.
In the mid-nineteenth century, all
American cities were walking cities.
Everyone had to live within walking
South Side of Fourth Street Between Walnut and Vine. Cincinnati, O. ( c. 1871). Ehrgott, Forbriger and Company lithograph.
GIFT OF P. W. SCHATH.
C H A P T E R 3
6 3

Panoramic View of the City (1866). Looking from the roof of the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute building at the southwest corner of Sixth and Vine streets. Photograph.
GIFT OF JUDGE CHARLES W. HOFFMAN.
distance—one or two miles—of work,
shops and church. In Cincinnati
topography aggravated this normally
congested situation. Steep hills to the north,
east and west and the Ohio River on the
south impeded expansion. The resulting
jumble of housing, factories, warehouses
and shops, combined with the widespread
use of coal and lack of proper means for
disposal of waste, gave Cincinnati a lessthan-pleasant
environment.
The structure of Cincinnati as a walking
city was different from the 20th century
city. The most desired residential location
was near the center of the city, particularly
along Fourth Street. Pockets of upper-class
residences were also found farther from the
center—including the area around Garfield
Place and later near Dayton Street in the
“West End” of the basin.
The least desirable locations were
around the edge of the basin, such as
along the riverfront and the Deer Creek
Valley on the eastern edge of the city. Only
those too poor to escape tolerated living
near the jumble of warehouses,
slaughterhouses and factories on land with
poor drainage or vulnerable to floods. East
of Broadway near the Deer Creek was
Bucktown, largely populated by blacks and
many poor Irish. Bucktown’s saloons,
coffeehouses and brothels attracted crowds
of rowdy boatmen and factory hands. In
areas along the riverfront known as Rat
Row and Sausage Row, conditions were
similar. Most Cincinnatians avoided these
frightening areas.
Over-the-Rhine was another district on
the periphery. Unlike Bucktown and the
riverfront, Over-the-Rhine had become the
primary district for German immigrants to
settle in when they reached the city. By
1860 the statistical dominance of the
Germans had given way to those of nativeborn
stock, many of whom were born to
immigrant German parents. Socially, the
district remained the center of laboringclass
residents.
L A F C A D I O
H E A R N
( 1 8 5 0 - 1 9 0 4 )
Hearn was a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer (1874-1875) and the Cincinnati Commercial
(1875-1877). He wrote sensational accounts of murders and poverty and chronicled riverfront
life.
The density of the population [in Bucktown] is proportionately greater than in any other part of
the city, although it is mostly a floating population—floating between the work-house or the
penitentiary, and the dens in the filthy hollow. Ten, twelve, or even twenty inhabitants in one twostory
underground den is common enough. At night even the roofs are occupied by sleepers, the
balconies are crowded, and the dumps are frequently the scenes of wholesale debauchery the most
degrading... In the alley which runs by the old Allen Church, on Fifth and Culvert, some twenty feet
below the fill, is a long stagnant pool of execrable stench, which has become a horrible nuisance, and
which never dries up. Insect life, the foulest and most monstrous, lurks in the dark underground
shanties near by: and wriggling things, the most horrible, abound in the mud without.
- Lafcadio Hearn, Cincinnati Commercial (August 22, 1875), p. 3.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Panoramic View–City of Cincinnati (1900). Henderson Lithographing Company engraving.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
Bellevue Incline (c. 1910). Photograph.
Prior to the 1870s, only a few of the
wealthiest citizens were able to afford horsedrawn
vehicles and maintain the flexible
schedules necessary to live away from the
core of the city. Living outside the basin was
impractical for just about everyone else until
several developments revolutionized
Cincinnati’s internal transportation system
and, consequently, the structure of the city.
A bridge across the Ohio River between
Cincinnati and Covington had been
discussed seriously since the 1820s, but it
was not until 1846 and 1849 that the
Kentucky and Ohio legislatures issued
charters to undertake its construction. Legal
challenges, economic depression, the Civil
War and labor disputes prevented
completion of the project until 1867.
Designed by John A. Roebling, an
innovative engineer, the Covington and
Cincinnati Suspension Bridge opened in
December 1866 as the world’s longest and
first truly modern suspension span.
Beginning in the 1840s, horse-drawn
buses, or omnibuses, operated in
Cincinnati. They were the city’s first effort
to establish regular fares and routes for
moving people around the basin.
However, their high fares and limited
capacity restricted their impact. In 1859
city council passed an ordinance to
provide for the development and
regulation of horse-drawn street-railway
lines. Streetcar lines soon sprang up all
over the basin with little coherence or
order. In 1875, 14 lines provided 45 miles
of track and employed 550 men and 1,000
horses. By 1880 John Kilgour had become
the dominant figure in local transportation
C H A P T E R 3
6 5

Cincinnati & Covington Suspension Bridge (1866). Strobridge and Company lithograph.
Price Hill Incline (c. 1914). The only incline to use a double set of tracks – one for passenger service, the other for
freight. Photograph.
by creating the Cincinnati Street Railway
Company through a series of mergers,
which reduced the confusion. The
streetcars were a significant improvement
over omnibuses, but they too were limited.
Horses were expensive to purchase and
maintain: they cost an average of $100 to
buy; they required the services of
blacksmiths and veterinarians; they
consumed large amounts of feed; and, on
the average, they lasted only four years.
More importantly, the steep hills
surrounding the basin required the use of
so many extra horses that the horsecar
lines were limited to use in the basin and
in the Mill Creek Valley.
The real breakthrough in scaling the hills
came in 1872 when the Main Street, or Mt.
Auburn, Incline opened. People had
employed inclines for centuries, but they
became popular modes of urban
transportation in the 1870s both in
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Using steam
power generated in a powerhouse on top of
the hill, horse-drawn streetcars and other
vehicles drove onto a platform. The incline
used a cable to raise or lower the platform
with its cargo. Three more inclines were
built during the four years after the opening
of the Mt. Auburn Incline: the Price Hill
Incline opened in 1874 and the Bellevue
and Mount Adams inclines in 1876.
Cincinnati’s fifth incline, the Fairview, was
constructed 14 years later to provide
crosstown connections. Inclines provided
Cincinnati cheap and convenient access
between the basin and hilltops for the first
time. Very quickly the horsecar lines met the
inclines at the base of the hills and expanded
outward from the summits into the
surrounding areas.
Several other experiments were tried to
provide better access to outlying districts.
Established villages used commuter steam
railways to provide links to the city. The
Kilgours employed a steam “dummy” to
promote the development of their real
estate holdings in Mt. Lookout. In addition,
during the 1880s several cable-car lines
were constructed, challenging the inclines
for traffic. Finally, beginning in June 1888
with the electrification of the street railway
from the top of Gilbert Avenue, trolleys
quickly displaced the horsecars, commuter
steam railways and cable lines.
These developments had a dramatic
impact on the structure of Cincinnati. The
city pressed outward from the basin in
a series of concentric rings. The exact path
of development reflected the course and
extent of the mass-transit system. By 1890
more than 100,000 people lived in dozens
of communities in Hamilton County
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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The College Hill Omnibus (1870s). Omnibuses, the only form of public transportation
before iron rails for horsecars were laid in downtown streets in 1859, continued
to make trips to the suburbs until the 1880s. Photograph.
Post Office 24 (c. 1885). The destinations and connections were listed on this
horsecar which ran between the Little Miami Railroad Depot and downtown. Photograph.
GIFT OF MRS. ANTHONY D. BULLOCK.
Mt. Lookout Steam Dummy at Delta Avenue and Linwood Road (c. 1890). Because
steam locomotives frightened horses, they were disguised as horsecars and popularly
called “dummies.” Photograph.
GIFT OF JOHN H. WHITE, JR.
High Water Car on Ludlow Avenue. High water cars, with their bodies and motors
raised above the tracks, were used from 1901 to 1940 to go through water as deep as
four feet. Photograph.
GIFT OF THE CINCINNATI TRANSIT COMPANY.
Santiago (c. 1908). Summer parlor cars were in
use in Cincinnati by 1898. The Santiago was built by
the Cincinnati Car Company. Photograph.
C H A P T E R 3
6 7

James W. McLaughlin, Residence of Mr. T. B. Handy, Clifton (c. 1880). Ink
on paper. James W. McLaughlin Architectural Record Collection.
From top to bottom: Residence of Henry Probasco, Esq. from D. J. Kenny’s
Illustrated Cincinnati… (Cincinnati, 1875), p. 309; Residence of John Shillito from
Kenny (1875), p. 303; and Residence of Geo. K. Schoenberger, Esq. from Kenny
(1875), p. 310.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
68

T H E M I L L C R E E K V A L L E Y
The lands west of [Spring Grove Avenue]... are a succession of gardens and hot houses;
what beds of onions, and rows of beets and parsnips and carrots; what peaches and cucumbers
and melons; what multitudinous heads of cabbage and cauliflower and lettuce, and hills of
succulent young corn, one passes, are not to be reckoned by any process of mental arithmetic.
- Cincinnati Commercial (1866).
“The geographical location of Price Hill is most
fortunate, as the prevailing west winds waft the smoke,
gases and impurities which arise from the city proper
away from it. The hygiene is unexcelled. The oxygen of
the fresh, pure atmosphere brings the roses to the cheeks
and elasticity to the step. What could be more beneficial
than to reside in this perpetual health resort and still
have such easy access to one’s business?”
and Northern Kentucky surrounding
the basin. The hills were no longer
insurmountable. As people, especially from
the middle class, began to scramble up the
hills, they formed new communities where
only farms had been and transformed
outlying autonomous villages into suburbs.
The wealthy had not waited for the
development of mass transportation to
begin moving from the basin. Upper-class
Cincinnatians began as early as the 1830s
and 1840s to search out retreats away from
the noise and crowdedness of the city. In
their search for solitude and beauty, they
constructed homes on Mt. Auburn,
Clifton, Walnut Hills, in Wallace Woods
south of Covington and in Fernbank along
the river. Along Lafayette Avenue in
Clifton in the 1860s, the merchant princes
of the city erected castle-like mansions and
surrounded their palaces with gardens.
Their homes had views of the Mill Creek
Valley that inspired those looking out and
awed those looking up. The magnificence
of the Clifton estates won for it and for
Cincinnati international fame. Lippincott’s
Magazine commented that “the
incomparable mountain suburb of Clifton’’
had only one rival in America or Europe,
the “mountain paradise of Wilkemolke,
which the Elector of Hesse adorned at the
expense of a hundred ill gotten millions.”
Although the wealthy led the way in
populating new suburban areas, the bulk
of the people fleeing to the hilltops after
1870 were from the middle class. Many of
these new suburbs were based on longestablished
farming villages that were
transformed by the arrival of commuter
transportation. The small village of
Pleasant Ridge, at the crossroads of
Montgomery Pike and Columbia (later
Ridge) Road, had served nearby farms
since the 1820s. The arrival of the
Cincinnati Northern Railroad in 1881
brought a wave of newcomers, doubling
the population in a decade. Among the
newcomers were truck farmers of German
stock from Wooden Shoe Hollow near
Winton Place who continued the farming
traditions of the area. In greater numbers
came families headed by middle-class
business and professional men who
commuted daily to Cincinnati.
College Hill developed as an even more
specialized autonomous village within the
orbit of Cincinnati during the 1840s and
1850s. The presence of the Farmers’
College and the Ohio Female College gave
College Hill a unique character and
atmosphere. The opening of the College
Hill Railroad in 1876, however, set in
motion the transformation of the village
into a commuter suburb of Cincinnati.
View of Glendale, near Cincinnati (c. 1860). While most towns near Cincinnati had begun as autonomous villages
and became suburbs only as the city expanded, Glendale was planned as a community in a rural setting whose residents
would work in Cincinnati. In 1851, 30 people formed the Glendale Association and purchased 600 acres, once the farms of
John Riddle and Edmund R. Glenn (from whom the village name was obtained), along the line of the Cincinnati, Hamilton
and Dayton Railroad. Robert C. Phillips planned the town, lots were sold, and by 1852, the first house was built. Middleton,
Strobridge and Company lithograph.
C H A P T E R 3
6 9

Ohio Female College (1859). Located on the grounds of the present College Hill Campus of Cincinnati Children’s
Hospital, the college offered courses in literature and the arts from 1849 until 1872. Middleton, Strobridge and Company
lithograph. Purchase.
In the case of some suburbs, the ethnic
or racial identity of the new inhabitants was
more important than their economic and
social status in establishing the character of
the community. From the middle of the
19th century, Avondale attracted some of
Cincinnati’s leading industrialists. In the
1870s and 1880s, less affluent middle-class
homeowners joined them. Then, in the
1890s, Avondale became the primary
destination for German Jews seeking to
move out of the crowded West End. With
the addition of southern and eastern
European Jews, by 1920 Avondale had
become the home for three-quarters of the
city’s Jewish population.
From the mid-nineteenth century, some
Cincinnati suburbs, including Avondale and
Walnut Hills, had small settlements of
blacks. Although the vast majority of
Cincinnati’s blacks were concentrated in the
West End after 1870, several outlying black
communities sprang up during the process
of suburbanization. For example, beginning
in 1893 Charles M. Steele developed a
subdivision of small lots just north of
College Hill, which he sold to black
migrants primarily from Nicholas County,
Kentucky. The black residents who moved
to “Steele Sub” found jobs on nearby farms,
in the rail yards and factories in Cincinnati,
and as domestics and day laborers all over
the area. Most had to build their own homes
in stages as they saved enough for materials.
As these people sought to reconstruct the
best of the life they had left behind, “Steele
Sub” became, in effect, a rural southern
black village on the fringe of Cincinnati.
Neighborhoods in the Mill Creek Valley
and the “Norwood Trough” developed
differently than the more prestigious hilltop
communities. In the mid-nineteenth
century the Mill Creek Valley was a beautiful
truck-farming area. But this rural character
disappeared between 1870 and 1890 as
factories moved there and stimulated the
development of housing for workers in
Camp Washington, Cumminsville and St.
Bernard. Norwood became Cincinnati’s
most important industrial suburb. Known
as Sharpsburg until 1869, the area was
occupied primarily by farmers, especially
dairy farmers. During the 1870s, Norwood
could not compete with hilltop
communities for residents, even though a
rail line had passed through in the 1850s.
Then, just before the turn of the century as
the Mill Creek Valley became filled,
Norwood began to develop as a
United States Playing Card Company, Norwood, Ohio (c. 1900). In the late 19th century some manufacturers subscribed to the philosophy that good working conditions
were synonymous with good business. Architects suggested that well-planned factories in pleasant surroundings would encourage increased production and pride in workmanship. Often
new factory buildings were located on landscaped grounds or in industrial parks which served as buffers between the plants and adjacent residential areas. Photograph of an
architectural rendering.
GIFT OF THOMAS H. LANDIS AND SAMUEL HANNAFORD AND SONS.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Bullock Electric Manufacturing Company, Norwood Works, 1898-1904. Photograph.
GIFT OF JAMES W. BULLOCK.
Bullock Electric Manufacturing Company. Architectural rendering.
manufacturing center. It offered industries
cheap land, room for expansion, excellent
rail connections and access to a plentiful
supply of labor. By 1910 Norwood was
home to 49 manufacturing concerns that
employed almost 10,000 workers—nearly
half of whom commuted daily from
Cincinnati. Increasingly, however, workers
sought convenient housing in Norwood
itself. Its population soon had a higher
proportion of factory workers than other
Cincinnati suburbs.
Life in these emerging suburbs differed
in many respects from life in Cincinnati
before 1870. Certain members of the
family were much more mobile than they
had once been. The daily commute for
those with full-time jobs or those
attending high school in the city became a
regular feature of life accompanied by all
the frustrations of mass transit. One
commuter line had such a terrible
reputation for accidents and delays that a
newspaper commented sarcastically that
the railroad’s management felt compelled
to place bibles in the coaches. For those
who did not travel to town each day, the
neighborhood, with its stores and traveling
vendors, became a world of its own. In
dozens of communities the main street
supported scores of small shops and
The Procter & Gamble Company Factories (c. 1920). Photograph.
GIFT OF MILTON J. NIEDERLEHNER.
businesses that depended primarily on the
trade of the immediate community. In
addition, the iceman, locksmith, scissors
sharpener and umbrella repairman, the
traveling butcher and baker, and assorted
vegetable and fruit vendors brought
services door-to-door.
A few neighborhoods developed
business districts that served whole areas
of town. Particularly important were
Peebles Corner in Walnut Hills and
Knowlton’s Corner in Cumminsville.
Situated at the crossroads of numerous
streetcar lines, both of these shopping
districts were convenient for commuters to
visit while making transfers. Going
shopping in Knowlton’s Corner on
Saturday evening became as much a social
event as an economic event.
Suburbanization involved more than
laying out streets and building new houses.
C H A P T E R 3
7 1

F O U R T H
S T R E E T
Between 1830 and 1860, Fourth Street
was the most prestigious residential
address in the city. Like most of the old
“walking city,” it was devoted to a mixture
of uses. Churches, educational institutions,
hotels, groceries and specialty shops were
interspersed among townhouses occupied
by the urban elite.
As transportation improvements allowed
people to move outward from the core
during the 1870s, the physical pattern of the
walking city, which placed the most
desirable and expensive residential areas
close to business and shopping, began
breaking down. From the 1880s, when
Thomas Emery’s Sons built such fashionable
flats as the San Rafael and the Lombardy,
apartment buildings replaced single-family
residences on West Fourth Street. In the
Lytle Park area, the Sinton-Taft family
preserved a residential enclave by retaining
their own home (the future Taft Museum)
and by owning the Lytle and Lincoln
apartment buildings. The St. Nicholas Hotel
(1859-1911) at the corner of Fourth and
Race Streets and the Grand Hotel (1874-
1933) at the corner of Fourth and Central
Avenue were favorite spots for meetings,
business luncheons, and banquets.
While Fourth Street declined in
importance as a place to live in the late
19th century, it held its own as a place to
shop for quality goods, earning the title of
Cincinnati’s “Fifth Avenue.” After 1900 it
became the city’s “Wall Street” as well
when most of the major banks began to
move their headquarters up from Third
Street. During the first decade of the 20th
century, Fourth Street became the
skyscraper district of the city with the
construction of the Union Savings Bank
and Trust Company (later the Bartlett
Building) and First National Bank (Fourth
and Walnut Centre) buildings both
designed by the famed Chicago
architectural firm of Daniel Burnham &
Co., and the Ingalls Building (ACI
Building) designed by Cincinnati architect
Alfred O. Elzner.
Southeast Corner, Fourth and Race Streets (c. 1890). Looking east, the St. Nicholas Hotel on the right.
Northwest Corner, Fourth and Main Streets (1903). Background, the Mercantile Library Building under
construction. Photograph.
GIFT OF EUGENE W. NICKERSON, III.
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Pleasant Ridge Hotel (1876). Built in 1853 by William Scudder, the hotel is at the northwest corner of Montgomery
Road and Ridge Avenue. Photograph.
It also meant creating a sense of community.
Many institutions and organizations
facilitated this purpose. The newly arrived
German farmers in Pleasant Ridge organized
the Pleasant Ridge Evangelical Lutheran
Church. After 1905 the new Jewish residents
of Avondale moved most of their synagogues
from the basin to the hilltop. In addition to
churches, fraternal and social organizations
flourished everywhere. The growth of
neighborhoods stimulated the development
of a new type of organization variously
termed “improvement associations,” “civic
leagues” or “welfare leagues,” depending on
the neighborhood. Regardless of the name,
each organization took on a variety of tasks
for its neighborhood and the city.
The Pleasant Ridge Welfare Association,
formed in 1908, worked to extend sewer
lines and street lighting, to guarantee
adequate fresh water and to improve
services on the interurban line that served
the community. Residents complained
continually about poor ventilation,
inadequate heat, malfunctioning brakes
and the lack of taillights on the train cars.
Twenty years later the Fairview Civic
Association, concerned with the impact of
automobiles on the neighborhood,
proposed parking restrictions and worked
to widen the streets.
In addition to such bread-and-butter
issues, the early organizations undertook
projects to build a sense of pride among
the residents of their communities. The
Pleasant Ridge Welfare Association
published a monthly newsletter,
sponsored a neighborhood baseball team
and Fourth of July parades and promoted
community gardens for the children. The
Fairview Heights Civic Association held
annual summer festivals and produced
such noteworthy plays as The Womanless
Wedding and Doctor of Alcantara.
The community organizations worked
to coordinate their efforts with the activities
of similar groups across the city. In 1907
seven neighborhood associations formed
the Federated Civic Association, which by
1911 expanded to include 31 affiliated
organizations. As people grew familiar with
one another and as the city extended basic
services as part of annexation, many of the
original neighborhood associations became
primarily social clubs. By the 1920s many
had died out.
The diffusion of the city’s population
into new communities across the river and
onto the hilltops, together with the
concentration of manufacturing in the Mill
Creek Valley and Norwood Trough, freed
the basin for a new type of specialization.
Offices, department stores and banks
became concentrated in the city’s center.
Factories, warehouses and railroad
facilities absorbed much of the land
around the fringe, forcing the people left
in the basin into ever more compact
residential areas. As the traditional center
of black residence on the east edge of the
basin was taken over for factories, the
blacks moved into the housing in the West
End that the middle class was abandoning.
By 1900, 85 percent of Cincinnati’s black
population was concentrated there—
segregated in fact if not by law.
The handling of public schools showed
the growing pattern of segregation in the
city. After blacks were enfranchised with
the passage of the 15th Amendment,
Cincinnati’s white power structure moved
to undermine the most important black
political power base in the city, the
Independent Colored School System.
Blacks lost control of the system in 1873
and gradually saw the system dismantled.
In a decade, all that remained was the Elm
Street School in Walnut Hills, which
became Douglass School in 1910. The
destruction of the segregated school
system was not a move toward integration;
in fact, it was a way to deprive black
teachers of jobs and to squeeze black
students out of the public schools. In
1870, 87 blacks were employed in
Cincinnati teaching almost 3,800 students.
By 1912 only seven black teachers
remained, and less than 300 black
students were enrolled.
In 1914 a young black teacher, Jennie
D. Porter, convinced the school board to
allow her to organize an all-black staff and
student body in the old Hughes High
School building in the West End, which
she renamed the Harriet Beecher Stowe
School. Porter was a follower of Booker T.
Washington and attempted to apply his
C H A P T E R 3
7 3

The Union, June 9, 1932. From the Wendell Phillips Dabney Papers.
“accommodationist” policies to education
in Cincinnati. She believed that segregated
schools would offer greater job
opportunities for black teachers, greater
inspiration for black youth and better
preparation of black students for the
world. In 1923 a modern Stowe School
was opened. It had facilities for a full range
of vocational training programs, which
Porter believed were better suited for black
children, given the limited job
opportunities available to them. She soon
made Stowe the center of much of West
End community life as well. By 1927 she
was supervising the work of 180 teachers
and 3,020 students.
Porter succeeded at building this
segregated subsystem. Her proposals
played on the prejudices and desires of
the white board and the people they
represented. She was a master at public
relations and institutional politics. One
of the methods she used was to
organize her students into various
choral and musical groups which were
available to entertain at functions all
over the city. She also had her teachers
and students prepare meals for
the school board as a way to demonstrate
their achievements.
Although successful, Porter drew the
fire of black leaders who felt her
acceptance of segregation doomed blacks
to inferior status. The most outspoken of
these leaders was Wendell Phillips Dabney.
He was the recognized leader of the city’s
Office of The Union in the Dabney Building, 420 McAllister (1925). Photograph. From the Wendell Phillips
Dabney Papers.
Jennie D. Porter. Photograph in George W. Hays’
Reminiscences...1890 to 1929 (Cincinnati, c. 1929).
GIFT OF WALTER C. LANGSAM.
black Republicans—organized as the
Douglass League—and the publisher of
Cincinnati’s most important black
newspaper, The Union, from 1907 until his
death in 1952. Dabney spoke out in favor
of true integration and attacked Porter as
“Jubilee Jennie” for her willingness to use
her students as entertainers to patronize
the white community.
Just as the scramble up the hills
changed the structure of the city, the
Industrial Revolution revolutionized the
work place, and subsequently life in the
city. The industrialization process was more
than simply the introduction of powerdriven
machinery or the application of a
new technology to the manufacturing
process. It reorganized work and changed
the status of the worker. In the traditional,
small artisan shop, each worker became
skilled at performing all of the tasks
involved in producing a particular
item. But in a modern factory, each
worker performs only a few tasks and a
product comes from the contributions of
many different workers. Industrialization
particularly affected artisans. Those
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
74

Globe Carriage Company, manufacturers of buggies and phaetons (c. 1885). Photograph.
GIFT OF CHARLES M. WILLIAMS.
who moved from the small shop to the
large factory found that the new
environment transformed their role and
identity. Inside the large factory the
shoemaker did not exist, only cutters,
lasters, bottomers, trimmers, heelers,
edgesetters, and machine operators. Iron
molders became floor molders or core
molders. Narrowly focused training
programs replaced apprenticeships.
For the owners and managers of the
factories, industrialization meant greatly
reduced labor costs. In 1865 the cost of
labor in building a carriage was
approximately $45.67. After the
reorganization of carriage making along
industrial lines, labor costs were reduced to
$8.10. Although each industry followed its
own path, the advantages of industrial
reorganization increased during the
depression that followed the Panic of 1873.
As the factory system replaced artisan shops
during the 1870s, the number of Cincinnati
industries employing over 100 workers
increased from 59 to 109.
For the worker these changes generally
meant a reduction of wages and loss of
status. An increasing number of women
and children were forced to work to help
their families earn enough money on
which to live. By 1890 women dominated
the labor force in the manufacture of furs,
regalia and society banners, clothing,
textiles, boxes, and bags. They generally
earned about one-half to one-quarter of
the wages men received for factory work.
In response, labor organizations gained
support. Strikes became more frequent,
particularly in areas that were industrializing,
such as iron molding and printing. They
were increasingly concerned with
apprenticeships, regulation of machinery
and the role of the foreman in the shop as
well as with wages and hours.
Those living through the changes taking
place in the 1870s felt a need for order that
heightened their awareness of lawlessness in
Cincinnati. The city seemed to be overrun
with tramps and vagabonds. In 1884, T. S.
Matthews, a resident of the Garfield Park
area, wrote that the benches in the park
“now serve only as a loafing place for the
most disreputable and worthless vagabonds
of both sexes... the door of our house is not
only latched and bolted at night, but has a
chain, a precaution against sneak thieves...
Every night the parlor maids have to draw
the curtains of all the windows opening on
the street and shut and latch the shutters...
This nightly battening down of the house
increases our sense of siege.” In 1878 alone
the police arrested more than 1,300
prostitutes and 2,000 drunks. Criminal
activity was not confined to the basin
area. Throughout the last part of the 19th
Bench Workers and Machinists at L. Schreiber and Sons Company (c. 1889). Photograph.
C H A P T E R 3
7 5

F L O O D O F 1 8 8 4
Main Street, East Side, looking South from Second Street. James Landy Photograph.
The Flood of 1884 was one of the
worst in Cincinnati history—second only
to the Great Flood of 1937. On February
6, 1884, when it became apparent that the
Ohio River would rage out of control, a
relief committee was organized to plan for
the impending disaster. On February 14,
the river crested at 71.1 feet; two weeks
passed before the waters subsided. Ten
people were killed and thousands were
left homeless.
More than $200,000 was raised from
entertainment benefits and contributions
from people and organizations all over the
country. The relief committee supplied
rescue boats, rubber boots for police, and
cots for displaced persons in temporary
quarters. Carloads of food donations came
from as far away as Kansas. The relief
work continued until April 1884.
Public Landing, looking up Sycamore Street. James Landy Photograph.
Fourth Street, looking West from Mill Street. James Landy Photograph.
Suspension Bridge, from Covington. James
Landy Photograph.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
76

Child Labor at L. Schreiber and Sons Company (c. 1889). Photograph.
century, newspapers chronicled surges of
criminal activity in various suburban
communities. During a week in December
1875, the Cincinnati Gazette reported four
burglaries in Avondale. In 1878 the
community learned that thieves had been
robbing the Colored Cemetery regularly for
ten years and selling the bodies to medical
schools. In late 1883 a series of brutal
crimes plagued the city, including the
murders of an Avondale couple for the $15
each that the sale of their bodies would
bring from a medical school. By January 1,
1884, the jail contained 23 men accused
of murder.
Against this backdrop, the murder of
liveryman William Kirk on December 24,
1883, set in motion a series of events that
shook the foundation of Cincinnati. Two
of Kirk’s young employees, William
Berner, an 18-year-old German, and
Joseph Palmer, a 19-year-old mulatto, beat
Kirk to death with hammers, robbed him
of $285 and dumped his body in some
brush along the Mill Creek in
Cumminsville. Within a few days the men
were arrested and soon confessed. Berner’s
father hired the city’s most skillful defense
attorney, Thomas C. Campbell, who,
recognizing that racial prejudice doomed
Palmer, quickly separated the trials of the
two men. After a highly publicized trial,
the jury found Berner guilty not of murder
but only of manslaughter.
The verdict enraged Cincinnati. Political
cartoons caricaturing everyone connected
with the trial, especially Campbell and the
jury, and satirizing the entire criminal-justice
system appeared in saloons. On Friday,
March 28, Judge Samuel R. Matthews
sentenced Berner to 20 years in prison, the
stiffest punishment allowed for manslaughter.
That evening a crowd estimated at between
6,000 and 8,000 assembled at Music Hall to
protest the verdict. The Cincinnati Gazette
described the “stupendous gathering” as a
“cosmopolitan audience” made up of a crosssection
of the entire city. Though of diverse
backgrounds, “every man seen looked honest
and determined; every man seemed ready for
the work.”
A series of prominent Cincinnatians
addressed the audience. Andrew Kemper, a
physician, made the principal speech. He
compared the Berner verdict to other recent
miscarriages of justice in Pennsylvania and
Kentucky. Although Kemper and other
speakers called for the citizens to respond
within the law, Kemper asserted that at the
foundation of the American system lay the
principle that “the people make the laws,
and the people see that they are enforced.”
The crowd repeatedly interrupted the
speech with applause for his references to
lynchings in other cities. They cried out for
a “vigilance committee.” The meeting broke
up after the adoption of a series of
resolutions, which included a call for the
jurors in the Berner case to leave the city.
As the crowd filed out of Music Hall, it
had no leadership and no goal. But quickly
and, apparently, spontaneously, certain
Proclamation of the Mayor, March 30, 1884.
Broadside.
GIFT OF ISAAC ANDERSON LOEB.
A map of the streets around the courthouse.
elements in the crowd turned into a mob
and headed for the jail on Sycamore Street
behind the courthouse. Part of the mob
forced its way into the jail shouting, “Hang
Berner.” But Berner had already been sent
C H A P T E R 3
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Court Street, looking west from Broadway. Rombach and Groene photograph.
Court Street, looking west from the Court House. Photograph.
Interior of the Court House After the Riot. Photograph.
Court House Front, looking East, Gattling [sic] Gun and Battery in
Foreground. James Landy photograph.
to Columbus. Sheriff Morton Hawkins,
hoping to avoid full-scale rioting, instructed
his 13 deputies not to fire. After the
intruders ran through the jail and realized
that Berner had already been removed, the
deputies, now reinforced by a detachment
of the militia, were able to clear the jail
temporarily. By this time, however, a crowd
of 20,000 swirled around outside the jail,
calling for blood and throwing stones. The
rioters rushed all of the entrances a second
time. Through the determined use of a
battering ram, they gained entrance. This
time the police seized and arrested 25
rioters. As the jail was being cleared, shots
rang out and several rioters were killed.
Finally, the militia cleared the street.
All day Saturday, small groups clustered
on street corners. Handbills urged citizens
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
78
to organize. The authorities reinforced the
defenses at the jail. Barricades went up
blocking access to the jail from across the
canal, east and west on Court Street, and
from Main Street to the south. Sixty
militiamen were placed behind each
barricade. The police were dispatched
ahead of these defenses. By dusk the mob
formed again and now focused its attention
on the very symbol of justice, the Hamilton
County Courthouse. After several hours of
hurling bricks and shouting angry slogans,
the crowd surged forward past the
defenders and gained entrance to the
courthouse. The rioters set fires in offices
throughout the building and, despite the
efforts of the militia and police, the
building became engulfed in flames. As
Captain John J. Desmond moved across the
front of the building with his Lytle Greys,
he was shot and killed, and two of his
soldiers were wounded. Soon, detachments
of the Ohio National Guard arrived in the
city, marched to the courthouse and
ruthlessly cleared the streets.
By Sunday morning the fire had reduced
the courthouse to a smoldering pile of
rubble. Fifty-four rioters lay dead along with
Desmond and three policemen; more than
200 on both sides were injured. The depth
of Cincinnati’s torment was laid open.
In the aftermath of the courthouse riots,
elements of the city’s elite organized a variety
of committees to bring the city back under
control. They unleashed a stream of lawand-order
oratory and proposed an array of
reforms. But the rift in Cincinnati society, in
American urban society, went much deeper.

Scenes from Cincinnati Riot March 1884. Achert and Company lithograph.
GIFT OF MRS. ALBERT L. RUSSEL.
In May 1886 the labor elements of the city,
led by factory artisans in industries
undergoing the most rapid changes,
organized a general strike. The strikers
claimed they were joining the quest for law
and order because their strike aimed at
securing the promises vaguely held out by a
new, but flawed, law reducing the workday
to eight hours. In conjunction with general
strikes in cities across America, 12,000
Cincinnati workers paraded through the
streets on May 3. By May 8 no freight moved
in or out of the city; garbage went
uncollected; laundresses, streetcar
conductors, waitresses and machinists
cooperated in shutting down the city.
Municipal leaders called out the militia. By
the end of the month, 32,000 had walked
off their jobs. Cincinnati was on the edge of
a violent abyss for the second time in two
years. Gradually, agreements were struck,
usually favorable to the workers, and the
strike dissipated.
Although Cincinnati escaped a second
conflagration, the Courthouse Riot of
March 1884 and the General Strike of May
1886 revealed the city was out of control.
No person stood above the conflicting
interests to pull the scattered elements of
the city together. Out of the chaos of the
mid-1880s, however, a new system
gradually emerged with a new leader who
brought order.
Since the Civil War Cincinnati politics
had been reduced to a factional struggle.
Each faction represented the narrow
interests of a group or individual, but none
was strong enough to remain in power for
any length of time and organize the badly
fragmented city government. At the heart
of this system was the ward boss, who
controlled a block of votes. Lacking any
coherent view of the needs of the city, most
of the bosses became “bummers” willing to
trade their block of votes for the most
enticing favors offered.
Saloons were the real centers of
political life in Cincinnati. It was from
a saloon at the corner of Longworth
and Central Avenues, “Dead Man’s
Corner,” that a young politician emerged
who would transform Cincinnati’s
political system—George B. Cox. He
was born in 1853 to an English immigrant
father and a Canadian mother. After
Cox’s father died when George was eight,
the boy was on the streets earning a living.
He worked as a bootblack, newsboy,
delivery boy for a market, tobacco
salesman, and bartender before purchasing
a saloon.
Cox was active in politics from the age
of 18 and showed an ability to challenge
weak political figures successfully. He
might have become just another petty ward
Henry Farny, Wielert’s Saloon. Engraving from D. J. Kenny’s Illustrated Cincinnati… (Cincinnati, 1875), p. 133.
Over-the-Rhine saloons and beer gardens were social and political centers of this German community in the
19th century.
C H A P T E R 3
7 9

Henry Farny, The Transrhenane Waiter, The Wiener Wurst Man, and The Sausage Man. Engravings from
D. J. Kenny’s Illustrated Cincinnati… (Cincinnati, 1875), pp. 134-5.
boss, but ambition and vision took him
well beyond that. Cox accepted the
political practices of his day and rewove
them into a fundamentally different
system. From the beginning Cox seized
opportunities and turned them into longrange
assets. In 1884 he fought for the
right to head the local presidential
campaign of James G. Blaine against the
wishes of the established party leadership.
Although Blaine lost nationally, he carried
Hamilton County. Cox emerged with a
reputation as a good organizer and in
control of the newly formed Young Men’s
Blaine Clubs, which served as his political
base for 30 years.
In 1887 Cox formed an alliance with
Joseph Foraker, who had become governor
Fred’s Place, Race Street and West Canal (north side). A saloon that served the neighborhood, Fred’s Place had a
“sitting room,” or women’s section. Photograph.
GIFT OF EUGENE W. NICKERSON, III.
Henry Farny, Wielert’s Pavilion. Engraving from
Der Führer von Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1875), p. 108.
the previous year. Foraker oversaw from
Columbus the passage of legislation which
reorganized municipal government in a
way that provided greater opportunities
for patronage; he entrusted this power in
Hamilton County to George Cox.
Dispensing political jobs and favors
became a high art under Cox and his
lieutenants, Rudolph “Rud” Hynicka, who
handled City Hall, and August “Garry”
Herrmann, who directed affairs at the county
courthouse. Jobs were parceled out to the
ward chairmen, to the precinct captains and
to the faithful. In exchange, those receiving
government jobs contributed 10 percent of
their first year’s salary and 2½ percent
thereafter to Cox’s campaign fund. Even
more important, those receiving jobs were
expected to monitor the pulses of their areas.
They sent information about voters to
Hynicka and Herrmann, who kept extensive
card files on voters in the city and county.
The most famous and successful of the
ward bosses was Mike Mullen in the Eighth
Ward. His area included much of the
“bottoms” along the riverfront on the east
side of the downtown as well as the more
exclusive residential sections on East
Fourth Street. For the thousands of poor
people in the ward, Mullen became a saint
because of his concern about their daily
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
80

Campaign broadside for Michael Mullen (1907).
GIFT OF WILLIAM A. BAUGHIN.
needs. Mullen saw that coal was distributed
to the needy in the winter, food got to the
hungry, and jobs were provided to the
unemployed. He oversaw the creation of
Lytle Park with a playground in 1905.
Beginning in 1903 Mullen sponsored
annual picnics at Coney Island— ten miles
upriver. For weeks ahead of time, he passed
out tickets to the families in his own ward
and to children from all over the city. Each
family received tickets for free rides, ice
cream and lemonade as well as a round trip
on the Island Queen.
Mullen’s motivations were political as
well as altruistic. Mixed with these rather
pleasant favors for his constituents were
reports of outright vote buying and
transporting Kentuckians into his ward to
build majorities on election day. Mullen’s
influence on his ward was demonstrated
in 1897 when he switched from the
Democratic Party to the Republican Party
and took the ward with him. Within a
few years, Mullen was Cox’s personal
representative on city council, where the
mere announcement by Mullen that “I
trust the resolution will not pass” was
enough to doom any bill.
Through a series of political maneuvers
from 1884 to 1897, Cox emerged as the
leading figure in the Republican Party. After
1897 he was the master of the political
scene, regardless of party. Yet Cox held
political office only once, when he served
on city council while still in his twenties.
He ran twice for county clerk but was
defeated. Cox’s leadership rested on
personal influence that was exercised
through an unofficial but well-understood
system. He was the “central brain”
coordinating all of the competing interests
and balancing all of the factions. During the
day Cox received a steady stream of visitors
at his office above The Mecca, a saloon. In
the evening, he shifted his headquarters to
Wielert’s Cafe or another Over-the-Rhine
establishment. In both settings Cox was a
listener. An observer reported:
He never talked; he sat like a graven
image with menacing and considering
eyes, slowly chewing tobacco, posing a
reflective cigar before his face, and
regularly consuming a tall glass of lager
every 12 to 15 minutes. On either side of
him at a large circular table where he sat,
lounged members of his cabinet And every
now and then the men with cocked derby
hats arrived from different wards, sat
down at his table, and talked, and talked,
and talked.
Increasingly, an entire range of political
reformers and journalists assailed Cox.
Perhaps the most famous was written by
muckraker Lincoln Steffens in McClure’s
Magazine in 1905 entitled, “Ohio: A Tale of
Two Cities.” According to Steffens, recent
Ohio politics was best understood as a tale
of the state’s two leading cities, “Cleveland,
the best governed city in the United States,
Cincinnati, the worst.” Steffens visited Cox
one morning in his dark and dreary office
above The Mecca to question him about his
political methods. When Steffens
rhetorically raised the question of whether
Foucar’s Cafe (c. 1898), at 426 Walnut Street, was a popular meeting place during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Siesta, the pastel by Frank Duveneck opposite the mahogany bar, now is in the collection of the Cincinnati Art
Museum. Photograph from the Foucar Collection.
GIFT OF TED EBERLE.
C H A P T E R 3
8 1

Cincinnati had a mayor, council, and
judges, Cox responded, “Yes, but—.” He
pointed with his thumb back over his
shoulder to the desk, “I have a telephone,
too.” Other critics referred to Cox as the
“dictator of Cincinnati and Hamilton
County” and “Cincinnati’s uncrowned king.”
Cox, not surprisingly, had a different
view of his role. In 1911 he wrote a
defense of his career. He was unapologetic
about the term “boss,” for “this is the age
of the boss.” Cox understood his role as a
“product of evolution— a natural product
of American political life” in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Although he had
no ambition to become a boss when he
entered politics, he evolved into a boss
“because of my peculiar fitness.” In direct
response to Steffens’ charges, Cox asserted
that he and his organization had made
“Cincinnati the best governed city in the
United States... there is less dishonesty
among the officeholders than in any of the
large cities in the country. The gambling
houses were driven out many years ago
and the social evil is regulated as much as
possible…. Cincinnati is not a wide open
city in the popular sense of that term, but
it is possible to get a drink on Sunday—
our Germans demand that privilege and it
was through my efforts that Cincinnati
obtained its new waterworks, but my chief
work has been in seeing that Cincinnati
“Depose the Boss! Enthrone the People”
(1892). Ephemera collection.
GIFT OF MRS. DONALD C. MCGRAW.
has the right men to serve it...the people
do the voting, I simply see that the right
candidates are selected.”
Cox’s self-serving and one-sided
statement provided some balance to the
simplistically negative pictures painted of
him by the reformers and muckrakers of his
day. In addition to the municipal waterworks
that Cox cited, city officeholders and
administrators who served under Cox’s
direction improved the police and fire
departments, paved hundreds of miles of
city streets, built sewer lines, tried to reduce
the smoke problem in the basin, brought
some order to the development of utilities by
awarding publicly regulated monopolies,
and maintained low taxes. For all its political
improprieties, Cox’s organization accepted
the secret ballot and voter registration. But
most importantly, Cox and the organization
he built provided a center that was strong
enough and enduring enough to hold the
city together through a period of rapid
change and growth.
The Cox organization was determined to
incorporate suburbs that were “of the city,
but not in it.” Cincinnati sought to annex
these areas for their tax base and to increase
the status and size of the city. In 1892 Mayor
John Mosby declared that “if it [is] your
desire that Cincinnati should grow, that it
should be prosperous in the future, then we
must consider the question of annexation
above all others.” Cincinnati held out the
promise of water, sewer, and other utilities
to small villages and towns. These
supposedly idyllic communities were
increasingly hard pressed to meet the
demands of their residents for sidewalks,
pure water, sewerage and natural gas.
Despite these problems and the debts that
accompanied their solution, the question of
Henry Mosler, George B. Cox. Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF THE SHUBERT-COX THEATERS.
The Mecca Cafe. Located at 431 Walnut Street, R. W. Gruber’s and Fred. B. Salmar’s famous saloon was in business
from 1893 to the beginning of Prohibition. Photograph.
GIFT OF MRS. ANTHONY D. BULLOCK.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
82

The Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. Moerlein’s
Old Jug-Lager Krug Bier, Exhilarating, Stimulating,
Re-Juvenating, Wholesome, Delicious & Pure. Pottery.
CORNELIUS J. HAUCK COLLECTION.
J. G. Sohn & Co.–Brewers and Maltsters (c. 1894). Typical of the many small to medium-sized breweries in
Cincinnati during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sohn, later the Mohawk Brewing Company, brewed lager and Bohemian
beer from 1866 to 1935. Show card. Oil on iron. F. Tuchfarber and Company.
C I N C I N N A T I
& B E E R
In the late 19th century,
Cincinnatians took their beer-drinking
seriously. Whether they carried it home
in “growlers” or drank it at the
neighborhood saloon, on the average,
every man, woman and child
consumed 40 gallons a year—24 more
than the national average.
Saloons abounded everywhere. In
1890 the city directory identified 1,810,
with 136 along Vine Street alone.
Saloons near the river served a rough
clientele while elegant establishments,
like Foucar’s Cafe, were clustered at the
center of the downtown. Hundreds of
Over-the-Rhine saloons run by Germans
were favorite places for conducting
business, settling political disputes and
holding regular meetings of social clubs.
The beginning of Prohibition on
January 16, 1920, was more than an
economic disaster. It destroyed longestablished
social patterns as well.
GIFT OF ROBERT D. MCCARRON.
annexation deeply divided every community.
In a few cases, such as Kennedy Heights,
local government was so inept and
inadequate that a clear majority of the
residents favored annexation. In most
instances, however, only the passage of the
Lillard Law in 1893 made expansion
possible for Ohio cities. Under this law a
majority of the ballots cast in both the city
and suburb combined accomplished
annexation. The law enabled Cincinnati to
swallow suburbs as it expanded. Only
because changes were made in the law was
the highly coveted industrial suburb of St.
Bernard saved. Norwood escaped by
becoming a city itself
As important as the policy of annexation
was to the Cox organization, within the
policy lay the seeds of the organization’s
demise. New territory brought with it
thousands of new middle-class voters. To
them, Cincinnati’s politics under Cox was
an embarrassment and an affront. It
seemed outdated in light of the work of
progressive reformers in other cities. Cox
was a master of the old methods. Although
he improved the delivery of a variety of
services, his approach was always
piecemeal and dictated by politics.
Progressive reformers, on the other hand,
advocated an entirely new approach to
municipal administration. They sought to
apply methods of scientific management
through the work of professionally trained
city managers.
The difference in the two approaches was
reflected in the way each side approached
the need for an improved water supply and
sewer system. Under Cox, there was no
coherent and orderly plan; rather, the city
built individual lines—often as ploys to
communities targeted for annexation. In the
most blatant case of self- interested decision
making, an isolated line was run in 1895 to
the section of Clifton where Cox had
recently built a house. By contrast, under
the one-term reform administration of
Gustav Tafel in 1896, engineers evaluated
the water and sewer situation and developed
plans for improving service for the entire
C H A P T E R 3
8 3

city. Although Tafel was not in office
long enough to implement the plan, the
Cox-backed administration of Julius
Fleischmann picked up the highly popular
section that called for building a new
waterworks at California, upriver from the
points where the city dumped its sewage
into the river.
Efforts to clean up and reform
Cincinnati politics were as old as the Cox
organization itself. Because Cox co-opted
much of the Democratic Party into his
organization by splitting patronage on a
60-40 ratio, these efforts had difficulty
getting a foothold. They depended upon
fragile alliances between reform Democrats
and Republicans and non-partisan
independents. But the reformers could not
survive more than one term in office.
The most important of the reform
administrations was that of Henry Hunt in
1911-1912. Hunt was the son of a wealthy
Clifton couple. He was educated at Yale
and the University of Cincinnati Law
School. Hunt allied himself with the voices
of reform, and, by appealing to the
suburban voters, he was elected as county
prosecutor in 1908. Hunt could not move
against Cox until after the election of 1910,
when a reform judge presided over the
grand jury room. Hunt charged Cox with
perjury in testimony that Cox had given in
Hyde Park Square (c. 1900). Postcard.
Louis J. Porr, The Bellevue Brewing Co., Cincinnati, 0. The Bellevue Brewing Company was formed about 1878
and continued until Prohibition. Lithograph.
PURCHASE.
1906 to a committee of the state legislature.
Cox had sworn that he had never
personally received any interest on public
funds deposited in local banks. Hunt found
two former bank treasurers who testified
they had delivered such money to Cox.
Eventually, a Cox-appointed judge
dismissed the case on the grounds that
Cox’s constitutional rights had been
violated in 1906. Technically, Cox won, but
the trial had shattered his spirit. Soon after,
Cox announced his retirement from
politics. Cox had used the ploy of
“retirement” twice previously to deflect
criticism. Although he became less active,
on election eve in 1910, Cox stood outside
Wielert’s Cafe to review the parade of the
faithful. Twenty-four hours later, however,
Cox’s demise was tabulated. The victory
denied Hunt in court was gained at the
polls when Cincinnati elected him mayor.
Hunt was determined to place
Cincinnati’s government on a sound
foundation. He turned to professional
managers to evaluate the needs of the city
and develop scientifically sound proposals
for meeting its challenges. Hunt and the
managers understood the size and
complexity of the problems Cincinnati
faced. Hunt determined that the primary
challenge to improving the quality of life
in Cincinnati was in relocating workingclass
and poor people out of the decaying
residences of the basin and into newer and
more sanitary suburban settings. He
identified the lack of cheap, rapid, and
adequate transportation facilities as the
biggest obstacle to reaching this goal and
set about making plans to convert the old
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Miami-Erie Canal bed into a rapid-transit
loop. It would provide quick access to
commuters who used nine existing
interurban lines to reach the edge of the
city and then had to poke along street
railways into the center of the city. Hunt’s
rapid-transit line would operate as a
subway downtown in the old canal bed
and run above ground to Cumminsville,
east to Norwood and Oakley and then
back south through the Deer Creek Valley
to the downtown. Hunt believed the
rapid-transit system would be “of greater
value to the city than the Cincinnati
Southern Railroad and will aid immensely
in improving municipal health.” With the
creation of the transit loop, Hunt predicted
that “the housing problem would solve
itself, the commercial well-being of the city
would be stimulated and our economic
situation would be benefited.”
Many Cincinnatians recognized that
Hunt’s proposals responded to real needs
of the city and found his management
methods to be clear advances over those of
the Cox organization. But Hunt was
defeated for re-election in 1913 and was
unable to carry through with his programs
Henry Thomas Hunt (c. 1910). Photograph.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF CHARLES LUDWIG.
for the same reason that earlier reform
administrations had been turned out after
one term. It would be costly to clean up
the city and undertake the major
improvements needed, and Cincinnati
seemed to value low taxes more than
modern government. The rapid-transit
plan became a political orphan. Although
later city administrations spent $6.2
million developing about one-third of the
system, the subway was doomed. It lacked
the necessary political support. World War
I caused construction costs to soar, and the
automobile’s growing popularity after the
war killed the interurban system that was
to feed the subway.
Republicans returned to political power
in 1913, but for the first time since 1884,
they were without Cox. His organization
continued to dominate city affairs for
another 11 years under the weakened rule
of Rud Hynicka. But an era was over. Cox
remained out of the public view until he
died of a stroke on May 20, 1916.
Cox was a product of the rough-andtumble
politics of the late 19th century.
Because he mastered the limited tools
available to the politician of his day, Cox
was able to guide Cincinnati through a
period of fundamental social and economic
change. His methods could not put
Cincinnati onto a fully modern footing.
Hunt and his reformers pointed in that
direction, but in 1912 the people were not
yet prepared for the hard task involved.
Disgusted with the city’s unwillingness to
face up to its needs, Hunt left Cincinnati
after his defeat and returned only once later
in his life.
Subway Tube under Construction (1920s). Excavating for Cincinnati’s subway system began in 1920. Using the Miami-Erie Canal bed to the present Norwood lateral, the route
originally was planned to follow a 16-mile loop from downtown through the suburbs. When construction prices soared, the route was modified. The project was finally abandoned in 1927
after two miles of tunnel and seven miles of surface route, except track, had been completed. Financed by a bond issue passed in 1916, the city’s subway debt was not paid until 1966, at a
total cost of $13 million. Photograph.
C H A P T E R 3
8 5

Murals portraying Cincinnati workers installed in Union Terminal in 1933 were created by Winold Reiss from photographs taken in local industries such as the Baldwin Piano
Company factory. In making a mural, grid patterns were drawn on the photograph, which was then enlarged to full size. A watercolor sketch was made to indicate the colors to be used.
Glass mosaics were pasted onto two-foot sections of tracing paper. At the terminal the glass sides of the sections were pressed into wet concrete and the tracing paper was peeled away.
Photographs and watercolor sketch from the Gregory Thorp Collection.
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CHAPTER 4
N E W W A Y S T O C O P E , 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 4 5
On August I, 1914, the Deutscher Staats-
Verband (German Alliance) assembled for its
annual picnic at Chester Park. This day was
different from earlier picnics, and a sense of
foreboding filled the air. Europe was
plunging toward war. On July 28 Austria
had declared war on Serbia in response to
the assassination of Archduke Francis
Ferdinand. The next day Russia mobilized
in defense of the Serbs, and on July 31
Germany ordered Russia to back down or
face war. The Cincinnati German-American
community followed these developments
with special concern. Austrian and German
immigrants who were still citizens of their
home countries waited anxiously for orders
for them to return to Europe.
The German-American leaders in
Cincinnati wanted the picnic to “become a
patriotic demonstration as a testimonial to
the old Vaterland.” To accommodate the
group, I. M. Martin, the park manager,
arranged to receive telegraph messages
regarding European developments. No news
had arrived by evening when many
assembled to hear speeches from the
leaders. Word finally arrived during a
seemingly endless anti-prohibition speech.
Judge John Schwaab, president of the Staats-
Verband, rose and declared, “The die is cast;
Germany has declared war on Russia; it has
been forced to do so.” Schwaab called on
everyone to rise and sing Die Wacht am
Rhein, a German national song. The anthem
spread throughout the park and was
concluded with three mighty “hurrahs.”
Since the mid-1830s Germans had
constituted the largest group of immigrants
settling in Cincinnati. By 1870 roughly 23
percent of the city’s 200,000 residents were
German-born. All eastern and mid-western
American cities had received thousands of
Europeans searching for a new life during
these years, but the continued concentration
of German immigrants set Cincinnati apart
from most. In the first half of the 19th
Chester Park (c. 1905). Chester Park began in the mid-1870s as a driving club and later headquartered the Queen
City Jockey Club. From the turn of the century until the 1930s, it was a popular picnic and amusement park. Photograph.
century, the heavily German and Irish
makeup of Cincinnati’s immigrant
population was fairly typical. In the last half
of the 19th century, the origins of the bulk
of European immigration shifted away from
the northwestern sections of Europe.
Rapidly growing cities such as Cleveland
and Chicago attracted a great number of
immigrants, and a majority of them came
from central, southern and eastern Europe.
Cincinnati grew much more slowly in this
period, and only one-third of its immigrant
population came from these parts of Europe.
As a result, Cincinnati retained its strong
German identity.
Long before the early decades of the
20th century, people of German heritage
had become successful in Cincinnati. They
ran three banks and more than 200 savings
and loan associations. They supplied over
200 doctors and 167 lawyers, and dominated
the skilled and semi-skilled trades in
brewing, machine tools, cabinetmaking and
baking. The German community supported
two daily newspapers and 31 periodicals and
a host of organizations and institutions.
Beneath all of the numbers, however, lay a
different reality. The lengthy presence of the
Germans in Cincinnati and their success
meant that the city had thoroughly
assimilated most of the German-Americans.
As the city expanded out of the basin,
Cincinnati’s German-Americans joined the
exodus to the surrounding hilltop
communities. By 1910 fewer than a third of
the residents of Over-the-Rhine were first- or
second-generation Germans.
As in other cities, differences developed
between the more established, better
assimilated German-Americans and
immigrants who arrived in Cincinnati after
1890. Not only did the two groups
maintain separate organizations, their views
of Germany differed. The earlier
immigrants retained a great respect for
German culture but grew critical of political
C H A P T E R 4
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The Tagliches Cincinnatier Volksblatt, April 7, 1917, announces that the resolution of war against Germany was signed by President Wilson on April 6 and that German ships in
U.S. harbors will be confiscated for supply transport to Europe.
developments in Germany; the newer
immigrants chauvinistically defended the
German Empire and its policies.
When World War I erupted in August
1914, some German-Americans saw the
war as an opportunity to rekindle unity in
their community. They formed relief
organizations such as the German-
Austrian-Hungarian Aid Society, which
collected money under the motto of “Gold
gave I for iron.” The German-language
press attacked the course of United States
policy towards Germany. Even though
President Wilson had declared American
neutrality in thought and action, his own
sympathies toward England complicated
his efforts to treat Britain and Germany
impartially. Convinced that Wilson’s
policies favored the British, the Freie Presse
declared in June 1915 that “if Wilson
would be as conscientious in protecting
William Harry Gothard, Cincinnati Industries (1934). Oil on canvas.
GIFT OF WALTER A. DRAPER.
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German soldiers from American bullets as
he is English ships from German
torpedoes, we would be celebrating
victory now.” Such strident criticism of
U.S. policies sometimes embarrassed
Cincinnati’s German community, but
rarely was its loyalty questioned. As
America’s relations with Germany
deteriorated and Germany resumed
submarine warfare on January 31, 1917,
Cincinnati’s German-American spokesmen
joined the nation’s outcry. Leaders
reaffirmed their loyalty to the United
States, yet expressed again their
determination to prevent open conflict
between the countries they loved.
Finally, the dam broke. On April 6, 1917,
the United States declared war on Germany.
A flood of anti-German sentiment poured
forth across the country expressed in
thousands of individual remarks and small
acts of violence. On April 9 Cincinnati
anglicized the names of 13 streets. German
Street became English Street, Bremen
became Republic, and Berlin became
Woodrow. The public library removed
German books and periodicals from
circulation. On October 10 federal agents
raided the offices of the Volksblatt. Soon
German-language papers had to submit
their copy to censors. Most devastating of
all, the Cincinnati Board of Education
eliminated German-language instruction in
the elementary grades of the public schools.
During the 1914-1915 school year, 15,008
students were enrolled in German classes
taught by 73 full-time and 84 part-time
teachers. After war broke out in Europe, the
board restricted the content of the Germanlanguage
courses and instructed teachers to
avoid all “debatable passages” referring to
German political institutions, rulers and
military leaders. With United States’ entry
into the war, Superintendent Randall
Condon wrote that it had been
“shortsighted” to allow “large numbers of
people from foreign lands to come to us and
make their homes within our borders
without becoming an integral part of our
local and national life.” He expressed regret
that “we have been content to allow them to
“Nasty Corner,” the southwest corner of Fifth and Vine Streets (c. 1890), became respectable when the Carew
Building was constructed on this site in 1890. Photograph.
GIFT OF THE OHIO MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE.
live in segregated groups, keep alive their
love for the country from which they came...
and continue the use of their native
language to the exclusion of English through
which there might grow up mutual
understanding and a community of feeling.”
In June 1918 the school board voted to stop
teaching German in elementary schools.
Shortly after the United States entered the
war, President Wilson established the
Committee on Public Information. Through
pamphlets, news releases, posters, motion
pictures and other methods of propaganda,
the committee intensified wartime hysteria,
portraying German soldiers as barbaric
Huns. The results were especially noticeable
in heavily German Cincinnati, where the
pressure to conform to the American way of
life became overwhelming. Many German
families anglicized their last names;
hundreds of German organizations changed
theirs as well. The German Mutual Insurance
Company became the Hamilton County
Fire Insurance Company, and its statue,
“Germania,” was hastily retitled “Columbia.”
The North Cincinnati Turners became
the North Cincinnati Gymnasium. The
Lesebuch für Amerikanische Volksschulen
(Cincinnati, c. 1863). A German-language text intended
for use in the public schools. Compiled by the members
of the German Teachers Club in Cincinnati.
C H A P T E R 4
8 9

P R O P A G A N D A P O S T E R S
I N T H E F I R S T
W O R L D W A R
Before radio and television, posters
played a major role in mass communication,
and World War I saw their first large-scale
use for political purposes. To persuade
people that a total commitment to the war
effort was needed, psychological techniques
were used. Appeals on a personal basis were
meant to induce feelings of guilt for not
doing one’s part. Slogans, symbols,
personifications, and messages from
national leaders were used to invoke
patriotism. The United States and England
depicted the enemy as villainous or
monstrous more often than did other
countries. Women, initially portrayed in
their traditional roles as wives and mothers,
were pictured in their new jobs in industry
as more men went to war and labor became
scarce. As many as 3,000 poster designs
were executed by artists—at no charge—for
U.S. government and civilian agencies,
and it was not unusual to have a printing
of 100,000.
F. Strothmann, Beat back the Hun with Liberty
Bonds. Lithograph.
Zoo Fete for the Fatherless Children of France,
Thursday, July 11 (1918). Lithograph.
For Every Fighter a Woman Worker. American
Lithographic Company.
Ellsworth Young, Remember Belgium. United
States Printing and Lithography Company.
The Time Has Come to Conquer or Submit….
American Lithographic Company.
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Staats-Verband became the American
Citizens League. Cincinnati’s German
community also threw its effort into
organizing a Liberty Bond Crusade and
raised $95,300 by 1918.
World War I destroyed Cincinnati’s
German community. The intensely anti-
German feelings generated during the war
made it uncomfortable for German
Americans openly to claim and nurture
their heritage for many years. With
German instruction eliminated from the
public schools, the German-American
societies were weakened; the Volksblatt
went out of business at the end of 1919
and the Freie Presse closed in 1924.
Prohibition, which had initially been
adopted as a wartime measure to conserve
grain, became “permanent” in 1920
with the adoption of the 18th Amendment.
This act not only closed more than two
dozen breweries that had operated in
Cincinnati before the war, it also affected
hundreds of bars and saloons that had
important economic and social significance
for the German community.
The war was a particularly traumatic
experience for Cincinnatians, but the city
itself was not greatly affected. The war had
neither generated new industries nor, except
for brewing, distilling and barkeeping,
harmed existing ones. Cincinnati’s most
distinguishing feature in 1920 was its
stability. Other Ohio cities of Columbus,
Dayton, Cleveland, and Toledo grew rapidly
and were three-quarters larger in 1920 than
they had been in 1900. Youngstown and
Akron had more than doubled. Cincinnati,
however, grew only 20 percent in 20 years.
While the other cities all had large numbers
of new immigrants among their residents,
only 10 percent of Cincinnati’s population
Jacob Godfrey Schmidlapp (1849-1919).
Portrait from the Schmidlapp Report, May 1943, in the
Cincinnati Model Homes Company Records.
Children playing behind early 20th century tenement. Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
were foreign-born, and half of them were
German. Cincinnati’s greatest change was
geographic. Through annexation the city
expanded from 35.27 square miles in 1900
to 72 square miles in 1918. As the migration
from the basin to suburban communities
continued, Cincinnati’s most intractable
problem concerned the living conditions of
its working-class residents still trapped in
the basin.
About 100,000 of Cincinnati’s 401,247
residents in 1920 lived in tenement housing
in the basin. Improvement in their living
and working conditions depended primarily
on the initiatives of individuals and private
groups. Before 1910 reformers had
concentrated on controlling tenement
housing through laws governing the
availability of toilets and accessibility to light
and air. These reformers also promoted
tenant and landlord education and even the
establishment of a “model tenement” by the
Associated Charities. After 1910 reformers
shifted their efforts by attempting to
accelerate the pace at which all housing in
the basin would be abandoned. They tried
C H A P T E R 4
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The Cincinnati Model Homes Company’s Lincoln Terrace Apartments in Walnut Hills. Photograph. From the Southwestern
Ohio Lung Association Records.
to assist the move of working-class people
to new suburban communities.
Jacob Schmidlapp, who made a fortune
in distilling and banking, undertook the
first effort at building good housing for the
poor away from the basin. He began in
1911 by constructing 96 apartments in
Norwood in the hope of providing factory
workers there the chance to live closer to
their jobs. Norwood harassed Schmidlapp
by overcharging for building permits and
overvaluing land for tax purposes, but his
construction went forward. Schmidlapp
intended not only to provide decent, lowcost
housing, but to convince other
wealthy people to join him or follow his
example. Thus, Schmidlapp set up his
homes to return a five percent profit on his
investment, an approach he termed
“philanthropy plus 5%.” Following the
Norwood success, in 1914 Schmidlapp
organized the Cincinnati Model Homes
Company and built units at Washington
Terrace on Kemper Lane in Walnut Hills.
Each apartment had a bath, indoor toilet
and gas heat. To emphasize a sense of
community, Schmidlapp abandoned the
high-density tenement in favor of
buildings that housed just four families. By
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92
providing recreational facilities and
community-oriented activities, the
company attempted to provide a
“neighborhood” environment for its
tenants. In projects in Norwood, Oakley
and Walnut Hills, Model Homes
accommodated 107 white families and
337 black families. After Schmidlapp’s
death in 1919, the company’s momentum
faltered. Neither philanthropists nor
businesses followed in Schmidlapp’s
footsteps. The Better Housing League
continued to decry the deteriorating
housing situation for poor people. The
league pointed out that as industries and
commercial centers expanded in the
basin and as more blacks migrated to the
city, the tenements became increasingly
overcrowded and unsanitary.
The most notable effort to develop
model housing in the early 1920s was
directed not at the immigrants and blacks
but at a different class of urban poor. In
1922 Mary Emery, the widow of wealthy
Cincinnati industrialist Thomas Emery,
hired a Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm to
design a new town that would provide
good housing in a community setting for
a projected 5,000 people from every level
of society. The plan proposed for her town
of Mariemont attempted to capture the
environment of an English garden city.
Within the village, clusters of group homes
opening onto protected courtyards were
meant to rent cheaply to lower-income
people. There were also streets of modest
cottages and sites for larger and more
expensive single-family homes. The plans
Lincoln Terrace Apartments. Artist’s rendering. From the Cincinnati Model Homes Company Records.

Mary M. Emery (1844- 1927). Photograph.
Mariemont a New Town “A National Exemplar….” From a prospectus for Mariemont (Cincinnati, c. 1925).
Front cover illustration.
GIFT OF LEE SHEPARD.
included schools, recreational facilities, a
shopping district with a theater, inn,
library, shops, a town hall and a
community church. Housing reformers
quickly declared Mariemont a “national
exemplar,” and it was written about in
magazines and professional journals. For
all of its success, Mariemont failed to
address the need of the working class for
inexpensive housing. Construction costs
drove rents much higher than anticipated.
The average rent for a four-room
apartment in Cincinnati in 1923 was
$24.20 per month; the lowest rent in
Mariemont was $35.
In 1926, before the Inn was used as a hotel, the Mariemont Company’s rental and sales office occupied the lobby
area. Photograph.
GIFT OF J. P. NORTHCUTT.
Reformers also strived to improve health
care services for thousands of poor in the
basin. In 1916 the National Social Unit
Organization chose the Mohawk-Brighton
area for a three- year experiment to provide
health care through a democratic model.
The National Social Unit was the inspiration
of Wilbur C. Phillips, who earlier had served
as the secretary of the New York Milk
Committee and as the director of the
Milwaukee Child Welfare Commission
during its socialist administration. The
National Social Unit believed that health
care could not be isolated from a complete
effort at improving the lives of a group of
people. The Mohawk-Brighton community
was organized into 31 block clubs, each of
which elected a block worker, a news
carrier, a social-data collector and a street
organizer. Through study, discussion and
democratic decision-making, the residents
of the neighborhood were to identify their
needs and then discuss with doctors, nurses
and social workers the best way to meet
those needs. Between 1917 and 1919 the
organization established a child health-care
program, prenatal and postnatal care,
medical examinations for all preschool
children and supervision of all local
tuberculosis cases. When influenza began
C H A P T E R 4
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Dedicated in 1913, the Union Central Building at the southwest corner of Fourth and Vine Streets was Cincinnati’s tallest building until the Carew Tower was completed in 1930.
Designed by Cass Gilbert (architect of the Woolworth Building in New York City), in conjunction with the Cincinnati architectural firm of Garber & Woodward, the structure was the tallest
skyscraper in the nation outside of New York City at the time of its completion. The 34-story structure now is the PNC Tower. Lithograph.
GIFT OF JULIA F. CARDER.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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to spread in eastern cities, the social unit
initiated a neighborhood education program
that taught ways to prevent and treat the
disease. During the last four months of
1918, the death rate from influenza in
Cincinnati was 4.10 per thousand, while in
Mohawk-Brighton it was about half that rate
at 2.26 per thousand. Despite its success in
delivering health care and social services,
the participation of the residents in
formulating programs made it different from
other social-reform organizations. In a
postwar America in the throes of a “Red
Scare” following the Russian Revolution,
those suspicious of the social unit attacked
it as “but one step away from Bolshevism.”
They claimed it was trying to create a
second government within Cincinnati.
Mayor John Galvin led the attack and,
ignoring a vote of confidence by the
residents of Mohawk-Brighton, withdrew
the city’s support of the program. It closed
in November 1920.
In addition to addressing the housing
and welfare needs of the poor, social
reformers wanted to make the city more
healthy and attractive than the
uncontrolled growth it had experienced
during the 19th century. They joined
forces with business-oriented professionals
who were developing the still-novel
science of urban planning to create a
modern, efficient Cincinnati during the
20th century. The first manifestation of
planning in Cincinnati occurred when
George Kessler of Kansas City was
commissioned to plan a system of parks
and parkways for the city. The resulting
Kessler Plan of 1907 recommended that
Cincinnati develop several parks scattered
throughout the city that took advantage of
the natural hillside vistas of the basin and
the Ohio River. It suggested that a system
of parkways link the hilltop parks. The
plan was only partially realized, but many
of Cincinnati’s existing parks and Victory,
Central and Columbia Parkways were
included in the plan.
By 1914 the Chamber of Commerce, the
Federated Improvement Association, and
the Business Men’s Club advocated a
broader type of city planning. Other
volunteer groups included the City
Planning Committee of the Woman’s City
Making His Weight (1918) illustrates the
National Social Unit Organization’s child health-care
program. Photograph. From the Southwestern Ohio
Lung Association Records.
Club and the United City Planning
Committee, which by 1921 represented
32 civic organizations. In 1918 the
City Planning Committee was formed to act
as the coordinating body for the
development of the Cincinnati area. These
efforts resulted in an official city plan,
adopted and published in 1925. The first of
its kind for a city the size of Cincinnati, the
plan strived to “foresee and make provision
for…the public health, safety, convenience,
comfort, prosperity, beauty and general
welfare of Cincinnati as a home for its
citizens.” The plan acknowledged the
stable, slow growth of the city’s population,
took pride in its high percentage of
American-born residents, worried about the
modest increase in the black population,
stressed the importance of its diversified
economy and praised its moderate climate:
Cincinnati is fortunate in having no very
hot or no very cold spells…. The thermometer
gets below zero not oftener than
once a year. There is little snow, and no
deep snow…. The climate is not damp...
Cincinnati is also remarkably free from fogs.
Social Unit nurse visiting family with amputee child. Photograph.
GIFT OF THE SOUTHWESTERN OHIO LUNG ASSOCIATION.
The planners tried to establish an agenda
for developing a city that would be more
attractive and more livable for its people yet
C H A P T E R 4
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View of the smoke-filled basin from the monastery on top of Mt. Adams with the Rookwood Pottery Building in the
foreground (c. 1915). Photograph.
A I R P O L L U T I O N I N T H E E A R L Y 2 0 T H C E N T U R Y
By the late 19th century, Cincinnati’s air was infamous. The steep hills, the large
number of factories and the universal use of bituminous coal for industrial and residential
heat produced a serious air-pollution problem. Doctors spoke of “Cincinnati lung.”
Merchants tried in vain to keep the gritty, greasy residue from ruining dry goods.
Housewives had to wipe off tabletops and windowsills daily.
In 1903 the city created the position of smoke inspector, but the office was never
sufficiently staffed. A broad cross-section of citizen groups took up the cause of smoke
abatement to supplement the governmental effort. The most important such group was
the Smoke Abatement League, formed in 1908, which took responsibility for
monitoring the downtown area. From offices on the 30th floor of the Union Central
(PNC) Tower, inspectors watched for problems, discussed corrective procedures with
violators and brought persistent offenders to court.
Reformers initially concentrated on large manufacturers, who quickly recognized the
economic as well as the environmental advantages of improved furnaces, automatic
stokers and higher-grade coke. Small manufacturers found it more difficult to make these
costly improvements. Other inspectors concentrated their efforts on locomotives and
steamboats, both highly concentrated in the basin area.
The Smoke Abatement League lost much of its funding during the Great Depression
when privately financed charities gave their full resources to helping the unemployed.
By the late 1930s, however, stiffer municipal legislation was adopted. The city increased
the number of its inspectors to 15 and forced coal suppliers to grade and inform
customers of the cleanliness of their fuel.
The substitution of natural gas and fuel oil for coal in factories and homes after World
War II helped solve Cincinnati’s visible smoke problem. But, the proliferation of
automobiles in the same years brought new invisible pollution challenges.
remain economically stable and prosperous.
The most important recommendation of the
plan was its support for comprehensive
zoning, an innovative idea at the time.
Specifically designed to give city officials
control over undeveloped land, zoning was
also intended to protect Cincinnati’s suburbs
from the evils of the basin by providing
building guidelines, parks, playgrounds,
community centers and open spaces. For the
downtown, the plan proposed developing a
civic center stretching from City Hall to
Music Hall where major public buildings,
such as the post office and the public library,
would be located. Little was said about the
Ohio River except for its flooding and
recreational potential, but the plan endorsed
the building of a union railroad terminal.
Indeed, the plan gave great attention to the
transportation needs of the city and
recommended a variety of policies
concerning a proposed rapid-transit loop and
the construction of thoroughfares. Ideas from
raised roadways to elevated walkways, from
one-way streets to “left turn eliminations”
were explored as means to cope with the new
problems created by automobiles.
Ironically, the plan, developed under
the auspices of the city government, dealt
in great depth with streets and
thoroughfares at the same time the
disastrous condition of the city’s streets
played a critical role in reforming that
government. The Republican machine was
not the same without Cox. Following
Cox’s death in 1916, “Rud” Hynicka took
control of the organization. Garry
Herrmann withdrew from active politics,
and Mike Mullen died in 1921. To replace
them, Hynicka made Fred Schneller the
“number two” man and Froome Morris the
spokesman for the organization, which
remained fundamentally unchanged. The
Republican machine continued in power
through control of a bloated patronage
list and the timing of primary elections.
The Hynicka organization made almost
6,800 political appointments, all of whom
were expected to work to turn out the vote
when the party needed it. Primary
elections for city offices were held in the
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Eighth Street Spires. Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
late summer of odd years when few people
voted, enhancing the machine’s ability to
control the outcome.
The efficiency of government continued
to decline. The symbol of the
organization’s inability to manage the city
in the early 1920s became the potholes
and the ruts in the city’s streets. All over
the city, roads deteriorated to the point
that they became impassable. Al Segal
wrote a front-page column in the
Cincinnati Post under the heading of
“Cincinnatus” in which he satirized the
condition of the streets. On June 8, 1923,
Segal recounted a drive he had taken with
a photographer during which they
concluded that the potholes of Cincinnati
were living organisms in a great Darwinian
struggle in which width and depth were
the measures of fitness. In another column
Segal wrote that the city caused an
international incident when two
Cincinnatians fell through a pothole on
Linwood Avenue and ended up in Bombay,
India. The residents of Bombay threatened
to attack for fear that all of Cincinnati
would plunge through the earth as well.
Although Mayor George P. Carrel and
Hynicka armed the citizenry against a
threatened attack, Segal wrote, peace was
restored when invading savages taught
Cincinnatians the art of pothole repair.
Several factors were responsible for the
condition of Cincinnati’s streets and the
level of municipal services. A ruraldominated
legislature unreasonably
restricted the amount of tax revenue a city
could raise for general operations. Between
1910 and 1923 general operating costs in
Cincinnati rose 21.9 percent while revenues
increased only 11.3 percent. To circumvent
these restrictions, many cities called
anything they could a capital-improvement
project and issued bonds to carry out the
work. As a result Cincinnati’s bonded
indebtedness grew so large by 1921 that
one-half of the city’s taxes went to service
the debt. The machine was forced to
retrench in the early 1920s. Municipal
departments reduced wages, lengthened
working hours and laid off employees. At
times the city halted street repairs, stopped
collecting ashes and cut city-owned horses
from three meals to two meals a day.
View of the intersection of Erie Avenue and Madison Road looking north (1928). Photograph.
GIFT OF THE CINCINNATI TRANSIT COMPANY.
C H A P T E R 4
9 7

Murray Seasongood (c. 1928). Photograph.
GIFT OF MURRAY SEASONGOOD.
M U R R A Y
S E A S O N G O O D
( 1 8 7 8 - 1 9 8 3 )
Murray Seasongood advocated and
worked for good government long
after he retired from elective office in
1930. For 34 years he taught courses
on municipal corporations at the
University of Cincinnati Law School.
He lectured widely and published
many of his essays on government. As
a trustee of the Hamilton County Good
Government League, the National
Legal Aid Association, the National
Municipal League and dozens of other
organizations, he supported reform on
many fronts. Seasongood remained
active well into his 90s in the law firm
that he had joined in 1903, just after
graduating from Harvard Law School.
Despite the image of frugality the
organization wanted to project,
Cincinnatians witnessed the reality of
inefficiency and corruption. The
administration cut street-cleaning and
repair crews but let jobs without
competitive bidding to contractors who
used expensive granite blocks rather than
asphalt to repair streets. Cincinnati’s per
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
98
capita cost of government was the fourth
highest in the nation and the highest
in Ohio.
Yet the Cincinnati political machine
limped on without effective challenge
longer than any other city machine in
early 20th-century America. Reform movements
had swept urban America in the
years before World War I, including an
especially successful one in Cleveland led
by Tom Johnson that earned it the
reputation of the best-governed city in
America. Cincinnati’s stable population
growth and economic diversity generated
comparative peace, where rapid growth
produced problems that brought reformers
to power in other cities. Cincinnati was in
a state of grumbling apathy in need of
leaders who could convince its citizens
that things could be different. This
leadership emerged from the Cincinnatus
Association, an organization formed in
1920 largely by veterans coming home
from military service. Victor Heintz, a
former congressman who had resigned to
join the war effort, returned to Cincinnati
as a political organizer for Warren
Harding. Heintz called together business
and professional men who were
committed to improving Cincinnati. The
organization was consciously bipartisan,
but most of the leadership, including John
Hollister and Robert Taft, were loyal
Republicans reluctant to do anything that
might bring down the machine. For a
couple of years, the membership pondered
and debated important issues in the sort
of quiet way that did not stir popular
attention or embarrass the machine.
In October 1923 Cincinnatus
unintentionally became the platform for
new leadership. The impetus was a threemill
special operating levy similar to those
voters had rejected the two preceding years.
Although the members of Cincinnatus had
spent many meetings detailing the failures
of the city administration in providing
proper street repair and garbage collection,
the pressing shortage of funds seemed
compelling. Then, Murray Seasongood, a
lawyer and member of the organization’s
program committee, challenged the group’s
inclination to endorse the levy and
announced his willingness to debate the
issue. A week later, on October 9,
Seasongood debated a fellow Cincinnatus
member, Leonard Smith, who spoke for its
passage. Seasongood attacked the “gang” for
its misuse of tax money and its failure to
deliver services. He argued that the damage
of the machine went beyond anything
tangible to include the psychological effects
on the citizens that had “drugged them into
a state of political lethargy that is fast
making the city a laughing-stock...The
whole history of the organization has been
a blot on the city,” Seasongood charged.
As effective as Seasongood’s presentation
was in persuading Cincinnatus to call for
the defeat of the levy, his impact would
have been minimal had not two
newspapers reported the debate to the
community, making it “the shot heard
round the wards.” The organization ineptly
responded by attacking Seasongood’s
motives. The levy was defeated, but that
was not surprising. Similar levies had been
turned back even without any clear
Keep Cincinnati the Best Governed City, Vote for
the Charter Committee Candidates (1929). Pamphlet.

A “birdless ballot.” Under Proportional
Representation, voters selected candidates in order of
preference (1939). Ephemera Collection.
GIFT OF MRS. ALLEN COLLIER.
opposition leadership. The campaign’s
importance was that the public discovered
a spokesman for reform who was willing to
grab at the opportunities offered.
Events moved quickly after the
November election. Immediately after the
levy defeat, Seasongood called for a
thorough investigation of the city
administration. Hynicka appointed a large
committee, which included a wary
Seasongood, and hired Lent D. Upson of the
Detroit Bureau of Government Research.
The resulting Upson Report detailed
numerous failings of the organization but
also balanced its findings with sympathetic
comments about the limits imposed by the
inadequate tax structure. Seasongood felt
the report had pulled its punches and
refused to sign it, but the report officially
chronicled the failings of the Republican
organization in managing the city.
Other reformers emerged and
coordinated their efforts. Henry Bentley, a
Reformers wanted symbols removed from ballots (1921). Broadside. From the Resor Papers.
GIFT OF CHASE SHAFER.
Counting the votes in a Cincinnati Proportional Representation election. Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
C H A P T E R 4
9 9

Taft–Head and Shoulders Above Them All (1908). A campaign postcard.
Charles Phelps Taft (1843-1929). Photograph.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF HULBERT TAFT.
GIFT OF ANITA FENTON.
T H E T A F T F A M I L Y
The Tafts of Cincinnati make up one of the nation’s greatest political families. Patriarch
Alphonso Taft (1810-1891) set the pattern which many of his descendants would follow. Born
in Vermont he moved to Cincinnati in 1839 to practice law. During his career he was judge of
the Superior Court of Cincinnati, Secretary of War and Attorney General in President Grant’s
cabinet and minister to Austria and Russia.
Alphonso had five sons: Peter Rawson and Charles Phelps by his first wife, Fanny Phelps,
and Horace, William Howard and Harry by his second wife, Louise Torrey.
William Howard Taft (1857-1930) was born at the family home on Mt. Auburn. A
graduate of the Cincinnati Law School, which he later served as dean, his first public office
was assistant prosecutor of Hamilton County. He gained national recognition as governor
of the Philippines and as Secretary of War in Theodore Roosevelt’s administration. At the
urging of his family and President Roosevelt, Taft reluctantly agreed to run for president in
1908. He received the official notification of his nomination at his brother’s Pike Street
mansion. He defeated William Jennings Bryan and became the 27th President of the United
States. Taft lost his bid for a second term in a three-party race which Woodrow Wilson won.
In 1921 President Warren G. Harding named Taft Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a
position he had wanted more than the presidency, and where he served until several months
prior to his death in 1930.
William Howard’s older half-brother, Charles Phelps Taft (1843-1929) was trained as a lawyer
and a scholar. He served in the Ohio House (1871) and the U.S. Congress (1895), but was best
known in Cincinnati as a publisher and philanthropist. In 1873 he married Anna Sinton,
daughter of iron magnate David Sinton. In 1879 and 1880, Taft and his father-in-law acquired
two Cincinnati daily newspapers to form the Cincinnati Times-Star. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Phelps
Taft worked systematically to endow institutions that would promote the intellectual and cultural
development of Cincinnati’s citizenry. They created the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts to endow
the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and to establish their home with its priceless art collection
as the Taft Museum. In 1930, Mrs. Taft created a $2 million Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund
at the University of Cincinnati to be used for teaching and study of the humanities. It was
supplemented in 1961 by a $3 million bequest from her daughter, Louise Taft Semple, that was
Anna Sinton Taft (1852-1931). Photograph.
Hulbert Taft (1877-1959). Photograph.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
100

The Alphonso Taft House at 2038 Auburn Avenue was the birthplace of William Howard Taft (c. 1867). Photograph.
GIFT OF THE WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE.
designed to make the Classics Department, which her husband, Dr. William T. Semple headed
for 40 years, the best in the country.
Senator Robert A. Taft (1889-1953), the eldest son of William Howard, served in the U.S.
Senate from 1939 until his death. Generally considered one of the ablest political leaders of his
time, Robert Taft was a serious but unsuccessful contender for the Republican presidential
nomination in 1940, 1948 and 1952. Known as “Mr. Republican,” the senator was a champion
of individual liberty and conservative fiscal policies. He sponsored federal welfare programs,
however, particularly in the area of education, and co-sponsored the public housing law of 1949.
His son, Robert Taft, Jr. (1917-1993) went to Washington as congressman-at-large from Ohio
in 1963 and in 1970 was elected to a term in the senate.
Charles P. Taft II (1897-1983), the youngest son of the president, became one of Cincinnati’s
most popular public figures. He was an original member of the Charter Committee, was elected
county prosecutor in 1926 and to city council in 1937. Although Taft was a Charterite in local
politics, he ran for governor as a Republican in 1952 and served in various federal posts in
Washington during the Franklin Roosevelt administration. Taft was mayor in 1956-1957 when
Cincinnati received Fortune Magazine’s designation as the nation’s “best-governed” city. He retired
from city council in 1977 after 30 years of service.
Hulbert Taft (1877-1959), the son of Peter Rawson and Matilda Taft, was editor and publisher
of the Times-Star for more than 50 years. Under his guidance this staunchly Republican
newspaper allegedly endorsed none but Republican political candidates. His son, Hulbert Taft,
Jr. (1917-1967), founded the Taft Broadcasting Company.
Other members of the family were active in political and cultural circles. Mrs. William Howard
Taft, for example, was a founder and first president of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Mrs.
Robert A. Taft was active in the women’s suffrage movement, helped organize a local chapter of
the League of Women Voters and was its first president.
Charles Phelps Taft, II (1897-1983). Photograph.
GIFT OF JULIA WARREN.
Robert A. Taft, Sr. (1889-1953). Photograph.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF HULBERT TAFT.
The home of Charles Phelps and Anna Sinton Taft, Pike Street, now the Taft Museum. Photograph.
GIFT OF MILTON NIEDERLEHNER.
C H A P T E R 4
1 0 1

grassroots politician, proposed a Birdless
Ballot League to push for the removal of
partisan symbols from ballots, hoping to
undermine the machine’s ability to control
uninformed voters. By early spring in 1924,
a loose confederation had focused on
reorganizing the structure of city
government by means of a new charter. Ed
Alexander, who was allied with the national
Progressive campaign of Robert M.
LaFollette, prepared an initial draft of the
charter. The draft was debated and refined
during April and May by Alexander; Bentley;
Seasongood; Guy Mallon, a prominent
lawyer who had sponsored the Australian
ballot reform in Ohio; Charles Taft; Ralph
Holterhoff, also involved in the Birdless
Ballot League; Agnes Hilton of the League of
Women Voters and pioneer suffragette; and
Marietta Tawney of the Woman’s City Club.
The draft charter proposed running the
city by modern managerial principles
popularized through the work of Fred
Taylor, an efficiency engineer and the
father of scientific management. The
charter proposed shifting power away
from elected politicians to a professional,
trained specifically to manage a municipal
bureaucracy. Administrators were to be
chosen on the basis of training and
competence rather than politics. With the
day-to-day responsibilities for the city in
the hands of professionals, it was possible
to redefine the role of elected officials. In
place of a large council representing
fragmented ward interests, the charter
proposed a small council of nine chosen at
large. Voters would elect council through
an elaborate system of balloting termed
“proportional representation.”
The Charter Committee was formed to
take the charter before the people. Bentley
labored to coordinate the entire effort and
build an effective organization in time for the
November elections. Seasongood’s oratory
complemented Bentley’s organizational
skills. Seasongood provided the spark; he
personalized the fight. On election day the
charter was approved, 92,510 to 41,105.
To secure the promised benefits of the
new charter, the reformers transformed the
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
102
Charter Committee into a permanent
organization. They nominated nine
candidates for city council in elections set
for November 1925. Seasongood headed
the slate comprised of a mixture of
Democrats, reform-minded Republicans,
and even one sitting Republican
councilman, Charles O. Rose, who had
grown increasingly independent of the
organization. The Republicans fielded a
short slate of six candidates; 24
independents also entered the race. The
campaign was lively. It was highlighted by
a “debate” between Seasongood and an
empty chair before a meeting of the
Madisonville Welfare Association when the
Republican spokesman failed to appear. In
the end, the Charter Committee elected six
to council; Republicans won three seats.
The victories of 1924 and 1925 brought
the reformers to power. The victories in
themselves neither improved the
administration of the city nor united the
reformers. Seasongood and Bentley soon
split over the future role of the Charter
Committee and over candidates for mayor
and city manager. Seasongood was an
individualist who saw himself as the leader
of a diverse and growing reform movement
larger than any single organization. Bentley
believed that building the Charter
Committee into a permanent organization
was necessary if this reform effort was to last
longer than earlier ones. Bentley’s candidate
for mayor lost to Seasongood’s—Seasongood
himself. Seasongood soon resigned from all
organizations, including Charter. He also
won approval of his choice for city manager,
C. O. Sherrill, superintendent of buildings
and grounds in Washington, D.C., over
Bentley’s candidate, C. A. Dykstra from Los
Angeles. Over the next four years, Sherrill
supervised the smooth reform of Cincinnati
government. He hired professionally trained
administrators, initiated a program to repave
the streets, improve lighting and install traffic
signals and street signs. The work was made
possible by new taxes approved in 1925.
Cincinnati shared in the nation’s
prosperity and boom spirit of the 1920s, but
its growth was moderate compared to other
cities. Between 1900 and 1930, Cincinnati
dropped from the 9th largest city in the
United States to 17th with a population of
451,296. As in other cities, business
prosperity was reflected in numerous
construction projects in the downtown area.
In Cincinnati most of the new buildings were
financed by established families and their
businesses. The Charles P. Tafts built the
Dixie Terminal (1921), the Phelps apartments
(1926) and the Masonic Temple (1928).
Businessmen built the Queen City Club
(1927) and a new Chamber of Commerce
building (1927) on Fourth Street, plus the
Cincinnati Club (1924) opposite the Doctors’
Building (1923) on Garfield Place. In
addition, the Cincinnati Enquirer (1926) and
the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company
(1929) constructed new office facilities.
Perhaps more revealing about
Cincinnati’s economy and the financial
stability of its leading families and
businesses were the construction projects
begun in 1929 and extending into the early
1930s, uninterrupted by the stock-market
crash and the onset of the Great Depression.
Early in 1929 the Cincinnati and Suburban
Bell Telephone Company, whose principal
owner was the Kilgour family, began a new
building at Seventh and Elm streets that was
not completed until 1931. Even more
dramatic was the project of John J. Emery,
heir to an industrial-chemical and real-estate
fortune. On August 24, 1929, Emery
announced plans to build a 48-story office
tower with a department store, restaurants,
a 1,000-room hotel, a 25-story automated
parking garage, and an arcade of shops. This
city-within-a-city at the corner of Fifth and
Vine would occupy the site of the Carew
Building and the Emery Hotel. It also would
re-create the Emery Arcade that had run
between Vine and Race streets since the
19th century. Despite the stock-market
crash, construction of the tower began in
January 1930 and was completed that
October. The hotel portion of the complex
opened in 1932, the same year the
Rockefeller Center, employing similar
architectural styles and mixed-use concepts,
opened in New York City.

The Cincinnati and Suburban Bell Telephone
Company building, southwest corner of Seventh and
Elm streets, was designed by Harry Hake with a
decorative border of French telephones and headphones
above the second story (c. 1931). From the records of
Harry Hake and Partners, Inc.
GIFT OF HARRY HAKE III.
The Times-Star Building, designed by Samuel
Hannaford and Sons and completed in 1933, features
statues and bas-relief sculpture of printing and literary
greats. Photograph of an architectural rendering.
Louis Conrad Rosenberg (1890-1983) was commissioned by the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company to execute a
series of illustrations showing the construction of the terminal. Working from photographs and architectural renderings,
Rosenberg produced eight drypoint plates between 1930 and 1932. Shown are (from top to bottom) Station Steel Arches,
December 1931 (1932); Cincinnati Union Terminal Perspective from East—from architect’s drawings (1930); and
Cincinnati Union Terminal from Air Perspective (1930).
GIFTS OF THE CINCINNATI UNION TERMINAL COMPANY.
At virtually the same time Emery
announced the Carew Tower project, work
began on the construction of a new railroad
facility. Its $41 million cost included the
acquisition of property and the
construction of switching yards, roundhouses,
viaducts over the Mill Creek and a
new Union Terminal building. The project
had been discussed for years, but in 1929
seven railroads serving Cincinnati began to
C H A P T E R 4
1 0 3

Carew Tower and the Netherland Hotel
from the Frederick A. Schmidt Company’s
rental brochure.
Number of Dependent Families, Value of Relief Administered by the Associated Charities…. The shaded
portion of the chart shows the gap that developed beginning early in 1932 between the number of people seeking assistance
and the available resources. From the records of the Family Service of the Cincinnati Area.
GIFT OF THE SERVICE.
GIFT OF ASHLEY L. FORD.
build a consolidated facility on the
site recommended in the 1925 city plan.
The New York architectural firm of
Fellheimer and Wagner proposed a daring
Art Deco design for the $8 million Union
Terminal that caught the imagination of
Cincinnatians and seemed to reflect their
renewed sense of pride.
To decorate the large walls in the
concourse, the architects planned murals
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
104
dedicated to Cincinnati workers. Two
artists, Frenchman Pierre Bourdelle and
German immigrant Winold Reiss,
submitted designs. Reiss won the principal
contract. He developed 14 mosiac and
frescoed murals derived from a series of
photographs taken in factories around
Cincinnati. The murals focused on the
workers themselves, not on the machinery
and technology or on the owners of the
businesses. These bold and beautiful
works conveyed pride and confidence.
They stood in sharp contrast to the
economic realities emerging across
America during the terminal’s
construction, completed early in 1933.
Privately financed construction projects
such as the Carew Tower, Union Terminal
and the Taft family’s Times-Star Building,
which also opened in 1933, temporarily
cushioned Cincinnati from the full impact
of the Great Depression. In 1930

Employment and Unemployment Statistics, 1929-1936. From Municipal Activities of the City of Cincinnati
(1936), p. 26.
construction in Cincinnati was only 6
percent below its peak in 1928, while the
national average was one-third below the
1928 level. Even in 1932 Cincinnati stood
sixth in the value of construction among
the nation’s cities. Yet, the depression
hit Cincinnati as it did the rest of the
nation. Unemployment jumped from
5.9 percent in 1929 to 18.8 percent in
1931 and 28.1 percent in 1932. In the
spring of 1933, with unemployment at
30.4 percent, only 52 percent of
Cincinnati’s labor force had full-time jobs.
Among blacks, who made up 10 percent of
the city’s population, the numbers
were much worse. Only one-third had fulltime
jobs; more than 54 percent were
totally unemployed.
The magnitude of the problem
overwhelmed the traditional relief
agencies. One of the principal relief
organizations, Associated Charities,
assisted 3,721 families and individuals in
1929. In 1930 the number of families
seeking aid jumped to 6,000 and by 1932
rose to 23,188. In addition to the efforts of
organized charities, hundreds of
individuals and companies also did what
they could to help the poor and the
unemployed. An especially notable
example was Leah Weiss, who organized a
relief kitchen in 1929. Throughout the
1930s she cared for the needs of hundreds
of children, families without heat, light or
food and drifters who slept under the
bridges. Mrs. Weiss collected donations of
bread from Rubel’s Bakery, bologna from
Kroger’s, milk from French Bauer and
clothing from Shillito’s and other
department stores.
The city government also saw rising
needs and dwindling resources, but it
performed remarkably well. The city
trimmed expenses in the early 1930s. Only
in 1933 was it forced to cut wages, and the
cuts were restored in 1934. Throughout the
depression decade, Cincinnati generally
had the lowest tax rate in the nation for a
city of over 300,000. City Manager C. A.
Dykstra, who had succeeded C. O. Sherrill
in 1930, wrote that “American cities in
1933 found themselves in the most
precarious position in their history.” But, he
added, “We here have been immensely
more fortunate than in most cities.’’ That
year the city balanced its budget and cut $3
million from its $102.9 million bonded
debt. Indeed the city whittled away at its
debt, cutting it to $70 million by 1943, and
repeatedly retired bonds bearing 4 percent
or 5 percent or more interest for new ones
carrying from 2½ percent down to 1¼
percent. Thus, in 1934, in the fifth year of
the Great Depression, Dykstra wrote, “The
time is here to consider a pay-as-we-go
policy.” Neither the worst flood in the city’s
history in 1937 nor the severe business
recession of 1938 (which pushed
unemployment back over 20 percent)
seriously disturbed the financial well-being
of the city government.
Cincinnati’s government performed well
in another respect during the 1930s. Armed
with the Official City Plan of 1925 and
competent governmental management, the
city was capable of using federal dollars
effectively when the New Deal began to
pump money into the nation’s economy. “Of
the utmost importance,” Dykstra reported at
the end of 1933, “through the activity of the
Federal Government, Cincinnati has the
good fortune to be embarked upon a wellplanned
civil works program which has put
more than 20,000 of our people back to
work and gives us more than a million
dollars a month in new purchasing power.”
He added, “We can enter the new year with
hope and with relative satisfaction.” Using
federal money, the city attacked many of the
problems reformers had identified and
worked at solving in earlier years and
implemented many of the plans that had
been proposed but never acted upon.
The Works Progress Administration, or
WPA, directly touched the lives of more
people than any other New Deal agency and
became the area’s largest employer. Between
1936 and 1939 the WPA employed almost
35,000 men and women in projects ranging
from small construction jobs, documented by
dozens of stone plates on park walls and
C H A P T E R 4
1 0 5

T H E
1 9 3 7 F L O O D
“If we hadn’t had so much rain, there
wouldn’t have been a flood,” was the
explanation given by a weary Cincinnatian
in 1937 for the worst flood in the
city’s history.
There had been higher than average
rainfall during January throughout the 14
states with tributaries feeding the 981-mile
Ohio River. In Cincinnati the bottom lands
had flooded as usual, and on the morning
of January 16, the water stood at 51.55
feet, just short of the 52-foot flood stage.
By the following evening, it had dropped
to 49.1 feet. Cincinnatians believed that
this year’s flood was over.
But on January 18 the river began to
rise rapidly. Meteorologists explained that
the flood was “backing” up the river. Water
was rising rapidly at Cairo, Illinois, where
the river had been at flood stage for more
than a week. Continued rains in southern
Illinois created a damming effect, and the
flood progressed eastward towards
Louisville and Cincinnati.
Relief organizations in the city had been
mobilized earlier to care for residents
along the Ohio and Little Miami rivers.
They were now augmented as the Red
Cross, YMCA, YWCA, WPA workers, Boy
Scouts, and countless citizens rescued
thousands made homeless by the rising
water. All except the smallest private boats
were commandeered, and the Coast Guard
sent additional boats and crews from
Virginia and Maryland. Music Hall became
a giant relief center where clothing was
accepted and sorted.
So many sightseers blocked streets
adjacent to the river that City Manager C.
A. Dykstra restricted access to people
having official business. Thomas Emery’s
Sons advertised that to avoid traffic
congestion and help police and rescue
workers, people could view the flood
from the top of the Carew Tower.
The company donated the 25-cent
admission fee to the American Red
Cross. By January 23 the river had reached
72.8 feet, and between 4,000 and 5,000
Wagner’s Complete Map of Cincinnati and the Kentucky Cities, Showing the 1937 Flood Area (A. C. Wagner
Company, 1937).
Clifton Avenue Water Station. By driving a pipe into the hillside, Red Cross and WPA workers provided water for
drinking and cooking. Photograph.
GIFT OF CHARLES M. WILLIAMS.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
106

Aerial view of the basin looking west. M. Parks Watson photograph (c. 1937).
GIFT OF THE CINCINNATI GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY.
Columbia Avenue looking east from Delta Avenue. When boats were not available for salvaging purposes, two
WPA workers built a raft and helped residents evacuate their homes. Photograph.
EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
Strike Up the Band—a little humor on Eastern Avenue as the water receded. Photograph.
GIFT OF CHARLES M. WILLIAMS.
people had seen it from the tower’s 49th
floor observation deck.
The Transit Company maintained
service for another week by using highwater
cars, elevated tracks and motor
buses instead of electric trolleys. Railroads
with tracks on low ground could not come
into the city. Some lines suspended
service; others used suburban stations.
Only the Chesapeake & Ohio and
Southern railroads continued to use Union
Terminal, and the C&O ran a shuttle
service between Cincinnati and Northern
Kentucky. The Suspension Bridge was
the only bridge open the entire length of
the Ohio.
Sunday, January 24, was Black Sunday. At
73.4 feet, the river had surpassed the 1884
and 1913 floods, heavy rain was falling,
38,000 were homeless. And then, a 10-alarm
fire broke out in the Mill Creek Valley when
a snapped trolley wire ignited a pool of
gasoline leaking from storage tanks. The
flames spread quickly. At its worst, the fire
covered 3.5 square miles and involved 500
firemen, including 75 from suburban and
from Dayton and Columbus companies.
That afternoon the rising river closed the
water works’ East End pumping station and
flooded the electric company’s generators.
The city began doling out water a few hours
each day. By Wednesday citizens were getting
water from fish and park ponds, hillside
springs and streams, breweries’ and
distilleries’ artesian wells, the river and its
tributaries and from Norwood and
Wyoming. Electrical power came from
neighboring cities.
On January 26, the river crested at 80
feet. Forty-five square miles of Hamilton
County were under water; 61,600
Cincinnatians were homeless. The Mill
Creek and Little Miami River valleys were
lakes; California and Newtown were
submerged. Knowlton’s Corner and the
home plate in Crosley Field were under 20
feet of water. It was not until February 4 that
businesses reopened, and on the following
day the 1937 flood became history as the
river dropped below flood stage 19 days after
it left its banks.
C H A P T E R 4
1 0 7

Waiting for work (1930s). Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
The Philip Carey Manufacturing Company, maker of asphalt shingles, represented Cincinnati paper-workers in the
Union Terminal murals. The United Paperworkers International Union, AFL-CIO, Local 321 contributed to the costs of
moving the mural to the Greater Cincinnati Airport in 1973.
concrete slides, to staffing day-care centers
and teaching nutrition to slum dwellers.
During the depression decade, the city
expanded its park acreage by 40 percent
and accomplished a variety of park
improvements compatible with the 1907
Kessler Plan. For example, through the WPA’s
Civilian Conservation Corps, an average of
118 men worked each day from 1935 to
1937 constructing roads, trails, bridges,
guardrails, fireplaces and sewer lines in
Mount Airy Forest. Through WPA’s Federal
Writers Program, Cincinnati’s best fact book
on the city’s history and sites, the Cincinnati
Guide, was compiled. Another New Deal
agency, the Public Works Administration, or
PWA, made possible long-delayed capital-
O R G A N I Z E D
L A B O R
The Great Depression gave new meaning to organized labor in Greater Cincinnati. Although craft unions dated back to the midnineteenth
century in the city, they remained relatively weak. Trade unions all over America did not attempt to organize unskilled
industrial workers, who were the fastest-growing portion of the work force. In addition trade unions frequently reflected ethnic divisions.
In Cincinnati the split between Germans and Irish hampered cooperation and impeded efforts to organize workers. Compounding these
internal problems, the fear of socialism manifested in the Red Scare after World War I strengthened conservative, anti-union sentiment
in Cincinnati.
In the 1930s Cincinnati workers, particularly in Norwood, organized a different kind of union. In 1922 General Motors had located its
Fisher Body and Chevrolet divisions there. During the depression workers faced threatened layoffs, piece-rate pay and speed-up of the
assembly line. Many considered working conditions at Norwood plants to be among the worst in the country. Since a large percentage of
the automotive employees in Norwood were migrants from southern Kentucky, many workers were already familiar with the United Mine
Workers union and were anxious to organize the labor force at the automotive plants.
After the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, “company” unions were formed at both the Fisher Body and Chevrolet
plants. Then, in mid-1934 the leaders of these company unions requested assistance from the American Federation of Labor to form a
local chapter of the United Automobile Workers union. Local 19940 (later Local 131) received its charter in February 1935.
Local 19940 played an important role in the development of the national UAW. In 1935 it participated in the first major strike against
General Motors and helped pressure the A. F. of L. to charter the UAW as an independent national union. In 1939 the Norwood local
supported a successful effort to shift UAW’s affiliation from the A. F. of L. to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
With the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, it became easier to organize unions. This altered national situation was reflected locally.
In 1933 unions claimed 40,000 members. Ten years later there were more than 70,000 union workers in the Greater Cincinnati area.
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Aerial view of the West End before construction of the Laurel Homes and Lincoln Court housing projects (c. 1935). Photograph.
GIFT OF THE BETTER HOUSING LEAGUE OF CINCINNATI.
improvement projects throughout Hamilton
County. Between 1933 and 1940, the PWA
infused about $27.9 million into the local
economy. PWA projects included Columbia
Parkway, Laurel Homes, the Mill Creek
Interceptor Sewer, several buildings and an
addition to the stadium at the University of
Cincinnati, the Reptile House at the Zoo,
schools in Lockland and Madeira and a new
post office downtown.
Of all the innovative and daring programs
entered into by the federal government
during the New Deal, none proved more
controversial than public housing. Yet, even
in this activity, the New Deal borrowed
conspicuously from the experimental
ventures of such earlier reformers as Jacob
Schmidlapp and Mary Emery. Cincinnati’s
worst housing problem was in the West End.
The area contained some of the city’s oldest
housing and had absorbed most of the
southern blacks who had migrated to
Cincinnati during recent decades. To take
advantage of newly available federal funds,
the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing
Authority was formed in 1930. In
cooperation with the city’s planning office,
the housing authority proposed clearing
large areas of the West End slum housing
and replacing the tenements with mediumdensity
apartments similar in design to those
built by Schmidlapp’s Model Homes
Company. In addition, vacant land on the
outskirts of the city would be developed for
those displaced from the West End and for
other poor families.
From the beginning, the plan stirred
debate. The site chosen for slum clearance
was bounded by Lincoln Park Drive (later
renamed Ezzard Charles Drive) on the south
and Liberty Street on the north between
John and Linn streets. The center of the
worst housing in the West End, however, lay
further south. Many homeowners claimed
that the prices offered were based on low,
1931 depression-level appraisals and
concluded that the real purpose of the
project was to remove blacks from the area
surrounding the new Union Terminal.
Blacks became even more disturbed when
they learned that two proposed
developments for outside the basin, Winton
Terrace and English Woods, were designed
for whites and that the housing authority
planned to bar blacks from the new Laurel
Homes in the West End as well.
Construction of Laurel Homes (1937). Looking east, Liberty Street at the left of the project. Photograph.
C H A P T E R 4
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Actually, the Cincinnati Metropolitan
Housing Authority had requested federal
funds to build three separate neighborhood
units in the West End, one for blacks and
two for whites. Once the amount of funding
available was determined, the plan was
scaled down dramatically to just one
neighborhood unit for white families only.
Yet, 61 percent of those displaced by Laurel
Homes were black. White opposition
combined with lack of funding killed the
housing authority’s plans for housing for
blacks outside the basin. Under pressure
from black leaders and the Better Housing
League, the housing authority finally agreed
to permit black families to move into Laurel
Homes. The development had displaced
769 black families but only made available
30 percent of the 674 new apartments to
blacks. As bold as the project was, the
housing authority carefully kept units for
black families segregated from apartments
for whites. Later, during 1941 and 1942, the
housing authority constructed an additional
1,015 units for blacks in the Lincoln Court
project just south of Laurel Homes.
In a separate housing program, New
Dealers borrowed from the urban planners’
thinking that had produced Mariemont in
the 1920s. The Resettlement Administration
chose Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and a tract of
land between Washington and Baltimore as
sites for new greenbelt towns. Greenhills
was planned to be a community for lowerto
middle-class families in the midst of a
forested area. It was designed on a circular
plan that oriented residences inward and
away from the street to promote interaction
among neighbors. Apartments of different
sizes, rowhouses, duplexes and singlefamily
homes were placed close together. A
variety of forces bitterly opposed Greenhills,
with real-estate companies and savings and
loan associations leading the fight. Residents
of Mt. Healthy expressed the fear that the
project would destroy property values and
bring in blacks. Despite early promises to
the contrary, blacks were not admitted to
Greenhills. Nor could most of Cincinnati’s
poor whites meet the minimum income and
credit requirements to live there. The New
The 1,660-foot long Columbia Parkway Viaduct, which bridged Fifth Street from Pike to Martin Street, was completed in 1938. (1938). Photograph.
GIFT OF T. H. HITE.
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Soldiers gaze at World War II banner In Union Terminal which reads, “Strong in the strength of the Lord we who
fight in the people's cause will never stop until that cause is won.” Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
Deal’s accomplishments both in Laurel
Homes and Greenhills were considerable,
but the urban housing problems that
inspired such projects were far larger than
the experimental programs of the 1930s
could solve.
As the decade closed, Europe was once
again at war. As the United States began to
re-arm, military contracts generated jobs
beyond the scope of any New Deal
program. With the city’s unemployment
down to 8.3 percent by May 1941, WPA
employment declined. The program finally
ended on April 30, 1943. Its last employee,
Hazel Weeks, commented, “All of us looked
forward to the day when the WPA would
no longer be necessary, but we are sorry
that it took a war to accomplish that end.”
World War II brought Cincinnati’s
industries back to life. As early as March
1941, nine months before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United
States into the war, the federal government
awarded over $12.6 million in defense
contracts in Cincinnati in addition to the
expansion of the giant Wright Aeronautical
plant in Lockland.
America swung its industrial capacity
fully behind the war effort, and Cincinnati
plants adjusted to unprecedented demands.
The city’s concentration of machine-tool
plants made it a vital center in the
conversion process. In December 1940 the
head of the Advisory Commission to the
Council of National Defense urged the R. K.
LeBlond Machine Tool Company to “forget
everything except the welfare of our country”
and pushed it to find ways to speed up the
delivery of machine tools. By 1942
Cincinnati Milling Machine Company, which
had greatly enlarged its plant between 1938
and 1940, was shipping seven times more
equipment than during its peak peacetime
year. Other Cincinnati companies also found
ways to support the war effort. Cambridge
Tile used the machinery with which it
compressed clays before the war to produce
“granola”-type cereal bars for K rations.
Procter & Gamble applied its soapmanufacturing
experience to produce
glycerine, used in high explosives and as a
base for newly developed sulfa drugs. The
United States Playing Card Company
produced parachutes.
As Cincinnatians met the demands of yet
a second world war, much had changed
during the brief span of a single generation
since World War I. The German community,
which had been one of Cincinnati’s
distinguishing characteristics through most
of the 19th century, had ceased to exist.
People, no longer content to cope with the
problems that haphazard growth, slum
tenements or preventable fires and diseases
caused, increasingly looked to government
to make their lives better. Generally they
believed that municipal government could,
in the words of the Official City Plan of 1925,
“foresee and make provision for…the public
health, safety, convenience, comfort,
prosperity, beauty and general welfare of
Cincinnati as a home for its citizens.” The
people established a new municipal
government, one better able to manage the
city’s business efficiently; one that proved
remarkably capable of managing the
problems and the federal money that came
with the Great Depression. Cincinnatians
had largely accepted the vision of her
reformers and planners and empowered
their government to analyze the city’s needs
and to implement new ways to cope.
He’s Watching You (1942). World War II, relying
on civilians and combatants, stressed logistics, troop
transportation, and secret development of new weapons.
Posters cautioned against “careless talk” to prevent
espionage and sabotage as well as repeating the patriotic
themes of World War I. Division of Information, Office
for Emergency Management.
GIFT OF THE WAR PRODUCTION BOARD.
C H A P T E R 4
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Coney Island, famous for its landscaped Mall, 200-foot by 400-foot Sunlite Pool with a white sand beach and Moonlite Gardens, where the big bands played, began in the 1880s when
James H. Parker rented his apple orchard to picnickers. By 1886 investors had purchased Parker’s farm, located 10 miles east of downtown on the Ohio River, named it “Ohio Grove — the
Coney Island of the West,” and founded the amusement park that remained the largest in southwestern Ohio until Kings Island opened in 1972. From 1925 to 1947 the favored way to travel
to Coney was aboard the 5-decked sidewheeler Island Queen, the last steamboat to make the Coney Island run. Postcard scenes, all 1940s.
CONEY ISLAND MALL AND CONEY ISLAND SWIMMING POOL, GIFTS OF ROSALIND BAER; CONEY ISLAND, AERIAL VIEW,. EUGENE F. BLISS FUND PURCHASE.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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CHAPTER 5
M Y N E I G H B O R H O O D A N D O U R C I T Y , 1 9 4 5 - 1 9 8 8
The years following World War II
brought rapid changes to Cincinnati.
Some, like the spread of people into more
distant suburbs and the influx of new
people, continued established patterns.
Other changes, such as the construction of
expressways and the rebuilding of the
downtown business district, were
consciously planned. Still other
developments, including the civil rights
movement and the preservation of historic
buildings, reflected changing national
values. One change, the revival of
neighborhood organizations, in 1980-81
earned Cincinnati an “All America City”
designation from the National Municipal
League. Despite delays, miscalculations
and unforeseen developments Cincinnati
accommodated the forces of change well
enough that the city gained a national
reputation. Observers characterized
Cincinnati as a dynamic, thriving city
whose citizens cared deeply about its
survival and who believed that their
caring made a difference in shaping
Cincinnati’s future.
Cincinnati, more than many cities, was
committed to planning. This commitment
extended back at least as far as 1920,
when the city created a planning
commission with a professional staff. In
1925 it officially adopted a city plan and
during the 1930s used New Deal dollars
to implement some of its housing,
recreation and transportation concepts.
The city also noted that following the
1937 flood warehouses and other
buildings along the riverfront were
decaying rapidly. By 1939 planners
proposed clearing the area along Third
Street for a boulevard similar to Central
Parkway and developing a park-like area
extending towards the river. World War II
prevented implementation of the plan,
but the planning process continued.
At the urging of Cincinnati’s civic and
business leaders, on February 16, 1944,
city council authorized the planning
The Cincinnati Riverfront (c. 1945). Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
C H A P T E R 5
1 1 3

Proposed Rehabilitation Plan for the Cincinnati River Front (1939). From the city engineer’s Preliminary Report on a Plan of Redevelopment for the Central River Front
(Cincinnati, 1939).
GIFT OF THE MUNICIPAL REFERENCE BUREAU.
Downtown Riverfront Redevelopment Plan. From The Cincinnati Metropolitan Master Plan and The Official City Plan of the City of Cincinnati (1948), fig. 49.
GIFT OF THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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commission to prepare a new and
comprehensive city plan. The 1925 plan
had become obsolete. Not only had the plan
failed to provide adequately for some new
developments, like the automobile, it had
not addressed issues urban planners now
incorporated into their thinking. The
Director of Master Planning, Sherwood
Reeder, explained that “a city cannot plan
efficiently by considering only the things
that we can see, such as highways, parks,
buildings and the like” but must also
examine the underlying social and
economic factors. In addition, possibly
influenced by the war, planners increasingly
recognized that urban planning must be
done in terms of the entire metropolitan
area and not just the city itself
While the city planning staff began
working on a new master plan, business
and civic leaders formed the Citizens
Planning Association to promote
discussions about the future needs of the
city. Frederick V. Geier, president of the
Cincinnati Milling Machine Company;
Richard R. Deupree, president of the
Procter & Gamble Company; Walter
Draper, president of the Cincinnati Street
Railway Company; and John J. Emery were
among those who participated. Their
speeches sometimes echoed earlier
Cincinnati boosters like Daniel Drake.
They saw Cincinnati in a struggle with
other urban centers for population, jobs
and status. Walter S. Schmidt, a real estate
executive, observed: “We are entering an
era of competition between cities.
Population is not growing as it was. The
city which makes itself a convenient one in
which to work and live and rear a family
will survive and grow because it will be
attractive to industry.” Business leaders
were particularly concerned that because
the depression and war had postponed
rebuilding and relocating of industries,
Cincinnati’s factories had become old, ugly,
outmoded and poorly situated.
Beginning in 1946 the recommendations
of the planners began to appear in a series
of volumes addressing such topics as
“population,” “transportation,” “economic
development” and “communities” On
November 22, 1948, city council adopted
the 1948 Master Plan. The planners
hoped its goals were farsighted enough
to be inspiring, yet practical enough to
be attainable.
The plan emphasized highways and
communities. After the passage in 1944 of
a federal highway act, planners
envisioned the building of a new type of
highway, the expressway, that would
revolutionize regional traffic patterns.
Relating their thinking to the federal
system, the planners called for four
expressways from Columbus, Dayton,
Indianapolis and Lexington to converge at
Cincinnati. Modifying the boulevard
concept, they recommended a Third
Street Distributor that would connect all
of these routes on the southern edge of
the downtown and provide easy access to
the heart of the city while keeping
through traffic off city streets. The
riverfront area south of Third Street, twothirds
of which was either unused or
occupied by vacant buildings, would be
cleared. To transform the riverfront into
an asset, the plan proposed placing there
a baseball stadium, a city administration
center (including a new city hall), a
convention center and several apartment
towers, plus ample parking and
recreation space. All of this would be
developed in ways to minimize potential
flood damage and to support the central
business district.
Although Cincinnati’s topography
largely dictated the location of the
expressways, planners coordinated their
proposed routes with other goals. For
example, one expressway would pass
through the Mill Creek Valley, the historic
transportation corridor into and out of the
city before inclines provided Cincinnatians
with alternative routes. Between the basin
and the valley lay the West End filled with
decrepit, overcrowded tenements. The
planners linked their expressway proposal
with plans to develop industrial sites near
downtown by recommending clearing the
West End.
A L F R E D
B E T T M A N
( 1 8 7 3 - 1 9 4 5 )
“As long as Cincinnatians love
their city and strive for its future
greatness; as long as they remain
eager to make it the best place in
which to live, the spirit and work of
Alfred Bettman, member of the City
Planning Commission from 1926 and
its Chairman from 1930 will live on.
Death came to him (January 21,
1945) just as his beloved Cincinnati,
for which he had labored because it
was his native city, was awakening
through the beginning of the Master
Plan project to the full practical
import of the doctrines he had so
long advocated.”
- Quoted from the dedication of the
Metropolitan Master Plan (1948).
The 1948 plan also anticipated that
people would move away from the center
of the city. It tried to prepare both for new
suburban growth and the adjustment of
older city neighborhoods. Professional
planners in 1948 viewed the ideally
organized city differently from their 1925
counterparts. Earlier planners thought of
Cincinnati as a large and complex city, but
a single social unit. The 1948 plan assumed
that the city was too large to function as a
C H A P T E R 5
1 1 5

Powel Crosley, Jr. Photograph.
GEORGE ROSENTHAL COLLECTION.
The four-seater Super Convertible, manufactured by Crosley Motors, Inc., had a folding rear seat, roll-down windows,
44 cubic inch engine, boasted a fuel efficiency from 35 to 50 miles-per-gallon and cost nearly $1000. Photograph.
From Crosley, a Fine Car.
GIFT FROM THE ESTATE OF POWEL CROSLEY, JR.
P O W E L C R O S L E Y , J R .
( 1 8 8 6 - 1 9 6 1 )
Powel Crosley, Jr. was known as the “man with the Midas touch.” To most Cincinnatians he seemed to possess an inexhaustible supply of
ideas about what Americans needed. Beginning in 1921 Crosley pioneered in the manufacture of affordable table-top radios as well as the
programming that made everyone want to buy one of his new sets. In 1922 he started WLW-radio. From 1934 until 1939, WLW-radio was
authorized to broadcast at a phenomenal 500,000 watts of power. This earned it the nickname, “The Nation’s Station.” Though forced to cut
back to 50,000 watts, its 700 kilocycles frequency made it one of the early “clear channel” stations in the United States.
From this base the Crosley Corporation expanded into a variety of new products. The “Shelvador” refrigerator caught other manufacturers off
guard by utilizing storage space on shelves recessed into the door. Crosley advertised the Xervac as a mechanical scalp massager that stimulated
hair growth and the Taylor-Tot as a replacement to the traditional baby carriage.
The Crosley touch reached beyond manufacturing enterprises. After two years as a director, in 1936 Crosley bought the controlling interest
in the Cincinnati Reds to guarantee that the club would remain in Cincinnati. He renamed Redland Field “Crosley Field” and introduced night
baseball to the major leagues. Attendance increased, and the Reds won a league championship in 1939 and a national championship in 1940.
Crosley’s real dream, though, was to manufacture automobiles. As early as 1907 he built prototypes. In 1939 he actually turned out 5,500
Crosley cars before being sidetracked by World War II. In 1945 Crosley sold his broadcasting and manufacturing interests and devoted his
energies to developing “America’s most needed car.” Convinced that Detroit’s large, expensive cars left the average American with only a used-car
option, Crosley imitated the small, efficient European automobiles. Using an innovative light-weight engine, offering just a few models with only
Spartan options, the Crosley sold for only $850 and got between 30 and 50 miles per gallon. Although mildly popular at first, the small Crosley
failed in an automobile market increasingly dominated by manufacturers who made their cars longer, heavier and less efficient.
In 1952 Crosley sold his automobile operation and kept only the Reds, which he owned until his death in 1961. The man with the Midas
touch failed to convince Americans that they needed the product he cared about most. The day of the small car in America was still 25 years
and several gasoline shortages in the future.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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single unit and should be reorganized. It
identified 91 distinct neighborhoods in
Hamilton County which it clustered into
22 communities. Each community was
primarily residential with heavy industry
and transportation confined to corridors or
“separator belts” running between them.
Each neighborhood of 4,000 to 8,000
would have its own elementary school,
playground and small business district.
Each community of four or five
neighborhoods would have a junior high
school, community center with library,
playfields and meeting facilities and a larger
shopping district. By this reorganization
planners sought to “recapture the
advantages of the medium sized city in
each of these communities and at the same
time make available those institutions to be
found only in a great metropolitan city.”
For example, the Mill Creek Center
community would include Cumminsville,
Northside and Winton Place and would
house 25,000 people by 1970. The plan
noted that land along the north bank of
the Mill Creek (forming the southern
border of these neighborhoods) was prone
to flooding, so it recommended gradually
eliminating residential properties there
and encouraging the development of
industrial sites.
One of the largest communities
proposed in the plan was called “Northeast
Hills.” This region included Amberley, Blue
Ash, Concord, Deer Park, Silverton,
Kennedy Heights, Montgomery and
Pleasant Ridge. In 1940 the 15 square-mile
area contained 23,300 people; by 1970 it
was projected to house 56,000. The plan
retained municipal boundaries between
cities and towns in the area, but ignored
them in recommending where shopping,
educational and recreational facilities
should be developed.
Despite the importance planners placed
on reorganizing Greater Cincinnati
communities, little came of the proposals.
As Ernest Pickering, chairman of the
Cincinnati Planning Commission, admitted
in 1958, the popularity of the automobile
was even greater than predicted. For a
The Roselawn Valley Shop-In, built in 1949, was
the area’s first shopping center. Photograph.
decade all efforts went into “appeasement
of the automobile.” The proposals also
conflicted with long-standing loyalties of
residents to their traditional neighborhoods
and communities. Northeast Hills never
meant anything to people who were proud
of the traditions of the “Ridge” or believed
that Montgomery should decide for itself
where to place its schools and how to
develop its business district. Greater
Cincinnatians greeted these proposals with
apathy and dismissed them as artificial.
Cincinnati’s planners were brave in
their attempt to anticipate the postwar
world. Few economists or political
leaders had a clear idea of what would
happen to the nation’s economy after the
war. Many believed that unemployment
would climb again, requiring the
government to fund large work-creating
projects. Instead, American industry
boomed after the war. Military spending
remained high as a Cold War developed.
In addition, Americans who had little
money to spend during the depression
and who had few opportunities to spend
their salaries during the war began to
draw upon wartime earnings to pursue
long-deferred goals. They wanted to buy
houses, cars and consumer goods.
Manufacturers converted from wartime
production to the manufacture of
automobiles, refrigerators, washing
machines, toasters—all kinds of
products—in record numbers. With the
aid of federal programs, new ways were
available to finance long-term mortgages.
Home ownership was within the reach of
more people than ever before. The homebuilding
and automobile industries were
essential components of the strong
postwar economy. They also greatly
changed how Cincinnatians lived.
In the late 1940s and 1950s new
suburban developments sprang up all
around the city. Thousands of families
bought their first homes in subdivisions of
small Cape Cod houses and bungalows.
Those with greater resources sought ranchstyle
homes on larger lots, equipped with
everything from garbage disposals and
dishwashers to air conditioning. Like their
parents and grandparents who had fled the
basin as soon as inclines and their financial
resources allowed, these new suburbanites
sought a private home with as much land
around it as they could afford.
The new suburbs were in fact and in
jargon “bedroom suburbs.” More than ever
before, people separated the place they
worked from their home. They also
separated home from where they shopped,
went to school or attended church. Lost to
some extent was the personal involvement
among the people living in the
neighborhood and with the people who, in
earlier neighborhoods, had usually lived
near the businesses they operated.
The automobile made it all possible.
Suburban housing patterns reflected the
new reality that nearly every family owned
a car. People no longer walked to the store,
to school, or, frequently even to a bus stop.
Except for children riding great yellow
buses to schools, people drove themselves.
The traveling butcher, fruit and vegetable
vendor, and milkman all became
unnecessary. Churches in the suburbs built
huge parking lots, and those in the city
added them so their parishioners could
come from across town for services.
C H A P T E R 5
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When ground was broken for the Swifton Village Shopping Center, Rollman and Sons Company, the prime tenant,
expected the suburban store to serve an expanding population without diminishing sales at its downtown store. Cincinnati
Post (June 10, 1955).
Scattered neighborhood shopping districts
with “mom and pop” stores gave way to
the centrally located shopping center,
which soon became the covered shopping
mall. The Swifton Center opened in 1955
on Reading Road with 60 stores, 60,000
square-feet of retail space and parking for
4,000 cars. It was correctly perceived as a
threat to the future of the downtown as a
retail center, and it was quickly followed
by the Western Hills, Kenwood and Tri-
County shopping centers.
As people left the older neighborhoods
ringing the basin for new bedroom suburbs,
working-class people, the blacks and the
poor—many of them new residents of the
city—replaced them. Although foreign
immigration into Cincinnati was reduced to
a trickle by this time, almost 100,000
people moved into the city between 1940
and 1970, principally from the mountain
regions of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee.
These Appalachians experienced many of
the difficulties immigrants had faced.
Frequently, they had few resources. First
jobs for unskilled and semi-skilled workers
were in factories, especially in the
automobile plants in Norwood and
Sharonville. Appalachians found housing in
“port-of-entry” neighborhoods such as
Over-the-Rhine, Lower Price Hill and the
East End.
The city’s older neighborhoods also
absorbed people displaced from the West
End. The 1948 plan viewed the housing
there fit only for demolition. In 1950 the
400-acre area housed 67,520 people
including more than 54,000 of the city’s
78,685 blacks. By 1959 the city had
prepared a detailed plan for preparing sites
for light industry, wholesaling and retailing,
plus partial replacement of housing stock
by constructing about 850 rental units.
Large-scale destruction of residences
began in 1960 without an adequate plan
for relocating the 40,000 people
displaced. The Cincinnati Metropolitan
Housing Authority had no more success
after the war than it had during the
depression in building small-scale
housing developments for blacks outside
the basin. Wherever it attempted to build,
white residents resisted. A 1952 proposal
to construct housing for blacks along
Kirby Avenue in Northside sparked the
formation of a coalition of neighborhood
groups from Northside, College Hill and
Mt. Airy. The coalition won. The most
successful effort to develop a substantial
amount of housing for blacks was the
opening between 1952 and 1955 of 646
units in Millvale on Beekman Street.
West End blacks who could not find or
did not want public housing had few
alternatives to moving into older
neighborhoods. Both Mt. Auburn and
Walnut Hills absorbed thousands of West
End blacks between the mid-1950s and
mid-1960s. Black residence in Mt.
Auburn, for example, increased from 2
percent in 1950 to 10 percent in 1960 and
74 percent by 1970. Many other blacks
moved to Avondale. Middle-class Jews
were moving to new suburbs, especially
Roselawn, Bond Hill, Golf Manor and
Amberley Village. Between 1950 and 1960
the white population of Avondale declined
nearly 60 percent from 21,429 to 8,894,
while the black population expanded
Ads for new Cape Cod and ranch-style homes
from the Cincinnati Times-Star (July 23, 1955).
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T H E C I T Y A N D
T H E S U B U R B S
The dream home for the Cincinnati family
in the late 19th century was in a hilltop
suburb such as Clifton, Avondale or
Westwood. It was an ideal that held sway
until about 1910 when increased interest in
country life prompted a number of affluent
city-dwellers to seek properties in semi-rural
areas further away from the city. Some already
maintained summer cottages in the far
eastern and western townships. But living
year-round in the country became feasible
for some downtown businessmen only
with the introduction of the family
automobile, the construction of paved roads
and the availability of reliable water and
utility services.
Most who migrated to the country in the
early 20th century were characterized by
their interest in outdoor activities such as
golf, horseback riding and gardening, or by
their desire to enjoy closer contact with The Baker and Norton Realty Company, builders of Wynnburne Park, promised “solid comfort” in American
nature. Fresh air and outdoor recreation had Colonial style houses and a “health and happiness-giving environment” in its subdivision eight miles from Fountain Square
been prescribed since the late 19th century at Cleves-Warsaw Pike and Neeb Road.
for their therapeutic effect on respiratory
disease and the “nervous disorders” that supposedly resulted from the conditions of modern, urban life.
Easy access to sports and leisure-time activities was an important enticement to country life. The establishment of country clubs not only
provided for golf, tennis, shooting and riding, but it fostered a sense of community among new residents. In many instances, housing sites
were developed in conjunction with country clubs.
Wynnburne Park, a development bordering the fairways of Western Hills Country Club (chartered 1912), was platted in the 1920s. The
developer stressed the advantages of living “only a mashie shot away” from the sporty 18-hole course. Wynnburne homesites were
advertised as being “far enough removed from the grind and dust of the city, yet near enough to be only a short drive away.”
Almost without exception those families who purchased farm properties in the country were people of means. But those who congregated
in the Columbia Township highlands of Indian Hill were among the wealthiest and most influential in Greater Cincinnati. Farms in Indian
Hill, as in the Western Hills, were small—usually less than 90 acres. A number of Indian Hill pioneers bought several farms and combined
them into huge estates, thus preserving the country environment.
Subdivisions appeared in Indian Hill in 1923 with the platting of the Camargo Realty Co. project on the periphery of the
proposed Camargo Country Club (1925); Willow Hills and Burley Hills subdivisions followed in the 1930s. The families there understood
at an early date how legal tools, such as zoning, and political tools, such as incorporation, could enable them to control growth and preserve
a semi-rural atmosphere. Indian Hill incorporated as a village in 1941 with approximately 2,000 residents.
By 1980 the 20-square mile area had a population of only 5,521 and no business district. The Village owned 2,200 acres of recreation
and “greenbelt” land. This country suburb had acquired a reputation as one of the city’s most prestigious residential areas, in part because
its leaders worked collectively to preserve their early vision of the idyllic country life.
While Cincinnati homeowners by the 1970s and 1980s had demonstrated renewed interest in city living, adherents of country life
remained strong. Many families sought properties in semi-rural Clermont County and Warren County, which postwar expressways had
placed within commuting distance of downtown Cincinnati.
C H A P T E R 5
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almost sixfold from 3,464 to 19,799.
Blacks frequently could not afford to care
for the large, one-family homes that had
already begun to deteriorate before they
moved in, so landlords carved them into
multiple-family apartments. As businesses
along Reading Road followed their Jewish
customers northward, the once-thriving
business district began to decline.
Forcing blacks to leave the West End
not only displaced people, it also
destroyed important black institutions.
The Ninth Street YMCA and the Cotton
Club, famous for its big-name acts, did not
survive the upheaval. Dozens of West End
churches moved to the hilltops, but had to
assemble substantially new congregations.
Patterns of race relations in all areas
came under scrutiny in the 1950s and
1960s. Although Cincinnati’s public
facilities were not legally segregated, clearly
understood prohibitions prevented blacks
from entering most hotels, restaurants and
amusement sites, including Coney Island.
Blacks were also excluded from many
employment opportunities. Restrictions on
admittance to membership or
apprenticeship in the skilled-trade unions
kept blacks out of the construction
industry. With a surge of public funds for
construction projects in the mid-1960s,
this restriction became untenable. In June
1963 the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
threatened to picket the construction site of
the new Federal Building at Fifth and Main,
prompting the Mayor’s Friendly Relations
Committee to work feverishly to prevent
the protest. Although contractors and
unions agreed to bring more blacks into the
skilled construction trades, by the summer
of 1965 there had been no progress. In July
the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
conducted work stoppages and a sit-in,
drawing national television news attention
that forced public hearings on race
discrimination in the building trades. In
1966 a federally assisted training program
was launched to prepare young blacks for
union apprenticeship programs, but few
were able to secure jobs.
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National Guard during the 1967 Riot. Photograph.
FROM THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER COLLECTION.
Despite increasing confrontations both
nationally and locally, most Cincinnatians
were surprised when rioting broke out in
Avondale in 1967. It was happening in
other cities, but Avondale did not seem
comparable to Watts in Los Angeles.
However, Cincinnati like the rest of the
nation, had moved too slowly to
accommodate the expectations of people
so long treated unequally.
The spark was minor. Posteal Laskey, a
black, was convicted of raping and
murdering a white Price Hill secretary.
Many in the black community felt Laskey
was the innocent target of white fear
resulting from six unsolved murders in
the city. When Laskey was sentenced to
death, protestors appeared on the streets.
One of these was Laskey’s cousin, whom
police arrested on June 12 for loitering
while he was carrying a sign along
Reading Road that called for Laskey’s
freedom. That evening blacks held a rally
on the grounds of Samuel Ach School to
demonstrate their right of protest. When
the meeting broke up about 9:30 p.m.,
groups of black youths began roaming the
streets, shouting their defiance and
breaking windows. Within minutes, half
of the Cincinnati police force on duty at
the time—285 policemen—arrived at the
scene. The young blacks threw rocks and
molotov cocktails through store windows,
setting half a dozen fires.
The next day city officials called in the
National Guard, which deployed about
1,000 men, and met with black leaders. At
a special meeting of city council, blacks
presented 11 grievances, but the meeting
dissolved into angry exchanges. Violence
broke out again that evening in Avondale,
Walnut Hills, Corryville, the West End and
Millvale. Sporadic violence continued the
next two nights while leaders in both black
and white communities worked to quiet the
rioters. By the end of the week, a tense calm
was restored and the National Guard left.
The week of rioting caused an estimated
$2 million in damages and cost an
additional $1 million for police and
guardsmen. During the week 316 blacks
were arrested on riot-related charges—
three-quarters of whom were under 25.
Compared to the riots in many American
cities, Cincinnati’s disturbance was
relatively small. But Cincinnatians were
surprised and confused that it could
happen in their city.

Boarding up store windows in Walnut Hills (1967). Photograph.
FROM THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER COLLECTION.
Only gradually did some whites come to
understand how extensive dislocation and
the frustratingly slow pace toward full
equality had built up anger and frustration.
Blacks attributed the outburst of violence
to the lack of jobs, noting that 27.7 percent
of those arrested were unemployed. They
also complained of unequal treatment by
police and the courts. In the months after
the riots, the city and businesses gave
increased attention to the importance of
finding jobs for unemployed youths and
promised assistance to improve conditions
in Avondale.
Progress proved difficult to come by,
though neither the city and its business
leaders nor the black community forgot
what had happened or the promises that
had been made. For a number of years a
variety of federal programs provided
employment, especially during the
summer months, for large numbers of
black youths. As the federal government
cut back those programs, the business
community took increased responsibility
for finding jobs that would help blacks.
Efforts to locate businesses along Reading
Road in the black area of Avondale proved
fruitless until, in 1981, Oscar Robertson,
the former basketball star for the
University of Cincinnati and the
Cincinnati Royals, gained the backing of
the city manager and financial institutions
to build an Avondale Town Center.
Designed to include grocery and other
shopping opportunities long absent from
the area, the development had enormous
symbolic as well as economic importance.
By the late 1960s, it had become difficult
to find funding for business developments
in neighborhoods. The city had turned
much of its attention to the aging, grimy,
stodgy-looking central business district.
The 1948 Master Plan had not devoted
much attention to the downtown area
beyond providing for the Third Street
Distributor and recommending parking
facilities. The success of regional suburban
shopping centers changed things. Between
1948 and 1958, the central business
district’s share of the city’s retail sales
declined from about two-fifths to less than
one-third, and the value of its property
amounted to only 10 percent of the city’s
real estate. To combat this trend Ladislas
Segoe, an experienced urban planner,
suggested that the downtown should build
on its inherent strengths: “its compactness
and wide choice of goods.” He proposed
imitating the accessibility and convenience
of suburban shopping centers. Expressways
and parking garages would make it easy
for people to shop downtown. In addition
he suggested creating pedestrian malls
by closing selected streets to automobiles.
While Cincinnati did not adopt
pedestrian malls, an alternative was found:
C H A P T E R 5
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second-level walkways, called the
“skywalk” system.
By the mid-1960s many business and
civic leaders concluded that the lack of new
construction downtown demonstrated that
Cincinnati had a serious problem. Since the
close of the building boom of the 1920s, the
only major building completed in the heart
of the downtown was the Terrace Hilton
(1948). On the edges of the core, the Public
Library opened a new facility (1955),
Procter & Gamble completed new
headquarters (1956) and Kroger finished a
new building (1959) praised at the time as a
“sky-high symbol of what downtown
rejuvenation can mean to the city.” Although
the sponsor of each project claimed
confidence in the future of downtown, they
failed to generate a building boom.
The city and the business community
recognized the need for a coordinated
approach to downtown redevelopment. In
1964 the planning commission released a
plan for the central business district. It
broke the 12-block area into nine prime
development parcels, each designated for
office, retail, hotel and convention uses. In
1965, the “Year of the Core,” the city
abandoned its approach of working with a
prime developer in favor of granting
development rights for each block
independently. It awarded “Block A,”
Fountain Square, to the Cincinnati
Redevelopment Corporation headed by a
Unveiling the refurbished Tyler Davidson
Fountain, October 16, 1971. Photograph.
Skywalk design prepared by Garber, Tweddell and Wheeler, architects. From Cincinnati CBD Plan: Cost Studies
(Cincinnati, 1958), following p. 4.
GIFT OF YOUNG AND KLEIN, INCORPORATED.
Columbus developer, John Galbreath, to
build an underground garage, a new
public square and an office tower. Also in
1965 the city signed a contract for a new
Stouffer’s motel and the Federal Reserve
Bank began a new building.
By 1971 the first fruits of long years of
planning for downtown were visible. After
six years of disruption to dig the
underground garage, construct the DuBois
Tower and the Fifth Third Bank Center
and to prepare a new setting for the Tyler
Davidson Fountain, the fountain was
restored and rededicated on October 16,
1971, 100 years and 10 days following the
original dedication. The first segment of
the skywalk also opened in 1971. In the
decade that followed, the pace of tearing
down and building anew increased.
Simultaneously, the city turned its
attention to the riverfront. Memory of the
1937 flood stalled progress on proposals
outlined in the 1948 plan until agreement
was reached in 1963 that all structures
would be raised above flood stage by
constructing podiums. Through a $15
million grant from the federal government
in 1966, the city purchased property in the
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122

Detail from the Aeronca aircraft factory Union
Terminal mural.
GREGORY THORP COLLECTION.
In 1971 Carl Solway and Jack Bolton sponsored Urban Walls, Cincinnati, a project that transformed 10 blank
building walls into gigantic works of art. This design was at the southeast corner of Fifth and Plum Streets.
Construction of Riverfront Stadium (1969). Photograph.
central riverfront area. The real
breakthrough came later the same year
when the city and county agreed on the
historic Public Landing as the site for a new
sports stadium, and new owners of the
Cincinnati Reds agreed to sign a long-term
lease to play there. The next year, when the
American Football League expanded,
Cincinnati obtained one of the new
franchises. Construction of Riverfront
Stadium began in 1968 and was completed
in time for the 1970 All-Star game. With the
stadium as an anchor, limited development
of the central riverfront moved ahead.
Through private funding the Coliseum
opened in 1975, while Yeatman’s Cove Park
with its massive Serpentine Wall, itself
part of the city’s flood control system, was
G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
A I R P O R T
How did Cincinnati’s airport end
up in Boone County, Kentucky? By
1940 everyone agreed that geography
doomed Lunken Airport. Steep hills
and short runways made approaches
difficult while frequent flooding
turned the field into “sunken”
Lunken. When Greater Cincinnati
Airport in Northern Kentucky was
opened in 1947, it was intended to
serve only temporarily as the major
passenger and cargo airport in the
metropolitan area. Planners agreed
that a more centrally located
passenger facility in Blue Ash would
better serve residents in the northern
suburbs, especially near Hamilton
and Middletown, as well as factories
in the Mill Creek Valley and near
Norwood. After voters turned down
a third bond issue in 1955 to finance
the proposed facility, efforts shifted to
expanding and improving the Greater
Cincinnati Airport.
ready by 1976. The first phase of
development for Sawyer Point Park began
in 1978, and in 1980 residential living
returned to the riverfront with the opening
of One Lytle Place.
C H A P T E R 5
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Ruth Lyons Newman (c. 1965). Photograph.
GIFT OF HERMAN AND RUTH NEWMAN.
Although Cincinnati’s downtown and
riverfront redevelopment generated pride
among residents and impressed visitors,
its success generated concerns that gained
momentum as several of the city’s oldest
buildings were destroyed. Many were
outdated and uneconomical, but their
disappearance collectively prompted
concern that in its drive to revitalize the
downtown, the city was destroying its
most visible link to the past, one that
reflected the unique mixture of forces and
people who had built Cincinnati.
Such concern was not unique to
Cincinnati, as evidenced by the passage in
1966 of the National Historic Preservation
Act. Just as the federal government
provided funds in unprecedented ways for
cities like Cincinnati to engage in
redevelopment, the concern that federal
dollars would help destroy the nation’s
sense of its past prompted the legislation. In
Cincinnati building by building, block by
block, project by project, the issue was
debated. In some instances workable
compromises were discovered. For example,
when construction of the Northeast
Expressway (I-71) endangered Lytle Park, a
citizens group led by Councilman Charles P.
Taft and insurance executive William T.
Earls worked from 1958 to 1967 to develop
plans to tunnel under the park and put
R U T H
L Y O N S
( 1 9 0 7 - 1 9 8 8 )
In postwar Cincinnati a phenomenon
and pioneer emerged in
television broadcasting. Ruth Lyons
was called “the most influential
housewife” in the Midwest. To a
combined radio-television audience
of seven million, she was a friend
who shared her concerns, ideas,
opinions and family from noon to
1:30, five days a week. Miss Lyons
began on the WLW-TV network in
1949 exhibiting the same disregard
for conformity that had already made
her a popular radio personality. She
had no script, no rehearsals and
refused to take direction. Instead,
with a keen sense of timing, she
shared with her audience whatever
happened to be on her mind—careful
to include the mention of some 100
sponsors each week that had waited
up to three years for the opportunity.
To the WLW-TV network, Ruth Lyons
was “big business,” grossing $2
million annually—unheard of at the
time in daytime TV even for network
programs. After more than 30 years
in broadcasting, ill-health forced
Ruth Lyons’ retirement in 1967.
Looking across Fountain Square to the Albee Theater. Photograph.
PAUL BRIOL COLLECTION.
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124

Caroline Williams, Wesley Chapel. Print.
together a financial package to save it. A
long struggle took place from 1965 to 1972
between Cincinnati’s most important
corporation, Procter & Gamble, and people
who wanted to save the oldest surviving
church in the downtown area, Wesley
Chapel, constructed in 1831 on Fifth Street
west of Broadway. The company offered
several options, including moving the
building across the street, but the
congregation elected to build a new church
in Over-the-Rhine. The building came
down in 1972. Preservationists then turned
their efforts to saving the Albee, an ornate
theater built in 1927. They lost the battle
in 1977 so that Fountain Square South, a
$11 million hotel-bank-office complex
could be constructed.
Though enduring many frustrations,
preservationists took pride in several
achievements, such as when Music Hall
underwent a $5 million renovation in 1969
and 1970. The future of Union Terminal
proved more difficult to resolve. Rail traffic
dwindled steadily after World War II until
the last passenger train pulled out on
October 28, 1972. People universally loved
the building, and they proposed a variety of
alternative uses for it, including a
convention center, a bus garage, an
educational center, a museum of science
and industry, and a shopping mall. When
the Southern Railroad razed the concourse
to improve its yard facilities, citizens,
businesses, and unions rescued the giant
murals of Cincinnati workers by moving
them in 1973 to the Greater Cincinnati
Airport. A refurbished terminal gained a
new lease on life when it opened in August
1980 as a specialty shopping mall.
During these years the principal voice
for preservationists was the Miami
Purchase Association for Historic
Preservation (now Cincinnati Preservation
Association), organized in 1964. Between
1975 and 1978, the association surveyed
historically and architecturally significant
buildings throughout the city. Its inventory
identified 981 individually important
structures as well as another 1,500
buildings in clusters and districts. The
extensiveness of the list surprised city
officials. Then, in 1980, Miami Purchase
nominated all of the surviving work of
Samuel Hannaford, Cincinnati’s most
prominent 19th century architect, for
inclusion on the National Register of
Historic Places. This nomination included
the Workhouse, an aging structure and an
Riverfest Fireworks (1982). Photograph.
VINCE RE COLLECTION.
obsolete penal institution. City officials felt
the nomination was inappropriate. Partially
in response to the inventory and the
Hannaford nomination, the city created the
position of city urban conservator with a
professional staff responsible to a ninemember,
citizen Historic Conservation
Board. This new body assumed
responsibility from the Miami Purchase
Association for making nominations to the
National Register whenever federal money
could conceivably be used to destroy
eligible buildings. The change also forced
the city to give increased attention to
historic preservation concerns in its own
planning process.
The high cost of downtown
development and the vigor with which the
city pursued it ignited another reaction.
Residents of the city’s older neighborhoods
had long felt that their concerns and needs
were subordinated to those of downtown.
In the 1950s, for example, the widening of
River Road into a “modified expressway” to
carry traffic between the western suburbs
C H A P T E R 5
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View of the Cincinnati skyline from the south tower of the Roebling Suspension Bridge (1983).Photograph.
VINCE RE COLLECTION.
and the city disrupted the communities of
Sedamsville and Riverside. In the early
20th century, Sedamsville, a working-class
neighborhood, had supported over 100
businesses. The flood of 1937 drove out
many of them, but the business strip along
River Road remained the heart of the
community until road widening began.
Shirley Caine, a resident, recalled: “They
said when they put this road through you
would have better facilities, your property
values would go up and your business
would flourish. Well, we haven’t had any
businesses to flourish at all.” Three isolated
streets, clustered on a hillside above the
road and the river, were all that remained
of Sedamsville. Riverside had a similar
experience, except that engineering
miscalculations in rerouting traffic during
road construction destroyed the area’s
tenuous drainage system and caused
landslides. As other communities had
done a generation earlier when individual
complaints went unheeded, the residents
formed the Riverside Civic and Welfare
Club to lobby for greater consideration of
their needs by the city during the
construction of River Road and for repair
of damages when it was completed. The
battle continued into the 1970s.
Other communities also organized to
gain attention at City Hall for their
concerns and to secure some federal
community development money for their
neighborhoods. The Charter reform of the
1920s had eliminated Cincinnati’s ward
system of electing city council. This made
it more difficult for city government to
determine the needs of neighborhoods.
To fill this void, residents created
neighborhood organizations in the 1960s
and 1970s to advise city officials.
Some groups organized to protect their
communities against what they feared “the
city” or “outsiders’’’ were doing to them.
Riverside fit this pattern, as did
neighborhood groups in the 1960s that
sought to keep blacks out of their
communities. Similarly, some neighborhood
groups formed to fight to keep open
their schools.
Increasingly residents formed
neighborhood organizations in an effort to
assert control over their own lives. An early
example of this came when blacks were
moving into Avondale. Residents of North
Avondale saw that in South Avondale “a
condition of panic developed, formed by
rumor, fear, prejudices and exploited in
some instances by unscrupulous and
avaricious real-estate interests, thus causing
homeowners to list their homes for sale and
flee the area.” They formed the North
Avondale Neighborhood Association in
1960 to fight scare tactics of realtors and to
make a functioning, integrated neighborhood.
They worked with individual realestate
agents, sympathetic financial
institutions and City Hall. By 1970 they had
stabilized the neighborhood at 60 percent
white and 40 percent black. Similar
concerns prompted development of
community organizations in College Hill,
Bond Hill, Paddock Hills and Kennedy
Heights. The Clifton Town Meeting was
formed in response to worries about
spreading slums, thousands of students
attending the University of Cincinnati and
Hebrew Union College, and the general
confusion created by several hospitals in the
area. It worked to preserve the uppermiddle-class,
suburban lifestyle of the area.
Some residents worked through the
organization to preserve gaslights along
their streets; others fought efforts to widen
streets that would increase traffic through
the community.
Organizing community councils was
not confined to white or to middle-class
neighborhoods. Through the Community
Action Commission and Model Cities
programs, dozens of community
organizations were formed in poor and
black neighborhoods. Blacks forced from
the West End needed to re-create
organizations through which they could
address their problems. Bailey Turner,
working for the Community Action
Commission, developed block clubs on
Mt. Auburn that fed into its community
council. They attacked problems of
overcrowding, juvenile delinquency,
crime, and deteriorated housing.
Supported by federal funds, similar
efforts were made in Over-the-Rhine,
Evanston, and Avondale.
The interests of community councils
evolved as needs changed, but at one time
or another many were concerned about
maintaining and developing housing. The
availability of federal funds for
rehabilitating housing prompted some
community councils to form and
incorporate neighborhood development
corporations. One of the earliest and most
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effective was the Good Housing
Foundation on Mt. Auburn. Led by Carl
Westmoreland, the foundation arranged
for federally-guaranteed loans through
local financial institutions, negotiated city
agreements to improve public facilities,
such as street lighting, and undertook the
purchase and rehabilitation of more than
$12 million worth of property. The
project gained national attention among
preservationists and urban planners
interested in restoring vitality to
neighborhoods near downtown areas.
Other communities, including Bond Hill,
Paddock Hills, Walnut Hills, College Hill,
Northside and Madisonville, created
corporations to stimulate residential and
business development.
The growth and effectiveness of
neighborhood organizations changed the
way city government operated. During the
1960s the city council and administration
focused their attention and resources on
the redevelopment of the downtown and
riverfront. In 1971 a coalition of
Democrats and Charterites campaigned
for city council with promises that if they
were elected, they would give greater
attention to the neighborhoods. Their
success produced noticeable changes. A
newly appointed city manager, E. Robert
Turner, took steps to implement the
coalition’s promises and established
mechanisms for neighborhood participation
in making policy.
The city invited community councils to
help establish budgetary priorities. By the
mid-1970s a regular procedure was
developed for neighborhoods to identify
needs, assign priorities and communicate
them to municipal department heads.
Gradually, the city broadened the areas in
which community organizations could
participate to include overseeing federal
block-grant funds and developing longrange
plans for neighborhoods. This
process culminated in 1981 when the city
established a Department of Neighborhood
Housing and Conservation. It was for the
strength of its neighborhood organizations
that the National Municipal League
named Cincinnati an “All America City” in
1980-81.
More and more middle-class people
became interested in living in
neighborhoods where they did not need
to drive to work. This, combined with an
increased respect for older buildings in
the 1970s, produced a return to city
living. This national trend was first
observed in Cincinnati on Mt. Adams. As
early as 1951 some middle-class families
moved there. The real boom began a
decade later when a few young
businessmen began “rehabbing” and
selling old homes. The Mt. Adams
development was an isolated event for
several years, but the gasoline crisis of the
1970s and an ever-growing percentage of
singles and childless couples generated
similar developments in other older
neighborhoods and in the downtown
business core.
These urban pioneers reversed a
century-long trend of living ever further
out. Their motivations varied. Some
sought imposing views of the basin and
the Ohio River from Prospect Hill on Mt.
Auburn and from Mt. Adams. Others
delighted in the architectural gems they
found in abundance along streets such as
Purcell Avenue in Price Hill or in
Columbia Tusculum and East Walnut
Hills. Many were primarily concerned
with finding a house situated in
economically and racially mixed
communities where they could enjoy
greater interaction with their neighbors
than they could find in bedroom suburbs.
A growing number of people, both young
and old, were attracted to the
convenience of downtown apartments in
the Garfield Park, West Fourth Street and
riverfront areas.
Even though the return of middle-class
professionals brightened the city’s
economic picture, it caused a reaction of
its own. In low-income areas such as
Over-the-Rhine, residents were fearful
that if the district were placed on the
National Register of Historic Places, they
would soon be displaced. By the 1980s,
“gentrification” was one of the more
complex problems facing the city.
Ironically, the success of policies to make
the city a safe and exciting place for
middle-class people to live threatened the
security of people who feared that with
their limited resources they would soon
Glencoe Place, seen here in 1987, rehabilitated by the Mt. Auburn Good Housing Foundation in the early 1980s. It
was demolished in 2013. Photograph.
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Samuel Hannaford, City Hall (c. 1887). Presentation drawing from the Samuel Hannaford Architectural
Record Collection.
C I T Y
H A L L
On May 13, 1893, Mayor John B. Mosby presided over the formal dedication of
Cincinnati’s new City Hall. This impressive building was six years in the making and
cost the citizens of Cincinnati over $1.6 million. A parade, marching bands and
speeches by dignitaries, including Ohio Governor William McKinley, were all part of
the celebration of the formal opening of the new building.
Designed by Samuel Hannaford, Cincinnati’s most prominent 19th century architect,
the building was considered one of the finest structures of its type in the country.
Hannaford’s proposal was selected from a group of 14 proposals submitted by
competing architects from as far away as Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago.
The massive granite building occupies a full city block and includes a 250-foot-tall
clock tower. It was built to serve as the center of municipal government and to house all
of the city offices, including the Mayor’s Office, City Council Chambers and Police Court.
By the time the building had reached its 50th birthday, it was considered too small
and too inefficient to continue to serve the purpose for which it was designed. Although
many believed that the building should be razed and replaced by a new, larger and
more efficient city hall, over the years the city committed its resources to other projects
and public improvements, and no new building was ever built.
Gradually many city offices were moved to other sites. At the same time the
architectural and historical significance of the building became more widely accepted,
and in 1972 City Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today it
is regarded as the finest example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the city.
be unable to afford their houses or to find
other, inexpensive alternatives.
By the early 1980s, the primary goals
of the 1964 plan for redeveloping the
downtown had been achieved, but the
city continued to look forward. In 1979
the city planning commission began work
on a “Cincinnati 2000 Plan” to guide
downtown development through the next
two decades. The resulting plan projected
nearly doubling the eight million squarefeet
of office space in the downtown area.
In addition, the plan gave new weight to
the preservation of older buildings by
observing that in certain instances the
economic potential of new structures
“may be outweighed by the need to
retain a sense of the city’s past and a
human scale.”
The Year 2000 Plan for Cincinnati
reflected a sense that Cincinnati had
become and would remain a vital urban
center into the next century. This
confidence and pride no longer rested on
the same basis 19th century boomers
used. According to the U.S. Census,
Cincinnati’s population fell from 453,514
in 1970 to 385,457 in 1980. While the
metropolitan area increased by 5,000
during the decade to reach 1,392,394
people, its ranking dropped from 22nd to
28th in the nation. Cincinnatians took
solace in noting that, unlike many
northern cities, the region had not lost
population during the decade.
In the years after 1960 efforts to
improve the quality of life in Cincinnati
proceeded along two paths. At the city’s
center tremendous resources were poured
into revitalizing the downtown. New
buildings were constructed almost
everywhere. At the heart of the city the
new Fountain Square was widely
acclaimed as “the most successful
urban plaza in America,” and its
venerable Tyler Davidson Fountain now
stood surrounded by modern buildings.
Beyond the downtown, thousands of
Cincinnatians demonstrated a renewed
commitment to making the city’s
neighborhoods functional, human
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Fort Washington Way at night (1984). Photograph.
VINCE RE COLLECTION.
View of Mt. Adams and Immaculata Church (1987). Photograph.
communities. Although the needs of these
two centers of Cincinnati life—the
downtown and the neighborhood—were
frequently in conflict during the 1970s
and 1980s, a new and more unified
view of the city had begun to emerge.
More and more Cincinnatians spoke with
pride about both “my neighborhood” and
“our city.”
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“Moonrise,” Tall Stacks 2006.
PHOTOGRAPH S000991 © STEVIE PUBLISHING INC./ WILLIAM A. ABRAMSOHN, PHOTOGRAPHER.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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CHAPTER 6
R E T U R N T O T H E R I V E R A N D O U R H E R I T A G E , 1 9 8 8 - 2 0 1 3
The period 1988 to 2013 witnessed vast
changes in Cincinnati. As the city’s suburbs
grew, Cincinnati proper continued to
shrink in population. Concerned citizens
launched public-private partnerships to
revitalize the city, concentrating their
efforts along the riverfront, in downtown,
and in Over-the-Rhine. At the same time,
neighborhood groups embarked on
sustainable growth initiatives of their own.
In 1988, the year of the city’s bicentennial,
few residents would have predicted that the
city would spend much of the next 25 years
reevaluating its heritage, and, at the same
time, learning to embrace the new
technologies that would lead it into the
21st century.
The overarching story of Cincinnati in
this period can be garnered from
important census information. As
mandated by the U.S. Constitution, the
federal government conducts a decennial
census for purposes of determining our
congressional representation. Over the
years, the census has ballooned to include
statistics that serve as barometers of our
national social and economic health. In
1990, the census revealed that the
Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN CMSA
(Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical
Area) had a population of 1.8 million.
Cincinnati proper, meanwhile, had a
population of 364,000, or about 20
percent of the total metropolitan area. As
defined by many factors, including
commuting to work, the then-13 counties
comprising metropolitan Cincinnati
included 5 counties in Ohio (Brown,
Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren),
6 in Kentucky (Boone, Campbell, Gallatin,
Grant, Kenton, and Pendleton), and 2 in
Indiana (Dearborn and Ohio). In the
early 21st century, the federal government
added 2 more counties to the
metropolitan mix, Bracken in Kentucky
and Franklin in Indiana.
The 2010 census disclosed that the then-
15-county Cincinnati metropolitan area
counted 2.1 million people, including
almost 297,000 in Cincinnati. Although
Cincinnati’s share of its total metropolitan
population had dropped to only 14 percent
in 2010 (from 20 percent in 1990, and
nearly 56 percent in 1950), metro
Cincinnati itself remained a regional
powerhouse. In fact, if you were to imagine
Cincinnati as the center of a round clock,
and the cities surrounding it as numbers on
that clock—proceeding clockwise, you
would have to go as far as Detroit,
Pittsburgh, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Chicago
before reaching metropolitan areas larger
than Cincinnati. Nevertheless, although the
Cincinnati area has been consistently
gaining population, some analysts argue
that the gains are not enough. In the
21st century, though, Cincinnati still claims
some bragging rights, as the largest
metropolitan area in Ohio. Cleveland,
however, debates that ranking, arguing that
Cincinnati’s statistical area includes parts of
Northern Kentucky and Southeastern
Indiana. What cannot be debated, however,
is that the very definition of a metropolitan
area follows people and their commuting
patterns, not geographic boundaries.
According to 2003 U.S. Census Bureau
figures, Cincinnati area residents spent 21
minutes per day, one-way, commuting to
work. Although slightly below the national
average, that nevertheless added up to 42
minutes per day, 5 days per week. For
those working 50 weeks per year, that
equated to 175 hours of commuting time
annually—actually more than an entire
week (168 hours) of an average worker’s
life each year. By 2011 the average
commuting time in the Cincinnati area had
increased to 24 minutes per day, one-way,
or 200 hours each year.
The census also tells another story, one
of fragmentation. Within 100 miles of
Cincinnati, in all directions, are large
cities—Indianapolis, Columbus, Lexington,
and Louisville. According to 2012 and 2013
population estimates, all four of these cities
had populations, within their city limits
proper, larger than that of Cincinnati. Of
course, their metropolitan areas were much
smaller in population than Cincinnati’s. In
Indianapolis, Lexington, and Louisville, the
explanation for the more populous central
city was, quite simply, the adoption of
“metro government.” In contrast, the
Cincinnati area has witnessed the
multiplication of municipalities and
governmental units in the last 60 years. In
fact, as early as the 1960s, Iola Hessler
Silberstein of the University of Cincinnati
cautioned Hamilton County residents about
their “patchwork quilt” of governments.
The Cincinnati area’s fragmentation
partly owes its origins to the hilly
topography of the region, as well as to the
existence of three different states
composing the metropolitan area.
Regardless of its causes, the proliferation
of separate municipalities and townships
makes many regional matters, like
planning and public transportation,
sometimes difficult. The region’s pursuit
of commuter light-rail transportation, for
instance, depended upon a vote of its
most populous county, Hamilton in
Ohio. There, in November 2002, the
electorate rejected a half-cent sales tax
increase to finance a proposed $2.6
billion light-rail system.
OKI (Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional
Council of Governments), established in
1964, attempts to develop “collaborative
strategies to improve the quality of life
and the economic vitality of the region.”
By 2013, however, as impressive as its
accomplishments were, OKI represented
only 8 of the 15 counties in the
metropolitan area. OKI and other
agencies are working tirelessly to devise
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plans for the replacement of the area’s
most critical bridge, the Brent Spence,
carrying the traffic of two of the nation’s
busiest interstate highways (I-71 and I-
75). Nevertheless, the long, tedious and
ongoing process of the bridge
replacement underscores the difficulty of
negotiating the region’s multiple layers of
governmental bureaucracy.
In 1988, at the time of Cincinnati’s
bicentennial, the world of advanced
computer and medical technology was still
in its infancy. Seven years earlier, IBM
introduced the world’s first personal
computer. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee
developed the worldwide web, and in
1996, a sheep called Dolly became the first
mammal to be cloned from an adult stem
cell. By the early 21st century, scientists
completed the Human Genome Project.
Clearly, as many analysts suggest, the
economy of the 21st century rests upon
the STEM disciplines (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Medicine). Fortunately,
Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are the
home of many Fortune 500 companies
that are joining hands with business
“accelerators,” like Cincinnati’s CincyTech
and Cintrifuse, and Northern Kentucky’s
UpTech. Typically, accelerators like these
offer a range of services, from seed-stage
funding for startup companies, to
networking, to business advice, and to
access to venture capital as the startups
mature. In addition, the University of
Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s
Hospital Medical Center are leading the
way in medical research.
Cincinnati’s Agenda 360 and Northern
Kentucky’s Vision 2015 are two examples
of non-profit organizations dedicated to
building a regional community that
attracts sustainable economic growth. In
their 2012 Regional Indicators Report,
Agenda 360 and Vision 2015 used 15
barometers to measure Cincinnati’s
progress against that of 11 comparison
regions (Austin, Charlotte, Cleveland,
Cincinnati’s Neighborhoods, 2012.
CITY OF CINCINNATI, DEPARTMENT OF CITY PLANNING AND BUILDINGS.
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Columbus, Denver, Indianapolis,
Louisville, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh,
Raleigh, and St. Louis). Determining that
Cincinnati ranked 10th overall, the report
realized that much work still lies ahead.
According to the 2010 census,
Cincinnati and Hamilton County remain
employment powerhouses, hosting more
than 50 percent of the jobs in the 15-county
metropolitan area. The region is home to
major Fortune 500 companies that, in
2013, included AK Steel, American
Financial Group, Ashland, Fifth Third
Bancorp, General Cable, Kroger, Macy’s,
Omnicare, Procter & Gamble, and
Western & Southern Financial Group. In
addition, Toyota Motor Engineering &
Manufacturing North America, and Scripps
both maintain national headquarters in the
region. Scripps has emerged as a giant of
21st century media. Although it sadly
ended the printing of its daily Cincinnati
Post in December 2007, leaving Cincinnati
with one remaining daily newspaper
(Cincinnati Enquirer), the Kentucky Post
continued online. The late 20th and early
21st centuries have also seen many mergers
and acquisitions, especially of banks and
savings and loan associations. Old
Cincinnati banks, like Provident (now
PNC) and First National (now US Bank)
were part of this national trend.
During the decades of the 1980s and
the 1990s, the Cincinnati/Northern
Kentucky International Airport (CVG)—
located in Northern Kentucky—brought
tremendous growth to the region. By 1995
Delta Air Lines made the airport its
second-largest hub in the nation. At its
peak in 2005, the airport became one of
the nation’s largest, with 22.8 million
annual passengers and 670 daily flights. In
the early 21st century, Delta filed for
bankruptcy, reorganized and merged with
Northwest Airlines, leading to reductions
in flights at its CVG hub. By 2012 the
airport processed only six million
passengers. This decline in flights and
passenger traffic, coupled by the escalating
cost of flights from Cincinnati, was one of
the reasons Chiquita Brands International
cited for choosing to move its Cincinnati
headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina.
At the same time, however, while Delta
was reducing operations, the world cargo
carrier DHL was expanding operations
at CVG, investing millions of dollars in
new facilities.
The last half of the 20th century, and
the first decade of the 21st, have
witnessed the headlong expansion of
suburbs in the United States. Some call
this suburbanization the largest migration
in American history. Cincinnati was no
exception. The city joined hundreds of
other mature cities nationwide, as they
struggled—together and apart—to
formulate new identities. No longer
necessarily the demographic and
commercial centers of their metropolitan
regions, many cities began the slow
process of rebuilding. In Cincinnati’s case,
as elsewhere, its residents found their
niche in their past. Home to many
immigrant and internal migrant groups,
the Cincinnati metropolitan area
especially prides itself on its German
heritage. Indeed, the 2000 census ranked
the region third in the nation (after
Milwaukee and Minneapolis) in the
percentage of its residents tracing their
heritage to German ancestors.
From 1988 until 2013 Cincinnati
rediscovered the Ohio River and its ethnic
heritage. This rediscovery emerged from a
complicated 50-year history preceding
the city’s bicentennial in 1988. From
1938 until 1988 Cincinnati struggled
with its riverfront, West End, and
downtown areas, all of which comprised
the very heart and soul of its beginnings,
growth, and prosperity.
The 1937 flood, coupled with changes
in commercial shipping patterns,
profoundly affected Cincinnati’s relationship
with the Ohio River. During its first
150 years, downtown Cincinnati grew and
prospered in concert with the river.
Steamboats lined its Public Landing,
making the “Queen City of the West” a
major commercial center of the nation.
And although river transportation
remained vital to the city’s economy,
Cincinnati politicians, civic leaders, and
commercial boosters cobbled together
railroad networks in the late 19th century.
Meanwhile, in the post-Civil War era,
towboats pushing barges became more
prevalent. As a result of low-lift and, later,
high-lift, locks and dams constructed
along the length of the 981-mile Ohio
River in the 20th century, commercial
shipping along the river actually increased,
but the Public Landing waned in
importance. Increasingly, towboats
pushing barges—squat, drab, often rusty
boats—presented a riverscape vista much
more mundane than the ornately elegant
and colorful steam packets of years past.
New docking and transport facilities,
generally located away from the city’s
Public Landing and from its many bridges,
handled the transshipment of coal, oil,
grain and other bulky commodities.
While river traffic on the Ohio River
boomed, concerns about its polluted
waters mounted, especially after World
War II. In simple terms, the Ohio River
and many of its tributaries ranked among
the most polluted waterways in the United
States. In June 1948, eight Ohio Valley
states created the Ohio River Valley Water
Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) “to
control and abate pollution” in the Ohio
River watershed. But this pioneering
agency could not solve so extensive a
problem, and many people alive today can
vividly recall the stench of the Ohio River
from the 1950s through the 1970s,
especially in the summertime. The federal
government launched an assault on the
issue in 1972, when the U.S. Congress
passed the Clean Water Act, which
required industries and other “pointsource”
polluters to clean up their
effluents. Such reforms improved the
river’s health but did not cure it, for the
volume of industrial discharges into the
Ohio still remains the highest of any river
in the nation. To make matters worse,
rural areas enriched this poisonous stew
with runoffs of herbicides and pesticides,
to which cities added runoffs of oil and
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The concrete channelization of the Mill Creek resulted in ecological concerns.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
other motor vehicle leakages from parking
lots and urban streets and expressways.
In addition to these vexatious
pollution problems, Cincinnati and other
older cities suffered from combined
sanitary and storm sewer overflows
(CSOs). During heavy rains, these
combined sewers overflowed directly into
the waterways of the Mill Creek, Licking,
and Ohio River basins, carrying with
them fecal material. In response to this
appalling situation, the federal Clean
Water Act mandated the Hamilton
County-operated Metropolitan Sewer
District to undertake a $3.2 billion cleanup.
Likewise, Sanitation District No. 1 of
Northern Kentucky fell under similar
cleanup orders.
In the 1980s the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers pursued a concrete
channelization of the Mill Creek that
actually worsened ecological concerns.
The removal of shoreline trees, and the
new concrete channel itself, transformed
the stream from a living-and-breathing
ecological system to something wholly
“unnatural,” as biologist and author Dr.
Stanley Hedeen of Xavier University in
Cincinnati has asserted. By 1992 the
Corps abandoned the failed project, at a
total cost of $110 million. In that same
year, the Ohio Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) designated the Mill Creek as
the most polluted stream in Ohio. In 1997
American Rivers, a conservation group,
called the Mill Creek the “most endangered
urban river in North America.”
By far the worst example of hazardous
waste in the Cincinnati area was that of the
former Fernald Feed Materials Production
Center, located in parts of Hamilton and
Butler Counties, Ohio. From 1951 until
1989 this massive facility manufactured
uranium fuel cores for the federal nuclear
weapons program. By the 1980s
courageous whistleblowers had revealed to
Cincinnatians and the general public the
extent of radioactive dust contamination
and groundwater pollution. The U.S.
Department of Energy subsequently closed
the plant, which eventually became
eligible for participation in the EPA’s
Superfund program. The EPA spent
billions of dollars in the cleanup, which
included the removal of contaminated
materials. Part of the site became a nature
preserve in 2006. Additional hazardous
waste sites have been identified in the
region and are at various stages of cleanup,
including: Pristine Inc. Superfund Site,
Reading, Ohio; Milford Contaminated
Aquifer, Milford, Ohio; Chem-Dyne Site,
Hamilton, Ohio; the Peters Cartridge
Factory, Kings Mills, Ohio; the Skinner
Landfill, West Chester, Ohio; and the
Newport Dump in Wilder, Kentucky.
The 1937 flood, changing transportation
patterns along the Ohio River, and pollution
made Cincinnati’s image, at its front (Ohio
River) and west (Mill Creek) doors,
lackluster and uninviting. The 1943
Cincinnati Guide, in graphic terms typical of
the era, described how the riverfront had
eventually evolved into a collection of
“battered buildings along the Levee…taken
over by rousters, thieves, harlots, and lowclass
black and white people” (p. 151). As
for the West End, the Cincinnati Guide
described the 1920s and the 1930s as a
period of middle-class flight to the suburbs
during which “Negroes and also white hill
folk from Kentucky and West Virginia
moved into the rapidly declining and
emptying houses, and in two decades the
entire West End became homogeneous—
rough, tough, and squalid” (pp. 225-226).
Planners and politicians responded to the
population shift by declaring the area a
slum eligible for clearance (razing) and
rebuilding. In 1938 federal, state, and city
governments cooperated to build the West
End’s first federal public housing project for
low-income families, a 15-block, 1,303-
apartment development called Laurel
Homes. Four years later, just after the onset
of World War II, Cincinnati’s housing
authority opened a second project, Lincoln
Court, which contained 1,015 apartments.
The end of World War II opened a period
of ambitious planning for Cincinnati’s slum
clearance and urban renewal programs. The
completion in 1948 of the Mill Creek Barrier
Dam, with its capacity to pump one billion
gallons of water per day from the floodprone
valley, enabled the adoption of plans
for reconstructing much of the city’s West
End. These schemes appeared in the
Cincinnati City Planning Commission’s
Metropolitan Master Plan, a massive, multivolume
study adopted in 1948. The plan’s
basic tenets laid the framework for the city’s
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Aerial view of the construction of I-75, which displaced thousands of residents in Cincinnati’s West End (c. 1961). The Laurel Homes and Lincoln Court public housing projects can be
seen at the top left. At the top right is the spire of old St. Henry (Heinrich) Catholic Church, demolished in 1980. At center right is Crosley Field, demolished in 1972. Photograph.
PRIVATE COLLECTION OF PAUL A. TENKOTTE.
metamorphosis from a streetcar city to an
automobile metropolis. It included plans for
a “Millcreek Expressway” (I-75), a
“Northeast Expressway” (I-71), and a “Third
Street Distributor” (Fort Washington Way)
connecting the two expressways. Other city
plans dating from the 1940s through the
1990s brought about a complete
metamorphosis of the West End by
displacing thousands of West End residents
in one of the nation’s largest urban renewal
projects. Statistics from census tracts
comprising the historic West End
documented the demographic damage, a
population decline of 85.2 percent, from
52,194 in 1930 to 7,725 in 1990. Put
another and even more compelling way, 1 in
every 8.6 Cincinnati residents lived in the
West End in 1930, while only 1 in 50 did so
in 1990.
The city’s postwar plans for the
riverfront divided it—physically and
historically—from downtown and from the
rest of the basin. Fort Washington Way (the
“Third Street Distributor” of the city’s 1948
plan) cut the river off from Third Street and
downtown. Thousands of vehicles passed
each day, with little or no appreciation for
the richness of Cincinnati’s river heritage
and probably unaware that Fort
Washington Way itself functioned as a great
levee to protect the downtown district from
floods of the magnitude of 1937. In 1946
the Downtown Riverfront Development Plan
proposed a riverfront park, high-rise
apartments, a civic center, an auditorium,
and a sports stadium for the waterfront.
Thereafter, in conjunction with the plan,
some limited construction took place.
Meanwhile, in an era when historic
preservation was still in its infancy and
generally confined to landmarks of national
significance, the houses, factories and
warehouses of the riverfront were slowly
abandoned and demolished. In 1962 voters
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approved a $6.6 million bond issue for the
Central Riverfront area between the L&N
Bridge and the old C&O Bridge. Coupled
with a $14.5 million Federal Urban
Renewal Grant, long-languished plans for
the waterfront proceeded slowly. Riverfront
Stadium (later renamed Cinergy Field), a
combined home for both the Cincinnati
Reds and the Cincinnati Bengals, opened in
1970 amidst a great fanfare. In 1975,
Riverfront Coliseum (now US Bank Arena)
opened, followed by One Lytle Place, a 25-
story luxury apartment building, in 1980.
Then, the riverfront largely slept again,
standing moribund except on game days,
until 1988.
By 1988 the city’s neglect of the river
and of its historic fabric was beginning to
make a turnaround. That year, Cincinnati
celebrated its bicentennial by dedicating
the stunning Bicentennial Commons at
Sawyer Point, a brand new riverfront park
along the Ohio River, east of the Purple
People Bridge (formerly L&N Bridge). This
tree-lined esplanade soon became a favorite
gathering spot for all types of events,
including the annual Labor Day Riverfest
fireworks celebration, begun eleven years
earlier, in 1977. Also in 1988, the city
hosted its first Tall Stacks festival,
celebrating the golden age of steamboating.
More than 700,000 people crowded to
the riverfront for the October 1988
Tall Stacks, which featured the historic
Delta Queen, the Belle of Louisville, and 12
other boats. Subsequent Tall Stacks
celebrations were held in 1992, 1995,
1999, 2003, and 2006. Tall Stacks 2003
alone attracted 17 riverboats, 75 musical
acts, and 800,000 people.
As a city in love with festivals and
music, Cincinnati’s residents take every
opportunity to unite the two. In 1962
George Wein, a jazz pianist and founder of
the famed Newport Jazz Festival (Newport,
Rhode Island), teamed up with Dino
Santangelo to establish Cincinnati’s first
major jazz festival. Initially held at the
Carthage Fairgrounds, and later at Crosley
Field, Riverfront Stadium and Paul Brown
Stadium, the Ohio Valley Jazz Festival has
Cincinnati is home to the nation’s largest Oktoberfest. Pictured here at the September 1984 Oktoberfest is Kay Beiderbeck,
who won the “Sprint for the Stein” race.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
changed its name over the years and even
its emphasis, from jazz to R&B, but
continues to remain a popular venue. Now
called the Macy’s Music Festival, it has
featured internationally known artists,
including George Benson, James Brown,
Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie,
Kenny G, Patti LaBelle, The O’Jays, Luther
Vandross, and Grover Washington. And
since 1992 the Cincy Blues Fest (formerly
Queen City Blues Fest) has been
resounding the soulful music of the city’s
rich blues history, along the riverfront at
Sawyer Point/Yeatman’s Cove.
Cincinnati’s musical heritage came to
the international forefront in 2012, when
the city hosted the World Choir Games.
Featuring over 360 choirs and 15,000
singers from 64 nations, the two-week
event was an outstanding success. The
MidPoint Music Festival, begun in 2002 by
Bill Donabedian and Sean Rhiney,
highlights Alternative Rock and Indie
Rock. And in 2012 the Bunbury Music
Festival, a rock venue, debuted at Sawyer
Point/Yeatman’s Cove on the riverfront. The
Bunbury is an eco-friendly event, featuring
over 100 musical performances.
Plenty of gemütlichkeit (“warmth and
congeniality”) is available at the city’s
annual Oktoberfest Zinzinnati. Founded
in 1976, it is the second-largest
Oktoberfest in the world (after that of
Munich, Germany, Cincinnati’s “sister
city”) and the largest in the United States.
The downtown Oktoberfest annually
attracts a half-million people, and features
food, entertainment, and farcical events,
like the “World’s Largest Chicken Dance”
and the “World’s Largest Kazoo Band.” In
neighboring Covington, Kentucky, an
annual Oktoberfest (since 1979) and
Maifest (since 1980) occur in the historic
neighborhood and tourist district of Main
Strasse. The Kolping Society of Cincinnati
(1924-25) sponsors an annual
Schützenfest, and also a Sängerchor
(established in 1989), dedicated to the
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The Honorary Grand Marshall of the 2013 St. Patrick’s Day Parade was television host and journalist Nick Clooney,
father of actor George Clooney, and brother of entertainers Rosemary (1928-2002) and Betty (1931-1976) Clooney.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
preservation and live performance of
German music. Covington’s annual
Goettafest and Newport, Kentucky’s
yearly Glier’s Goettafest celebrate
Cincinnati’s love of goetta, a German
immigrant sausage made of pork, beef,
spices, and oats.
Other festivals and parades, both church
and civic, abound. Cincinnati’s Irish
Americans have been hosting an annual St.
Patrick’s Day Parade since the 19th century,
one of the largest in the nation. Italian
Americans have likewise been proud of
their heritage, sponsoring Sacred Heart
Catholic Church’s Spaghetti Dinner (Camp
Washington), an annual tradition since
1911 when the Italian parish was located
downtown. Each year, the volunteers of
Sacred Heart dish up over 350,000 raviolis,
24,000 meatballs, and 1,800 gallons of
spaghetti sauce. Newport, Kentucky’s
Italianfest (since 1991) recreates the food
and fun of that city’s Italian population, who
lived on the aptly-named “Spaghetti Knob.”
Holy Trinity-St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox
Church on Winton Road conducts an
annual Panegyri Greek Festival (since
1975), featuring Greek food, music, and
dance. Likewise, Greek immigrants to the
area invented Cincinnati’s most famous
culinary tradition, “Cincinnati Chili,” a
recipe featuring three-ways, four-ways, and
five-ways, and eaten in the region’s 250
chili parlors. Cincinnati has more chili
restaurants per capita and per square mile
than any other place in the world. Not
surprisingly, Cincinnati hosts an annual
Chilifest at Sawyer Point/Yeatman’s Cove.
Cincinnatians’ love of ethnic food certainly
dates back to its many church festivals of
the 19th and 20th centuries, and makes its
residents’ palates hungry for more,
including one of the nation’s oldest culinary
arts festivals, the “Taste of Cincinnati,”
begun in 1979.
In addition to its European ethnic
traditions, Cincinnati pays respect to the
entire diversity of its population. Many
Kwanzaa events are celebrated in the city
each year, and the Bi-Okoto Cultural
Institute on Montgomery Road,
established in 1994, offers one of the
nation’s most respected authentic African
dance companies. Since 1989 the Midwest
Regional Black Family Reunion
Celebration has been held at Sawyer
Point/Yeatman’s Cove, drawing thousands
of attendees annually. The Appalachian
Festival, launched in 1971, is held yearly
at Cincinnati’s Coney Island. Cincinnati’s
Latino population, while relatively small, is
well-represented by the Hispanic Chamber
Cincinnati USA.
The Queen City, so important to the
establishment of Reform Judaism, is home
to many Jewish cultural, educational and
social institutions, including Hebrew
Union College and the new 2008 campus
of the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson
Jewish Community Center (JCC) in
Amberley Village. In 1995 Plum Street
Temple in downtown completed a multimillion-dollar
restoration of its National
Historic Landmark building, one of the
first Reform synagogues in the nation.
More recent waves of immigrants have
built impressive facilities, including the
Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati in
West Chester (1995) and the Hindu
Temple of Greater Cincinnati on Klatte
Road in Clermont County, Ohio (1995-
97). The Cincinnati region also supports a
number of Buddhist temples, as well as a
Baha’i Center.
Cincinnati is the seat of the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
Numerous Catholic churches and schools
Plum Street Temple in downtown was designed by
architect James K. Wilson and dedicated in 1866. The
congregation completed a multi-million-dollar
restoration in 1995.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
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C I N C I N N A T I
E N T E R T A I N S
The O’Jays performed at the 2012 Macy’s Music Festival at Paul Brown Stadium.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
Bootsy Collins (left) and Mayor Mark Mallory
(right) at a 2009 screening of a documentary about
Collins. Collins is a noted musician who began his
career with James Brown at King Records in Cincinnati.
Mark Mallory (mayor, 2005-2013) was the first black
mayor of Cincinnati to be directly elected by the people
under the new “Strong Mayor” system.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
Musician Peter Frampton is featured here in his suburban Indian Hill home, 2006.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker attended the School
for the Creative and Performing Arts (Cincinnati Public
Schools). She is pictured here at the Obama for America
office in Over-the-Rhine, 2012.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
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Entertainer Drew Lachey, with the World Choir Games mascots, Whirl and Twirl,
2012. Lachey is a graduate of the School for the Creative and Performing Arts
(Cincinnati Public Schools).
The World Choir Games’ opening parade in 2012 featured visitors from around the
world, including this participant from Venezuela.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
Musician Nick Lachey graduated from the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (Cincinnati Public Schools).
He is pictured here singing the National Anthem at the opening of the 2009 Western & Southern Financial Group
Women’s Open at The Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
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St. Peter in Chains Catholic Cathedral downtown,
dedicated in 1845, was designed by architects Henry
and William Walter.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
dot the landscape, including outstanding
examples of historic architecture. From
the Greek Revival style of St. Peter in
Chains Cathedral (downtown) to the
Romanesque style of Old St. Mary’s (Overthe-Rhine),
to the Gothic Revival style of
St. Xavier (downtown), Holy Cross-
Immaculata (Mt. Adams), Sacred Heart
(Camp Washington), St. Francis de Sales
(Walnut Hills) and St. Lawrence (Price
Hill), area Catholic church interiors match
their impressive exteriors. St. Rose of Lima
Church in the East End, survivor of many
Ohio River floods, has been beautifully
restored. But sadly, Cincinnati has seen
many beautiful Catholic churches close in
the period since 1988: St. Andrew
(Avondale), St. George (Clifton Heights),
St. Mark (Evanston), St. Michael (Lower
Price Hill), St. Elizabeth (Norwood), St.
Matthew (Norwood), and Our Lady of
Perpetual Help (Sedamsville). The future
of some of these buildings is uncertain,
but in other cases, they have been given a
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Holy Cross-Immaculata Catholic Church in Mt.
Adams, completed in 1860, is attributed to the architect
Louis Piket.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
second life. The Society of St. Pius X
bought the closed St. Patrick Catholic
Church on Blue Rock Road in Northside,
and the Ark by the River Church
(nondenominational) operates in the
former Our Lady of Loretta Catholic
Church in Linwood. In South
Cumminsville, the former St. Pius Church
is now home to Working in
Neighborhoods (WIN), a communitybased
organization helping low- and
moderate-income residents in the city
become first-time homeowners. WIN also
has senior housing units and a community
computer lab on site, and operates an
after-school program and summer camp
for children. In Over-the-Rhine, the
Verdin Company, a manufacturer of bells
and clocks since 1842, purchased the
closed St. Paul Catholic Church at 12th
and Pendleton Sts. in 1981. St. Paul’s now
operates as the Bell Event Centre. And the
non-profit Lower Price Hill Community
School has plans to restore historic St.
Michael’s Catholic Church.
Historically, Cincinnati has been the
spiritual home to many Protestant
St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Price Hill is a
neighborhood landmark. Designed by architect
Adolphus Druiding, the upper church, above the socalled
basement “catacombs,” was dedicated in 1894.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
congregations. Philippus United Church
of Christ, with its distinctive spire topped
by a golden finger pointing to heaven, is
situated in Over-the-Rhine (OTR). First
Lutheran and Prince of Peace Lutheran
Churches also serve Over-the-Rhine.
Salem United Church of Christ in OTR
features a gilded angel Gabriel atop its
spire, giving rise to the name “Gabriel’s
Corner.” In downtown, Covenant-First
Presbyterian Church and Christ Church
Cathedral (Episcopal) maintain
impressive buildings. In the suburbs,
historic Protestant churches, designed by
some of the region’s premier architects,
grace their surrounding neighborhoods,
including Carmel Presbyterian
(Avondale), First Unitarian (Avondale),
Calvary Episcopal (Clifton), Immanuel
Presbyterian (Clifton), Fosdick Church of
God (Corryville), Hyde Park Baptist,

St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in the East End,
dedicated in 1869, has survived many Ohio River
Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Over-the-Rhine
floods. An 1894 fire necessitated its rebuilding, under
was dedicated in 1842. Parishioner Franz Ignatz Erd,
the supervision of architect Adolphus Druiding.
trained as a stone mason, designed the structure.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
The Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati, West Chester, Ohio, was completed in 1995.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
Hyde Park Community United Methodist,
Knox Presbyterian (Hyde Park), Mt.
Auburn Baptist, Mt. Auburn Presbyterian,
Price Hill Church of the Nazarene,
Church of the Advent Episcopal (Walnut
Hills), Westwood First Presbyterian, and
Westwood United Methodist.
In other instances, long-standing
Protestant congregations have closed
since 1988: Concordia Lutheran
(Clifton), Seventh Presbyterian (East
Walnut Hills), Calvary United Methodist
(Evanston), St. Michael & All Angels
Episcopal (North Avondale), and Walnut
Hills-Avondale United Methodist. Some
closed congregations have sold their
historic structures to new churches,
ensuring their preservation. Such was the
case with Uptown Church, which
purchased the former Trinity Methodist
Church at 118 W. Ninth Street in
downtown. In 2011 business partners
purchased the old First German Reformed
Church on Freeman Avenue in the city’s
West End, with plans to rehab the
structure. In 2010 new owners rehabbed
the old Walnut Hills Evangelical Lutheran
Church (later, Stanton Ave. Church of the
Nazarene, and, then, the New Sardis
Primitive Baptist Church) into the
Monastery, a recording studio. And in
Avondale, the former St. Michael & All
Saints Episcopal Church became
Gabriel’s Place (2011), a ministry to
supply fresh fruits and vegetables to
a neighborhood lacking a large
grocery store.
Despite the number of historic
Catholic and Protestant churches
remaining in the city, the region has seen
many religious buildings demolished
since the early 1980s, including St.
Bonaventure Catholic Church (South
Fairmount) and First United Church of
Christ (Northside). In the case of Walnut
Hills Presbyterian Church, while the
church itself was demolished, Cincinnati
Preservation Association succeeded in
saving its massive bell tower, which now
serves as a gateway to the Harriet Beecher
Stowe Cultural Heritage District.
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Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth (1922-2011) was
a noted American civil rights leader, who worked with
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was one of the founding
ministers of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. Shuttlesworth moved to Cincinnati in 1961,
where he served as pastor of Revelation Baptist Church,
and, later, of Greater New Light Baptist Church. He is
pictured here at the National Underground Railroad
Freedom Center in 2006, recounting his memories at a
memorial for Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
During the past few decades, as weekly
attendance at mainline Protestant and
Catholic churches has fallen,
nondenominational and megachurches
have sprouted nationwide. Cincinnatians
have followed this trend. In 1996 Brian
Tome and others opened Crossroads
Community Church to the public. By 2005
its Oakley location at 3500 Madison Road
was the largest Protestant church in Ohio
and the 96th largest in the United States.
With locations in Oakley, Mason (Ohio),
and Florence (Kentucky), Crossroads
serves thousands of members, and
operates social service programs to help
the needy, both regionally and worldwide.
Likewise, the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) have
experienced phenomenal growth in the
Reverend Damon Lynch, Jr. is a longtime civil rights leader and pastor of New Jerusalem Baptist Church. Pictured
here at right, he presented His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama (left) with the National Underground Railroad Freedom
Center’s International Freedom Conductor Award in 2010.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
metropolitan Cincinnati region, witnessing
a 61 percent increase in their membership
between 2000 and 2010.
The work of churches and synagogues in
helping the poor of Cincinnati goes back a
long way. Ranging from schools,
orphanages, soup kitchens, and secondhand
stores, to homeless shelters and
hospitals, non-profit religious and civic
institutions have attempted to solve a
growing problem of poverty. The national
recession of the early 1980s brought hard
times to the city’s working poor, and the late
20th century outsourcing of manufacturing
jobs overseas reduced economic
opportunities for the marginally educated.
While the decade of the 1980s ultimately
saw the creation of 120,000 new jobs
in the Cincinnati metropolitan area,
manufacturing jobs slipped by about
13,000, following a nationwide trend. In
1987, General Motors closed its Norwood,
Ohio, plant that had employed 4,300
workers, and in the following year, its
Fairfield plant, with a workforce of 2,500.
In 2008, Ford closed its transmission
assembly plant in Clermont County, Ohio,
that once employed 2,600 people.
Residents also witnessed the vagaries of the
financial system which, with the failure of
Home State Savings Bank in 1985, garnered
national attention as Gov. Richard Celeste
called a three-day savings and loan
association holiday. By 2010 the U.S.
Census ranked the City of Cincinnati as the
7th-poorest major city in the United States,
with 30.6 percent of its residents living in
poverty. Even more disturbing was the rate
of childhood poverty in Cincinnati, which
ballooned from 35.4 percent in 2005 to 48
percent in 2011. The city’s Health
Department, partnering with organizations
like the non-profit Freestore Foodbank and
the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, seeks to
provide basic nutritional and medical needs
for thousands of Cincinnati children daily.
Indeed, Cincinnatians are very generous
people. In both 2012 and 2013 the
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Civil rights leaders Donald (1915-2010) and Marian
Spencer dedicated their lives to ending racism. Donald
served as a teacher in Cincinnati Public Schools and
was one of the area’s first black realtors. Marian successfully
crusaded to end segregation at Cincinnati’s Coney
Island Amusement Park. In 1983, she became the first
black woman elected to Cincinnati City Council.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
non-profit Charity Navigator ranked
Cincinnati fourth in philanthropy among
30 metropolitan areas nationwide. The
ranking was not a surprise to the Freestore
Foodbank. In 2012 thanks to the generosity
of many, the Freestore Foodbank
distributed nearly 2.4 million meals at its
Customer Connection Center in Over-the-
Rhine, and 16.2 million meals through
“food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters,
community centers, childcare/senior
centers and residential food assistance
programs.” The Freestore also provides rent
and utilities assistance, a protective payee
program, emergency clothing, and
homeless outreach services. (2012 Annual
Report). The local chapter of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul provides similar
services, plus second-hand stores and a
low-income pharmacy program.
The massive national recession of 2008,
followed by high unemployment and home
foreclosures, was especially difficult for
Cincinnati’s working poor. In response,
Carl H. Lindner, Jr. (1919-2011), pictured here in
1974, was a self-made billionaire and one of the area’s
largest philanthropists. In addition to other companies,
he founded the American Financial Group Inc., of which
Great American Insurance is a subsidiary. Lindner lived
to see the completion of the Great American Tower,
Cincinnati’s tallest building.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
Crossroads Community Church raised
$10 million to jumpstart the CityLink
Center project. Joined by a host of other
churches and non-profit organizations,
CityLink renovated an old slaughterhouse
at 800 Bank Street in the West End. It
provides a streamlined, one-stop center to
help the working poor move to greater
economic stability. Partners include 21
churches, Cincinnati State Technical and
Community College, Cincinnati Public
Schools, Cincinnati Works (job services),
SmartMoney Community Services
(financial services), Changing Gears
(transportation services), Beech Acres
Parenting Center, Catholic Charities
Southwestern Ohio, Luxottica’s OneSight
Vision Center, Freestore Foodbank, and the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Like other cities nationwide, Cincinnati
is attempting to address the problem of
homelessness. Here as elsewhere, the
homeless include a wide variety of people,
ranging from adults to children to veterans
Louis (1903-1992) and Louise Dieterle (1911-
2012) Nippert, pictured here in a 1982 photograph,
were longtime philanthropists. In 2009, Louise established
an $85 million fund to support the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra, as well as the May Festival,
Cincinnati Ballet, and Cincinnati Opera. It was the
largest single gift, made by an individual, in support of
Cincinnati’s arts.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
J. Ralph (1896-1988) and Patricia (1908-2008)
Corbett established the Corbett Foundation in 1955,
which gave more than $65 million to area cultural and
educational institutions.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
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and to those with disabling conditions. In
conjunction with the City of Cincinnati,
Hamilton County and 30 non-profit
organizations, the organization Strategies to
End Homelessness works to move the
homeless to permanent housing options.
They utilize the Continuum of Care model,
coordinating all functions of care for the
homeless into a comprehensive plan and
network. According to the 2012 report
entitled Homeless in Cincinnati,
organizations working in Hamilton County
served nearly 8,000 (unduplicated) clients
in programs ranging from street outreach to
emergency shelter to transitional/
permanent housing solutions.
Despite its diversity, Cincinnati, like
many cities nationwide, has struggled with
tolerance. In April 2001, Cincinnati erupted
in a race riot after a policeman shot and
killed Timothy Thomas in Over-the-Rhine
in the early morning hours of Saturday, April
7. Thomas, a 19-year-old unarmed black
man wanted for 14 outstanding misdemeanor
warrants, resisted arrest and ran
from police. On Monday April 9, hundreds
of protestors showed up at Cincinnati City
Hall, where they commandeered a meeting
of the Law and Public Safety Committee.
Leaving City Hall for police headquarters,
the protestors gained in numbers and began
hurling projectiles at police. The resultant
arson, looting, and violence spread from
Over-the-Rhine to downtown and other
parts of the city. On Thursday April 12,
Cincinnati mayor, Charlie Luken, declared a
state of emergency, as well as an 8 pm-6 am
curfew. Ohio State Highway Patrol officers
joined in the efforts to quell the rioting.
By the time of the Christian holiday of
Good Friday, April 13, peace had returned
to the city. On Easter Sunday, April 15,
the curfew was lifted. As the worst race
riot in the United States since that of Los
Angeles in 1992, the Cincinnati riots
garnered national attention. The Black
United Front declared an economic boycott
of the city, and noted black entertainers
cancelled Cincinnati appearances. In
addition, the city lost millions of dollars in
convention business.
A month before the 2001 riots, the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
filed a class-action suit against the
Cincinnati Police Department, accusing it
of racial profiling in the deaths of 14
black men from 1995 until 2001. City
officials, working with the U.S.
Department of Justice and thousands of
citizens in a 10-month process, arrived at
a settlement, under which the ACLU
dropped the lawsuit and the city agreed to
stop racial profiling and to implement
reforms in the police department,
including new programs aimed at
improving crime prevention and
community-police relations. The
Collaborative Agreement, signed in April
2002 brought together the U.S.
Department of Justice, the ACLU, the City
of Cincinnati, the Fraternal Order of
Police, and the Black United Front. The
compromise denied any police
department wrongdoing, but placed it
under U.S. District Court oversight for 5
years, ending in 2007.
The Cincinnati area has also chalked up a
checkered record in terms of the rights of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
(LGBT) citizens. The gay rights’ movement
itself advanced relatively slowly in the region
in the latter half of the 20th century. In
1973 the Cincinnati gay community held
the area’s first Pride Parade, on Fountain
Square in downtown. In 1978 the Greater
Cincinnati Gay and Lesbian Coalition was
founded, and in the following year,
sponsored a second Pride Rally at Fountain
Square, celebrating the 10th anniversary of
the Stonewall riots in New York City. From
these early beginnings, the strengthening
movement established, in 1993, the Gay and
Lesbian Community Center of Greater
Cincinnati, with headquarters in Longworth
Hall in the West End. The Center soon
moved to a downtown location, and, in
1998, to Hamilton Avenue in the city’s
Northside neighborhood.
Just eight years earlier, the city had
attracted national publicity—both
favorable and unfavorable, depending on
whom you asked. In 1990 the
Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in
downtown sponsored an exhibition of the
photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, a
gay photographer who had died of
AIDS the year prior. The exhibition,
entitled Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect
Moment, featured some homoerotic and
These 2013 rainbow banners downtown announced the 40th anniversary of Cincinnati’s first Gay Pride festival.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
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Jim Borgman, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Cincinnati Enquirer, drew this classic work that
appeared in the Enquirer on April 12, 1990, and was reprinted in Newsweek on April 23. The cartoon satirizes the
prosecution of the Contemporary Arts Center for its Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit. Depicted is Simon L. Leis, Jr. (Hamilton
County sheriff), Arthur M. Ney, Jr. (Hamilton County prosecutor), and Lawrence E. Whalen (Cincinnati police chief).
POLITICAL CARTOON © 1990 JIM BORGMAN FOR THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
sadomasochistic photographs. Of the 175
photos in the exhibit, the Hamilton
County Prosecutor found only a handful
objectionable, but charged the CAC and
its director, Dennis Barrie, with obscenity.
The resulting trial acquitted the CAC and
Barrie, but cast, in civil rights terms, a
negative light on Cincinnati nationwide
as a place of censorship and intolerance.
But in the year following the
Mapplethorpe episode, in March 1991,
Cincinnati City Council enacted an
ordinance (No. 79-1991), preventing
discrimination in the hiring of city
employees, based upon “race, color, sex,
handicap, religion, national or ethnic
origin, age, sexual orientation, HIV status,
Appalachian regional ancestry, and
marital status.” In November 1992
Cincinnati City Council also adopted a
Human Rights Ordinance (No. 490-
1992), prohibiting discrimination in
housing, employment and public
accommodation citywide, on the basis of
“race, gender, age, color, religion,
disability status, sexual orientation,
marital status, or ethnic, national or
Appalachian regional origin.” Opponents
of these measures, specifically disagreeing
with the extension of protection to the
category of sexual orientation, mounted a
city charter amendment (Article XII)
campaign against the sexual orientation
clauses of the ordinances.
The issue went to the electorate in
November 1993, and 62 percent of
Cincinnati voters approved the adoption of
Article XII (12). It stated that city council
could “not enact, adopt, enforce or
administer any ordinance, regulation, rule
or policy which provides that homosexual,
lesbian, or bisexual orientation, status,
conduct, or relationship constitutes,
entitles, or otherwise provides a person
with the basis to have any claim of
minority or protected status.” It also
provided that any laws enacted before the
passage of Article XII were “null and void
and of no force or effect.” Subsequently,
the Equality Foundation of Greater
Cincinnati, Housing Opportunities Made
Equal (HOME), and others filed suit
against the City of Cincinnati, the group
Equal Rights, Not Special Rights, and
other parties.
The Article XII legal case worked its
way gradually through the federal court
system. A U.S. District Court ruled in
favor of the plaintiffs, arguing that Article
XII was unconstitutional. The district
court issued an injunction, preventing the
article’s enactment. In 1995 the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
overturned the district court’s decision,
resulting in City Council’s repeal of the
specific language, “sexual orientation,”
from the Human Rights Ordinance. In
1996 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
Colorado’s Amendment 2 (similar to
Cincinnati’s Article XII) was
unconstitutional. Subsequently, the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals reheard the
initial Cincinnati case, but seeing
distinctions between Cincinnati’s and
Colorado’s amendments, upheld its
earlier decision. The legal battle ended
when, in 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear the case. Article XII
became law.
But gay rights’ activists renewed their
fight. A group led by Gary Wright,
President of Equality Cincinnati, and
others once more placed the issue on the
ballot in November 2004. This time the
voters repealed the objectionable article
with a 54 percent majority. Meanwhile, in
April 2003 the city commissioners of
Covington, Kentucky, unanimously passed
an expanded human rights ordinance to
include sexual orientation. In this new
context, Cincinnati City Council passed, in
March 2006, a new ordinance (No. 65-
2006), amending the city’s Municipal
Code, Chapter 914, affording protection
against discrimination in housing and
employment based upon “sexual
orientation or transgendered status.”
This gay rights’ victory coincided with
the efforts of many of the city’s largest
corporations to embrace the LGBT
community in order to retain regional and
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national competitiveness. And many of
those companies, including Procter &
Gamble, Kroger, and Fifth Third Bank
demonstrated their commitment to an
important element of what some urban
experts called “the creative class.” In 2013
those corporations joined others in
sponsoring the 40th anniversary of
Cincinnati’s first Gay Pride parade, which
took place among rainbow-colored
banners draping many of the city’s most
respectable downtown addresses.
Ironically, the passage of Article XII in
1993 and the riots of 2001 seemed the
antithesis to a series of prestigious titles
that Cincinnati earned in the 1980s and
the 1990s. In 1980-81, the National Civic
League named Cincinnati an “All-America
City,” one of ten cities recognized that
year for their ability to solve problems
through civic engagement (the city had
last won the “All-America City Award”
during the two consecutive years of 1949
and 1950). In 1982 the Greater
Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce
proudly launched its new “Blue Chip
City” campaign, highlighting the city’s
prosperity and its prestige as the home
base for major corporations. Corporate
titans, like Procter & Gamble, built new
headquarters downtown (1985), while
across the river in Covington a new
business-financed skyline arose. In 1993
Places Rated Almanac named Cincinnati as
the nation’s “Most Livable City.”
Nonetheless, the 1980s and the 1990s
proved difficult decades in many ways for
Cincinnati, as it faced increasing
competition from its own suburbs, as well
as from other cities nationally and
globally. Within its city limits, Cincinnati
lost population in every decennial census
from 1950 to 2010. In 1950 Cincinnati’s
population reached its peak, with nearly
504,000 residents. By 2010 it had
plummeted to 297,000, a 41 percent
decrease in 60 years. Some thought that
municipal government reform might
staunch the bleeding. By the 1990s city
council bickered on many issues, ranging
from stalled development projects to the
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hiring and firing of city managers. In fact,
the September 1997 issue of the national
magazine Governing asserted that
Cincinnati and three other cities in the
nation were “mired in bickering, divided
responsibility and political confusion.”
Some residents viewed part of
Cincinnati’s problems as stemming from a
weak mayor. In response, voters endorsed
new articles to the city charter, drastically
changing the governance structure. The
most important changes involved
strengthening the mayor’s office by
removing appointment of the mayor from
the hands of city council members. In
1987 voters approved changing the
system to one whereby the city council
candidate receiving the most votes from
the electorate became mayor. Twelve years
later, in May 1999, voters ratified Issue 4,
creating a “Strong Mayor” system. Under
“Strong Mayor” governance, the voters
elected the mayor directly. Further, the
mayor could appoint and dismiss the city
manager, appoint city council committee
chairs, and veto legislation. A vote of six
city council members was required to
override a veto. In 2001 Charlie Luken
became the first mayor elected under the
new “Strong Mayor” system.
In 1997 black leaders in Cincinnati,
led by the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and the Baptist Ministers
Conference, championed a new article to
the city charter. No African Americans
had ever served as either police or fire
chief of the city, and black leaders viewed
the city’s “rule of three” as an impediment
to seeking resolution of this issue.
According to the “rule of three,” only
assistant chiefs in the classified civil
service police and fire departments were
allowed to take an exam for the position
of chief. From the three highest-scoring
candidates, the city manager chose the
next police or fire chief. The system did
not allow for external searches for
qualified candidates from throughout the
region or nation. In November 1997
voters defeated the proposed measure.
Following the 2001 race riots, however,
the measure (known as Issue 5) finally
passed in November. The city manager
gained the power to perform external
searches, outside of the city’s classified
civil service employees, for police chief,
fire chief, and dozens of other municipal
positions. With the retirement of police
chief Tom Streicher in 2010, the city
manager chose the city’s first black police
chief, James Craig. Craig served from
2011 until 2013, when he became police
chief of Detroit.
Public school reform also figured in
the efforts to bolster municipal fortunes,
especially as Cincinnati Public Schools
(CPS) neared bankruptcy in the late
1980s. Cincinnati voters defeated a
school tax levy in 1990, forcing the
system to cut its budget by $30 million.
Superintendent Lee Etta Powell asked
community and business leaders to
conduct a study of the school system and
to recommend reforms. A task force
headed by Clement L. Buenger, chairman
of Fifth Third Bank, conducted an 18-
month study that involved over 200
volunteers and recommended a complete
makeover of the system. The plan called
for a massive decentralization, halving the
number of employees in the central
administrative office and moving
decision-making to a site-based plan at
the school/community level. In 1991 J.
Michael Brandt assumed the leadership of
Cincinnati Public Schools. Until his
retirement in July 1998, Brandt led the
school system in a colossal overhaul,
cutting the bureaucracy in half,
overseeing the passage of three successful
tax levies in the mid-1990s, and
implementing other recommendations of
the civic-led Buenger Commission.
Additional changes on another front
emerged from the public schools’ status as
a subject of federal oversight for the
system’s failure to implement sufficient
progress in the matter of racial integration.
In the wake of the milestone U.S. Supreme
Court case, Brown v. the Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas (1954), Cincinnati

Public Schools struggled time and again
with the problem of implementing
desegregation. At the same time, schools
nationwide literally burst at the seams, as
the pressure of the Baby Boom (1946-
1964) stretched available classroom space.
In Cincinnati, total public school
enrollment burgeoned from 77,383 in
1959 to 83,762 in 1963. The NAACP
objected to CPS’s inadequate attempts to
seek a resolution to classroom
overcrowding consonant with the goals of
integration. To seek relief, the NAACP
filed suit against the Cincinnati Board of
Education (CBOE) on behalf of Tina Deal
and other minority students in 1963. Tina
Deal v. Cincinnati Board of Education
resulted in victories for CBOE, at both the
federal district and appeals courts levels.
But the decision did not, as some
preferred, require the Cincinnati Public
Schools to bus students from one
neighborhood district to another to
achieve desegregation, and the U.S.
Supreme Court refused to hear the case on
appeal. The NAACP filed a second
important suit against the CBOE in 1974.
Mona Bronson et al. v. Board of Education of
the City School District of the City of
Cincinnati, et al. took ten years to work its
way through the federal district and
circuit courts. The result was a 1984
voluntary consent decree between the
NAACP and the CBOE, placing Cincinnati
Public Schools under federal oversight.
By 1996, however, three consecutive
years of statistics demonstrated that
segregation was actually increasing in
Cincinnati Public Schools. Two years later,
in 1998, the NAACP filed a motion in U.S.
District Court to reopen the Bronson case,
based upon poor academic performance
levels of students in low-income
neighborhood schools. The district court
judge initially referred the case back to the
State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, whose office found Cincinnati
Public Schools within compliance. The
NAACP contested the state report, and the
district court judge reopened the case in
1999. The tenacity of low-achieving
schools in low-income areas remained
vexing. As Marian Spencer, a longtime
civil rights leader put it, “Children should
be able to learn in an environment that is
positive for all children. Being poor
should not mean being uneducated.”
(Cincinnati Enquirer, June 8, 1999) The
case, however, was not pursued in court,
and was finally closed in May 2008. In the
interim, by 2004, with many whites
having moved to the suburbs outside the
city limits, the enrollment of Cincinnati
Public Schools had become 70 percent
black. Nationwide, commentators noted
that segregation had reappeared in
America’s schools, albeit this time by
suburban flight.
As the tumultuous years of the late
20th century drew to a close,
Cincinnatians began to pursue healing and
rebuilding. Along Cincinnati’s historic
riverfront, slum clearance programs had
erased the city’s historic links to its past
and to the Ohio River, but subsequent
redevelopment proposals stalled. For
years, the concrete behemoth of
Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium stood
virtually alone on the riverbank,
surrounded by massive parking lots and a
Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) was imploded in 2002.
PHOTOGRAPH © THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER.
much-diminished warehouse district. By
the 1990s the city concentrated on
reconnecting its future to its past (the Ohio
River), and of the riverfront to downtown.
In March 1996, Hamilton County voters
approved a controversial half-cent sales tax
increase to fund two new stadiums, one for
the Cincinnati Reds and the other for the
Cincinnati Bengals. The Reds’ management
preferred a riverfront location for the new
ballpark, while others in the city proposed
a site at Broadway and Reading Road, that
became known as “Broadway Commons.”
In November 1998 Hamilton County
voters approved locating the baseball
stadium on the riverfront, rather than at
Broadway Commons, a decision that
cleared the way for the demolition of
Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront
Stadium). The implosion of the ballpark in
2002 was a bittersweet event for fans, who
remembered the field as the home of the
Cincinnati Reds’ World Series Champion
teams of 1975, 1976, and 1990. However,
as the Cincinnati Post proclaimed in a
December 31 headline, the implosion of
the old baseball stadium opened the
“future for [the] city’s ‘front door.’” The
new Great American Ball Park, reminiscent
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Aerial view of Paul Brown Stadium.
VINCE RE COLLECTION.
From left to right: Great American Tower, Great American Ball Park, US Bank Arena, and One Lytle Place (2013).
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
of the baseball stadiums of bygone eras,
debuted on Opening Day of the 2003
season. The following year, the ball park
opened the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame
and Museum, celebrating Cincinnati’s
importance to the development of
professional baseball. Anchoring the west
side of the riverfront was the new home of
the Cincinnati Bengals, Paul Brown
Stadium. With a seating capacity of
65,535, it opened in 2000. In 2012 the
Bengals moved their training camp to the
stadium and to its adjacent practice fields
across Central Avenue.
The demolition of Cinergy Field
(Riverfront Stadium) opened up prime real
estate for redevelopment. The $110
million National Underground Railroad
Freedom Center, containing 158,000
square feet of space, opened in 2004. A
fitting tribute to Cincinnati’s prominent
role in the history of the Underground
Railroad, the facility’s undulating walls
express the fields and waters that slaves
used in seeking their freedom. Next door,
the first phase of The Banks project, an
$80 million mixed-use collage of
residences, shops, restaurants, and
entertainment, opened in 2011. The Banks
development includes a microbrewery,
Moerlein Lager House, that served
800,000 customers in its first year.
Adjacent to The Banks is the 45-acre
John G. and Phyllis W. Smale Riverfront
Park. The park will eventually stretch from
Great American Ball Park to Paul Brown
Stadium. It opened in 2012, with an
unveiling of its Bike and Visitors Center,
one of the first in the nation to serve bicycle
commuters with showers, lockers and
bicycle storage. As of 2013, proposals for an
11-plus-mile-long hike-bike trail, the
“Western Riverwalk,” were being pursued
to connect Cincinnati’s riverside community
of Sayler Park with the riverfront.
Meanwhile, Smale Riverfront Park received
the prestigious “National Facility/Park
Design Award” from the National
Recreation and Park Association in 2013.
Equally impressive and also in 2013,
the American Planning Association
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
148

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in 2004.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
awarded their “National Planning
Excellence Award for Implementation” for
the city’s Central Riverfront Plan of 2000.
John Deatrick, project executive of The
Banks and a University of Cincinnati
graduate, explained the significance of the
award best. “My design teacher,” Deatrick
recalled, “used to say something that’s still
true today: ‘Ideas are a dime a dozen; it’s
the implementation that counts.’”
(Cincinnati Enquirer, January 10, 2013)
In the 1990s ideas and implementers
also rebuilt Fort Washington Way and the
overpasses above it. The rebuilding was a
measure that reconnected the riverfront to
downtown, and that helped Cincinnati,
unlike the urban cores of many other major
cities in the United States, to weather the
storm of commercial and residential flight
to suburbia better than most. Although
several department stores closed their
downtown flagship stores in the 1980s and
the 1990s (Elder-Beerman, 1985; L.S.
Ayres, 1988; McAlpin’s, 1996), downtown
Cincinnati remains home to two major
department stores (Macy’s and Saks Fifth
Avenue), a junior department store (TJ
Maxx), and a strong mix of restaurants, and
clothing/specialty stores, stretching well
beyond the historic boundaries of
downtown, south into The Banks and
north into Over-the-Rhine. Macy’s new
downtown store (called Lazarus at the
time) opened at Fountain Place in
November 1997. Occupying 183,000
square feet, Macy’s is just blocks away from
its national headquarters, which moved
from New York City to Cincinnati after
Cincinnati-based Federated Department
Stores purchased the Macy’s chain.
The closing of L.S. Ayres (formerly
Pogue’s Department Store) and its
subsequent demolition on Fourth Street
paved the way for the construction of
Tower Place Mall, opened in 1991. The
Tower Place project proved to be ill-fated,
as the indoor three-story mall declared
bankruptcy and was placed under
receivership by 2010. In 2012 the City of
Cincinnati purchased the building, as
well as two parking garages, for $8.5
million. Tower Place will be redeveloped,
with plans calling for the demolition of
the old Pogue’s parking garage and the
construction of a high-rise apartment
tower and grocery store.
While the number of those working
downtown decreased from 84,000 in
2000 to 64,000 in 2010, partly due to the
2008 recession and the development of
suburban office parks, total payroll
downtown increased. Further, the number
of people living in downtown and Overthe-Rhine
has steadily increased, 62
percent in the four years alone from 2007
to 2011. Developers have restored historic
skyscrapers and commercial structures
into condominiums and apartments,
including the Lofts at Shillito Place
(2001; the old Shillito’s Department
Store), and the Groton Lofts (1996; the
The old Shillito’s Department Store at 7th and Race Streets was rehabbed into the Lofts at Shillito Place.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
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old Commercial Arts Building). New
housing in the central city included the
high-rise Adams Place (1993) and the
low-rise Garfield Place (comprised of
Gramercy on Garfield, and Greenwich on
the Park, 1991-1995). With a growing
residential base, the downtown area is
reconnecting itself to a historic past of
mixed uses.
Part of downtown’s renaissance
involves cultural and entertainment
venues. In October 1995, the Aronoff
Center for the Arts held the grand opening
of its stunning new facility on Walnut
Street. Designed by the internationally
renowned firm of Cesar Pelli Associates,
the building features three theaters
(Procter & Gamble Hall, seating 2,719;
Jarson-Kaplan Theater, with 437 seats;
and Fifth Third Bank Theater, 150 seats),
as well as the Weston Art Gallery. In 2003
the Contemporary Arts Center moved to a
new home on the corner of Sixth and
Walnut Streets, the Lois and Richard
Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art.
Designed by the internationally known
architect, Zaha Hadid, the 7-story center
cost $34 million. The following year, the
Taft Museum of Art reopened to the
The 21c Museum Hotel downtown. To the left is the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art,
designed by the internationally acclaimed architect, Zaha Hadid.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
public, following a two-and-a-half-year,
$22.8 million renovation and the addition
of a 3-story wing. The historic Taft Theatre
on East Fifth Street completed a $3
million renovation in 2011. The main
location of the Public Library of
The Aronoff Center for the Arts downtown was designed by the internationally renowned firm of Cesar Pelli Associates.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
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150
Cincinnati and Hamilton County, one of
the largest in the nation, opened the North
Building in 1997, designed by the
architectural firm of GBBN.
Cincinnatians have long enjoyed a
skyline that includes skyscrapers designed
by some of America’s leading architects.
Since 1988 developers have added splendid
additions to this skyline, including the 468-
foot Scripps Center (1989-90), the 410-foot
First Financial Center (1991, formerly
Chemed Center, designed by Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill), and the 312-foot
Enquirer Building (aptly located at 312 Elm
Street, 1992). Cincinnati’s tallest building,
the 665-foot Great American Tower,
designed by Hellmuth, Obata &
Kassabaum, held its grand opening on
January 11, 2011, at 1:11 p.m.
Much of the redevelopment of the
riverfront, downtown, and Over-the-Rhine
has been accomplished through privatepublic
partnerships. As federal, state and
municipal governments slashed budgets in
the late 20th and early 21st centuries,
Cincinnatians turned to new non-profit
organizations to jumpstart a vast array of
projects. In 1994 the non-profit

Duke Energy Convention Center downtown.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
Great American Tower downtown is the city’s
tallest building.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI) debuted,
dedicated to making downtown a safer and
more prosperous destination. Nine years
later, in July 2003, the city’s business
leaders established the Cincinnati Center
City Development Corporation (3CDC) to
“help develop Cincinnati’s Center City—
from the riverfront to Uptown—as a
regional center of high value employment
and real estate, sustained by a diverse mix
of housing, culture, and entertainment”
(3CDC, 2003-2004 Annual Report). With
development projects stalling on the
riverfront (The Banks), Fountain Square,
and in Over-the-Rhine, 3CDC chose to
concentrate on these three areas first.
Utilizing incentives available through the
federal New Markets Tax Credit Program,
and working with the city, stakeholders
and development partners, 3CDC raised
equity to fund a large number of projects.
On Fourth Street downtown, the former
McAlpin’s Department Store was renovated
into condominiums, as well as the old
Fourth National Bank Building (designed
by the famous American architect, Daniel
Burnham). Funds were also committed to
the renovation and enlargement of Duke
Energy Convention Center, a $49 million
revitalization of Fountain Square, and the
purchase of the old Metropole Hotel on
Walnut Street (subsequently renovated
into the “21c Museum Hotel”). 3CDC is
also involved in the redevelopment of the
city’s long-vacant northwest corner of Fifth
and Race Streets, which will open as
“dunnhumby Centre” in 2015.
Cincinnati has also become a major
entertainment destination. In 2009 Ohio
voters approved a constitutional amendment
allowing casinos. In March 2013
Horseshoe Casino opened at Broadway
Commons. The $450 million, 450,000
square-foot complex is owned by Rock
Ohio Caesars, and employs 1,700 people.
Three months after its grand opening, the
casino counted 430,000 visitors and $17.6
million in revenue for a single month.
To the north of Central Parkway, where
the old Miami and Erie Canal once
connected Cincinnati by water to Toledo
on Lake Erie (and then Lake Erie to the
Erie Canal, to the Hudson River, and to
New York City), lies Over-the-Rhine
(OTR). Long the entry point for many of
Cincinnati’s immigrants and internal
migrants, Over-the-Rhine features one of
the nation’s largest concentrations of
Italianate-style buildings. Rich in history,
and within walking distance of the hub of
downtown, Over-the-Rhine continues to
attract large-scale investments in its real
estate. Main and Vine Streets have become
the home of pubs, restaurants, and owneroperated
small businesses. Once the center
of German breweries, OTR has seen the
renaissance of a new “Brewery District,”
including a 21st century Christian
Moerlein Brewing Company, named after
the historic brewery of the same name and
housed in the old Kauffman Brewery on
Moore Street.
3CDC has undertaken numerous
renovation and construction projects in
Over-the-Rhine, including Mercer
Commons, and the multi-phase Gateway
Quarter, both mixed-use residential and
commercial projects. Likewise, 3CDC
oversaw a $48 million facelift of
Washington Park, opposite Music Hall. The
park reopened in July 2012. Dedicated to
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maintaining the historic integrity of OTR,
3CDC undertook emergency stabilization
of the historic but long-vacant St. Paul’s
German Evangelical Protestant Church at
15th and Race Streets (2011).
Over-the-Rhine has long been a cultural
center, home to Cincinnati’s historic Music
Hall (1878), where the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra (CSO), the
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the Cincinnati
May Festival, and the Cincinnati Opera
perform. A new parking garage, built
underneath Washington Park, debuted in
2012, serving the patrons of Music Hall. In
2013 the City of Cincinnati, owner of
Music Hall, agreed to lease the building to
the non-profit Music Hall Revitalization
Corporation (MHRC) for $1 per year for
75 years, paving the way for fundraising to
begin to restore this magnificent building.
MHRC has entered into a partnership with
3CDC to oversee the proposed $95
million rehabilitation of the building. The
revitalization of Music Hall is important to
the performing arts organizations based
there. Established in 1895, CSO is the
nation’s 5th-oldest orchestra and one of
only 15 orchestras performing year-round
in North America. In 1977 it founded the
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, with Erich
Kunzel as the founding Conductor. The
Cincinnati May Festival, established in
1873, is “the oldest continuous choral
festival in the Western Hemisphere.”
Founded in 1920, Cincinnati Opera is
the second-oldest opera company in the
nation. In 2004 the opera moved its
headquarters into newly-renovated space
in Music Hall’s north wing, now called the
Corbett Opera Center.
A close neighbor to Music Hall is
Memorial Hall. Designed by the renowned
architectural firm of Samuel Hannaford
and Sons, this 1908 Beaux Arts building
with a 600-seat performance hall, is in
need of restoration. In 2013, 3CDC
entered into a partnership with Hamilton
County, owner of the structure, to
determine the feasibility of rehabilitation.
Also located in OTR, the Cincinnati Ballet
celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013. In
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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Horseshoe Casino opened in 2013.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Washington Park in Over-the-Rhine (2013).
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
1994 the ballet moved to new quarters at
Central Parkway and Liberty Street, where
it debuted its Otto M. Budig Academy in
1996 and its Mickey Jarson Kaplan
Performance Studio in 2005. In recent
years, the ballet has performed at the
Aronoff Center for the Arts downtown.
Finally, the Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati
has called OTR home since it began in
Memorial Hall in 1986, and renovated an
old bank building on Vine Street into
performance space two years later. With a
mission to produce new plays, the
Ensemble Theatre is a vibrant cultural
asset to OTR, expanding its campus
through the purchase of a second building
in 2009.
Over-the-Rhine is also reemerging as a
centerpiece of education. The Art
Academy of Cincinnati moved its campus
from Eden Park to Jackson Street in 2005.
The School for the Creative and
Performing Arts (SCPA), a magnet
institution of Cincinnati Public Schools,
opened a new $72 million campus on
Central Parkway in 2010. The new
building bears the name of Erich Kunzel,
longtime conductor of the Cincinnati

The new campus of the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (Cincinnati Public Schools) opened in Over-the-
Rhine in 2010.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
Sycamore Street, with the old School for the Creative and Performing Arts (formerly Woodward High School) at the left.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Pops Orchestra. SCPA’s old location on
Sycamore St. (which, in turn, formerly
housed old Woodward High School) is
attracting potential investors for adaptive
re-use. Chatfield College, a Roman
Catholic college offering associate
degrees, is planning an expansion of its
OTR campus by renovating an 18,000
square-foot building on Central Parkway.
Cincinnatians are very proud of their
neighborhoods. As of 2013 the Cincinnati
Department of Community Development
listed 52 neighborhood associations.
Neighborhoods here, as in other urban
areas nationwide, are constantly evolving.
While some of Cincinnati’s neighborhoods
are somewhat clearly defined, often the
result of former villages annexed to the city
in the 19th or early 20th centuries, most
neighborhoods maintain a healthy
understanding of their often vague and
changing boundaries. In reality, the
definition of most neighborhoods usually
depends upon whom one asks. City
planners, business associations, resident
associations, and major non-profit
institutions often view neighborhood
boundaries in different ways. As time goes
by, neighborhoods themselves pursue new
identities, as did the residents of Winton
Place, who changed their neighborhood’s
name to Spring Grove Village in 2007. And
most Cincinnatians would doubtless
appear clueless if you asked them to
distinguish between the component parts
of the CUF Neighborhood Association,
comprised of Clifton Heights, University
Heights and Fairview, a name adopted
in 1987.
The city’s second-largest area of
employment, after downtown, is
sometimes referred to as “Uptown,” an
even more nebulous concoction of
institutions and geography. Historically, it
has been called “Pill Hill,” because of the
presence there of some of Cincinnati’s
premier medical facilities—Cincinnati
Children’s Hospital Medical Center, The
Christ Hospital, Deaconess Health
Campus, Good Samaritan Hospital,
Shriners Hospitals for Children, and UC
Medical Center. But as a place, Uptown
includes Avondale, Clifton, Clifton
Heights, Corryville, Fairview, Mt.
Auburn, and University Heights. The
University of Cincinnati’s health system,
based in Corryville, includes UC Medical
Center, UC Physicians and UC West
Chester Hospital. Since 2010 UC and UC
Health have committed $65 million
towards the UC Cancer Institute. UC and
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical
Center hope to secure designation for
National Cancer Institute ranking in
Cincinnati. In 2013, U.S. News & World
Report ranked neighboring Cincinnati
Children’s Hospital Medical Center third
in the United States for children’s
hospitals and number one for the
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treatment of pediatric cancer. Under
construction in 2013, Cincinnati
Children’s new $180 million research
facility at its Corryville campus will open
in 2015, and will be the largest pediatric
research center in the nation.
The same 2013 U.S. News survey
ranked Christ Hospital in Mt. Auburn as
the region’s best hospital, also giving
national rankings to its diabetes/
endocrinology, geriatrics, and orthopedics
programs. The Christ Hospital also has
received national accolades for its
cardiovascular care. In 2013 Christ was in
the midst of a $265 million expansion to
its Mt. Auburn campus to include a stateof-the-art
Joint and Spine Center, and a
new visitor parking garage.
Uptown is also anchored by important
educational institutions: Cincinnati State
Technical and Community College,
Hebrew Union College, and the University
of Cincinnati. The University of Cincinnati
is the city’s largest employer. In 2012, with
a total enrollment of nearly 42,000, UC
received the inaugural Higher Education
Excellence in Diversity Award for
The William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Mt. Auburn is operated by the National Park Service. Taft was
the 27th president of the United States and the 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
demonstrating an outstanding
commitment to diversity and inclusion
among U.S. universities. In 2008 the
university announced its first $1 billion
fundraising campaign, a target that it
Construction of a $180 million research facility at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center was underway
in 2013.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
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achieved in early 2013, placing it in the
top two percent of U.S. colleges to have
reached that goal. The continual growth
and prestigious rankings were no
accident. For 25 years, the University of
Cincinnati had been rebuilding itself, with
a vision to becoming one of the nation’s
most important research universities.
Consistently, national rankings recognize
UC’s excellence in its College of Law,
College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), and
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and
Planning (DAAP). As part of its vision, the
university began a $1.2 billion Campus
Master Plan in 1989 that, by 2010,
transformed its urban campus into one of
the world’s “most beautiful campuses,” as
ranked by Forbes magazine. The pace of
renovation and construction was so great
that, by the 1990s, students joked that
“UC” stood for “Under Construction.”
Forty major projects were undertaken,
including new buildings and renovations to
historic structures. New facilities included
the $46 million Vontz Center for Molecular
Studies (1999), designed by Frank Gehry,
an internationally known architect known
for his deconstructivist designs. Michael
Graves’ Engineering Research Center

The Christ Hospital, Mt. Auburn, is one of the region’s nationally known medical facilities.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
(1995) and the $26 million Joseph A.
Steger Student Life Center (2004) were
named among the “50 Most Amazing
Examples of College Architecture” in 2012.
Other internationally acclaimed
architects and the campus buildings they
have designed include Peter Eisenman’s
Aronoff Center for Design and Art (1996),
Henry Cobb’s College-Conservatory of
Music (1999), and Leers Weinzapfel’s
University Pavilion (2003). The
Tangeman University Center received a
$50 million renovation and enlargement
(2004). Other new campus buildings
include the $113 million Student
Recreation Center (2006), the Richard E.
Lindner Athletic Center and Varsity
Village (2006), and the $134 million
Center for Academic Research Excellence
(CARE)/Crawley Building (2008). In
2013 the university announced a planned
$86 million expansion of its Nippert
Stadium, the country’s second-oldest
playing site for college football.
The neighborhoods surrounding
Uptown’s hospitals and the UC campus
have directly benefitted from their
proximity to this major regional
employment center. For example, a
partnership between the University of
Cincinnati and the Corryville Community
Development Corporation spearheaded
an $80 million mixed-use project called
the Village at Stetson Square. Opened in
2006 at Martin Luther King Drive and
Eden Avenue, the first phase of the
project included 205 apartments, 53
townhomes, and 95,000 square feet of
retail and office space. Likewise, the
View of the main campus of the University of Cincinnati.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Clifton Heights Community Urban
Redevelopment Corporation (CHCURC),
in partnership with UC, has pursued a
number of major developments for the
area along Calhoun Street, including the
$78 million “U Square @ the Loop.” U
Square, opened in 2013, is a mixed-use
project containing 161 apartments,
77,000 square feet of retail space, and
40,000 square feet of office space. In
2005 University Park, also a project of
CHCURC and the University of
Cincinnati, debuted with 298 student
housing units, a 1,000-space parking
garage, and 36,000 square feet of retail
space. Old St. George Catholic Church on
Calhoun Street, designed by the
architectural firm of Samuel Hannaford,
suffered a tremendous fire in 2008,
leaving its twin spires partially
demolished. As of 2013 CHCURC was
actively pursuing plans to restore and
redevelop this landmark church at the
heart of Clifton Heights.
Reading Road (U.S. 42) runs north
through the Uptown neighborhood of
Avondale, and then through North
Avondale, Paddock Hills, Bond Hill, and
Roselawn. As the destination for many
people displaced from the West End, and as
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the nucleus of the Cincinnati race riots of
1967 and 1968, Avondale has been
attempting to rebuild itself since 1988.
Many of the former Jewish synagogues there
are home to thriving Protestant
congregations active in the neighborhood.
Between 2000 and 2010, Avondale lost
more residents than any other Cincinnati
neighborhood. In the same time period,
Avondale’s property vacancies jumped by
53 percent, and the serious crime rate
increased by 11.5 percent. The Uptown
Consortium, a non-profit communitydevelopment
corporation, has invested $20
million to purchase 60 properties along
Burnet Avenue for redevelopment. In
addition, the consortium financed extra
police protection in the neighborhood.
Avondale’s renaissance is well underway.
One of its great symbols is the Vernon
Manor Hotel at 400 Oak Street. Twelve
black business leaders purchased majority
ownership of the old hotel, and, using
many minority-owned contractors,
unveiled the $37 million building
restoration in 2011. It now houses offices
for the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Medical Center. In 2013 the Reds
Community Fund and Procter & Gamble’s
North America Marketing team joined
forces with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Medical Center, and the Cincinnati Zoo and
Botanical Garden, to finance renovations at
Hirsch Recreation Center in Avondale, as
well as the construction of a new
greenhouse at adjoining Gabriel’s Place. In
2014 National Church Residences will
begin construction of a 99-unit apartment
building on Alaska Avenue, for those with
disabilities. Also in 2014 Community
Builders will begin renovation of 119 units
in 7 buildings, and an additional 81 units in
the Poinciana and Crescent Court
buildings. Overall, a host of important nonprofit
partners are involved in the
redevelopment of Avondale, including the
Avondale Community Council, the
Avondale Comprehensive Development
Corporation, the Avondale Youth Council,
Community Builders, and the Urban
League of Greater Cincinnati.
Vontz Center for Molecular Studies at the University of Cincinnati was designed by the internationally renowned
architect, Frank Gehry.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
U Square @ the Loop opened in Clifton Heights in 2013.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Avondale is also home to the
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
Opened in 1875, the Zoo was named a
National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Four years later, in 1991, it opened its
$3.5 million Carl H. Lindner Jr. Family
Center for Conservation and Research of
Endangered Wildlife (CREW). Two years
later, in 1993, the Zoo opened Jungle
Trails, a simulated rainforest. The 130th
anniversary of the Zoo (2005) occasioned
the announcement of a major fundraising
plan for a multi-million-dollar expansion,
the largest in the Zoo’s history. A new
parking lot was built across the street,
opening up acreage for a multi-phase
development entitled “Africa”,
comprising Giraffe Ridge (2008), Cheetah
Encounter (2010), and a savannah
featuring lions (2013). Two more phases
of “Africa” are planned.
North of Avondale, along Reading Road,
are the neighborhoods of Bond Hill and
Roselawn. The Allen Temple African
Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church is situated
at 7080 Reading Road. The oldest
black congregation in Cincinnati, Allen
Temple A.M.E. Church moved from downtown
to Roselawn in 1979. The church purchased
the adjacent Swifton Commons
shopping center, at Reading Road and Seymour
Avenue. Renaming it Jordan Crossing,
the center continued to house a few businesses
and some church offices. In 2013 the
non-profit Port of Greater Cincinnati Development
Authority purchased the 24-acre
shopping center, began demolition, and
with $6.2 million in funding from the city,
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156

A home on Paradrome Street, Mt. Adams.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
will redevelop the site into a $75 million
mixed-use residential, retail and office complex.
Further, the Allen Temple Real Estate
Foundation, in partnership with the Tryed
Stone Community and Family Development
Center and the NorthPointe Land
Company, redeveloped 60 acres of land in
Bond Hill into 300 homesites. Called the
Villages of Daybreak, the new community
features market-rate single-family homes
and condominiums. CitiRAMA, an urban
housing show sponsored by the Home
Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati,
has twice chosen the Villages of Daybreak
for its annual home show (2005 and 2011).
Nearby, Roselawn Park will become home
of the new Procter & Gamble Cincinnati
Major League Baseball (MLB) Urban Youth
Academy, featuring four baseball fields, and
a 33,000 square-foot building, scheduled
for completion in 2015. Bond Hill is also
redeveloping its industrial base, with the
2010 opening of a new plant manufacturing
Cincinnati’s nationally-famous Graeter’s
Ice Cream.
The independent municipality of
Norwood, completely surrounded by
Cincinnati, lies to the east of Reading
Road. Since the closing of General Motors’
plant there in 1987, Norwood has rebuilt
its business district. In an area bordering
Cincinnati’s Hyde Park neighborhood,
Rookwood Pavilion debuted as Norwood’s
newest shopping center in 1993.
Rookwood Commons, adjacent to the
Pavilion, opened in Norwood in 2000.
Following a national trend of new
“lifestyle centers,” Rookwood Commons is
an open-air shopping and entertainment
complex catering to upscale customers.
East of Uptown lay the diverse
neighborhoods of eastern Cincinnati—
California, Columbia Tusculum, East End,
Evanston, Hyde Park, Linwood,
Madisonville, Mt. Adams, Mt. Lookout, Mt.
Washington, Oakley, O’Bryonville, Pleasant
Ridge, and Walnut Hills, to name a few.
Interstate-71 cuts a swath through two of
these neighborhoods, Walnut Hills and
Evanston. Evanston is home to Xavier
University (XU), Cincinnati’s Roman
Catholic Jesuit institution. XU’s Musketeers
men’s basketball program is one of the best
in the nation. It has made two NCAA
Tournament Elite Eight appearances (2004
and 2008), in addition to three NCAA
Sweet 16 appearances (2009, 2010 and
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Eden Park.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
2012) in the last ten years. The Musketeers
play at Cintas Center on the XU campus,
a 10,250-seat arena dedicated in 2000.
In 2013 the Musketeers entered the 10-
school Big East Conference. In academics
as in athletics, XU excels, consistently
ranked among the nation’s best private
colleges. Its sprawling Evanston campus
has grown immensely since 1988. In 2010,
XU completed a multi-million-dollar
expansion of its campus, including a new
entrance, Smith Hall of the Williams
College of Business, the Michael J. Conaton
Learning Commons, and the Hoff
Academic Quad, named for Reverend
James Hoff, president of XU from 1991
until 2000. The following year, it
completed a new 535-bed residence and
dining hall. In 2013 a private developer
began construction of University Station, a
mixed-use residential, commercial and
office development at Montgomery Road
and Cleneay Avenue, on XU-owned land.
XU is the alma mater of one of the
Cincinnati area’s most influential
politicians, John Boehner, speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives since 2011.
Wedged between Walnut Hills and Mt.
Adams is Cincinnati’s Eden Park, home to
the Cincinnati Art Museum and
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, as well
as to a diverse mix of housing. Ed Stern
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Williams College of Business (left) and the Michael J. Conaton Learning Commons (right), Xavier University.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Pavilion Street, Mt. Adams.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
became Producing Artistic Director of
the Playhouse in 1992, a position he held
for 20 years. During his tenure, the
Playhouse won two Tony Awards and
debuted 34 world premieres. In the
1990s it mounted a campaign that raised
more than $8.4 million, enabling
renovations of its Robert S. Marx Theatre.
The Playhouse’s neighbor, the Cincinnati
Art Museum, underwent a major
renovation and expansion in the late 20th
and the early 21st centuries, made
possible when the Cincinnati Historical
Society and the Art Academy of
Cincinnati moved from their
headquarters in the building. In May
2003 the Cincinnati Art Museum debuted
its new $10 million Cincinnati Wing.
Many residents are rediscovering the
vistas of the Ohio River in the East End,
Columbia Tusculum, and California
neighborhoods. By the early 21st
century, the construction of new
condominiums was well underway in the
East End along old Eastern Avenue,
Twain’s Point, East End, is an example of new housing in the city.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Riverview East Academy (Cincinnati Public Schools) on Kellogg Avenue in the East End was opened in 2006. It is
reflective of much of the new construction along the Ohio River, built on stilts above the flood plain.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
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158

These so-called “Painted Ladies” on Tusculum Avenue are among the beautifully restored homes of Columbia Tusculum.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
renamed Riverside Drive. Many of the
new low-rise condominiums and
townhomes on the river side of the street
are being built on stilts, or with parking
garages on the first floor, in case of
flooding. Columbia Tusculum, along
Columbia Parkway, is attracting young
professionals to its array of housing
options. The neighborhood has a large
stock of historic “painted ladies”—
brightly-painted Queen Anne style
houses. New apartment complexes and
townhomes are also being built in
Columbia Tusculum, including custom
homes. California, along the Ohio River
on Kellogg Avenue, features historic
houses and churches, as well as the
Greater Cincinnati Waterworks, the
California Woods Nature Preserve, the
California Golf Course, Coney Island
Amusement Park, River Downs
Racetrack, and the Riverbend Music
Center (designed by internationally
acclaimed architect, Michael Graves).
In the eastern hills overlooking the
Ohio River valley sit the communities of
Mt. Adams, East Walnut Hills, Mt.
Lookout, O’Bryonville, Hyde Park, and
Oakley, and to the north of them, Pleasant
Ridge and Kennedy Heights. These
neighborhoods each feature their own
business districts with small familyowned
shops and restaurants. Historic
homes line their streets, and, in some
areas, still demand some of the highest
real estate prices in the city. The pace of
restoration and new construction is
particularly impressive in East Walnut
Hills. There, DeSales Corner, anchored by
historic St. Francis de Sales Catholic
Church, is making a comeback, with the
restoration of the historic San Marco
apartments into public housing, and the
building of the new market-rate
apartments, DeSales Flats. Nearby, Oakley
and Pleasant Ridge have developed
suburban-like shopping centers, with “big
box” stores like Target and Meijer
occupying the former site of one of
the world’s largest machine tool
manufacturers, Cincinnati Milacron. East
Columbia Tusculum resident Kathleen Hickey enjoys a quiet summer day working in her neighborhood’s community
garden (2013).
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
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The American Can factory building in Northside, rehabbed into residential and office space, was the site of a speech
by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in 2009.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
of Oakley lies Madisonville, a community
that is rebuilding its Red Bank Road area
into a commercial and business center,
including a new $25 million campus for
Medpace, a medical research firm.
Across the great divide of Interstate-75
lies western Cincinnati. There, proud
neighborhoods like Camp Washington,
College Hill, South Cumminsville,
Fairmount (North and South), Hartwell,
Mt. Airy, Northside, Price Hill, the West
End, and Westwood—to name a few—
preside over the plains of the Mill Creek
and the hills rising above it. Northside,
with its close proximity to Cincinnati State
Technical and Community College, UC,
and downtown, is a thriving community of
homes, condominiums, restaurants, and
shops, known for its diversity and
tolerance. The site of two CitiRAMA new
home shows, Northside also features
restored housing and a rehabbed American
Can factory building that gained national
attention when U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden spoke there in 2009. The College
Hill Community Urban Redevelopment
Corporation and the College Hill Forum
are pursuing revitalization of their
neighborhood’s business district. College
Hill became one of the first Cincinnati
neighborhoods to implement form-based
codes, where the size and form of buildings
are expected to relate to their streetscapes.
Price Hill, including Lower Price Hill
at its base, East Price Hill, and West Price
Hill, is a vast expanse of homes and
businesses. In 2000 in response to
increasing problems of urban blight, an
Westwood Town Hall, designed by Charles
Crapsey and William Brown, was dedicated in 1889.
When Westwood was annexed to Cincinnati in 1896,
the neighborhood added legal provisions requiring the
hall’s continued use by residents. Reopened in 2005
following a $2 million restoration, it still serves
the community.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
environmental educational group, called
Imago, began an effort to organize residents.
Incorporated in 2004, “Price Hill Will,”
with its optimistically alliterative name,
seeks to strengthen the three main
neighborhoods of Price Hill. In partnership
with the city and the local business
community, it participates in a housing
redevelopment program. In the East Price
A view of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky from East Price Hill (2013).
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
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Hill National Historic District, restoration is
proceeding apace, as well as new
construction. The Incline Public House, a
restaurant with sweeping views of
Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, opened
in 2012, along with an adjoining
condominium project called Incline Village.
The Elberon, a historic apartment complex
on W. Eighth Street in East Price Hill,
reopened as senior housing in 2012, after
undergoing a $7.4 million renovation.
Camp Washington, home to factories,
warehouses, Sacred Heart Catholic
Church, and the locally-famous Camp
Washington Chili, is just off the Hopple
Street exit of Interstate-75. There, in a
restored parachute factory on Monmouth
Street, the American Sign Museum opened
its new facility in 2012. With 28-foot-high
ceilings capable of accommodating giant,
playful neon and other nostalgic signs, the
museum is the self-proclaimed “mid-life
crisis” of founder Tod Swormstedt, former
publisher of a signmaking trade magazine.
The historic West End has experienced a
makeover in the early 21st century. Under
the Hope VI (Housing Opportunities for
People Everywhere) program of the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), the federal
government provided funds for the
demolition of old public housing projects
and the construction of new mixed-income,
mixed-use, low-rise developments. The
new construction typically included a
public-private partnership, including both
government-subsidized and market-rate
housing. The recipient of three major Hope
VI grants (1998, 1999, and 2001), the
Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority
(CMHA) began demolition of units in the
old Laurel Homes and Lincoln Court
housing projects for a $200 million project
called City West. The first units opened in
2002, and by 2007, CMHA had completed
211 owner-occupied homes and 686 rental
apartments. City West’s new rowhouses,
featuring garages and parking pads,
reconnect the West End to its historic past,
while providing the amenities of suburban
tract housing.
The Elberon, a historic apartment complex on W. Eighth Street in East Price Hill, reopened as senior housing in 2012.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
In November 1990, Cincinnati Museum
Center opened in the old Cincinnati Union
Terminal in the city’s West End. The
mammoth structure, completed in 1933 to
serve as a united terminal for the city’s
passenger rail lines, is a jewel in the crown of
the Queen City. A developer’s 1980 attempt
to redevelop the historic building into a
shopping mall was short-lived, closing four
years later. The residents of Hamilton
County responded by passing a $33 million
bond issue in 1986, allowing the astounding
Art Deco terminal to become one of the
region’s most successful examples of historic
adaptive re-use. The iconic structure is now
Incline Public House and Incline Village, East Price Hill.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
home to the Cincinnati History Museum,
the Cincinnati History Library and Archives
(formerly Cincinnati Historical Society
Library), the Museum of Natural History
and Science, the Robert D. Lindner Family
Omnimax Theater, and the Duke Energy
Children’s Museum. In 2007, the American
Institute of Architects ranked Union
Terminal 45th in a list of the nation’s most
significant structures.
In February 2012 the National
Underground Railroad Freedom Center
(NURFC) and Cincinnati Museum Center
(CMC) announced plans to merge. In June
of the same year, the CMC Board of
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City West, on Linn Street in the West End, is an example of new infill housing.
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Trustees approved a resolution authorizing
NURFC to join the corporate structure of
CMC. The merger was designed to
strengthen the finances of both
organizations and create opportunities for
new programming, resources, and exhibits.
As of 2013 area leaders were discussing the
possibility of a county sales-tax referendum
to fund $160 million in repairs and updates
to CMC’s Union Terminal facility.
By 2013 Cincinnati was moving ahead
on a wide range of civic projects, while
others were stalling. The building of a
more than $130 million streetcar line
between the riverfront and Over-the-
Rhine (Phase I) proved to be among the
most contentious. Voters narrowly
approved the streetcar issue at the polls in
November 2011. In February of the
following year, Mayor Mark Mallory,
joined by U.S. Transportation Secretary
Ray LaHood, broke ground for the route.
In 2013 city council proceeded with the
final budgeting for Phase I. Phase II of the
streetcar project, from Over-the-Rhine to
Uptown, remains on the drawing board.
Ironically, in need of funding for the
streetcar, Cincinnati sold its Blue Ash
Airport in 2012. Finally, as of 2013,
county officials were still struggling with
the problem of jail overcrowding. In
1992, the old Kruse Hardware warehouse
in the West End was renovated into an
822-bed jail by an outside company and
leased to the county. Beset by problems, it
closed in 2008. In the interim, county
voters twice rejected sale-tax increases to
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
162
fund a new jail. In 1998 the state opened
the new River City Correctional Center in
Camp Washington, on the site of the city’s
old “workhouse” jail. Operated by the
county, it houses non-violent and firsttime
offenders.
During the post-World War II years,
Americans’ love of automobiles and their
move to the suburbs brought the greatest
changes to urban life in the United States
since the invention of the electric
streetcar in the late 19th century. Old
municipalities like Cincinnati, no longer
successful in annexing suburban
neighborhoods, lost population as their
outlying communities boomed. Changing
transportation patterns on the Ohio River,
increasing problems of pollution, and the
threat of floods led cities like Cincinnati
to turn their backs on their origins, in the
Queen City’s case, the Ohio River. But in
1988 Cincinnatians returned to the river
with the opening of the Bicentennial
Commons. Since then, its residents have
spent billions of dollars reinventing and
reinvigorating their city, the core of a
metropolitan area of 2.1 million residents.
In “Plan Cincinnati,” adopted in 2012,
the Cincinnati City Planning Commission
envisions an even more livable and
sustainable urban environment based on six
principles: 1) Provide more transportation
choices; 2) Promote equitable, affordable
housing; 3) Enhance economic
competiveness; 4) Support existing
communities; 5) Coordinate and leverage
federal policies and investment; and 6)
Value communities and neighborhoods. In
seeking to expand upon the city’s strengths,
“Plan Cincinnati” proposes an implementation
that includes partnerships with the
public and private sector, the kind of shared
responsibility that since 1988 has led the
city’s urban renaissance. Most importantly,
“Plan Cincinnati” offers a holistic approach,
recognizing the value of cooperation,
collaboration, sustainability, and the ideas,
resources, and efforts of all of the city’s
stakeholders, including the most
economically disadvantaged. Rejecting the
monolithic approach of the 1948 plan,
which rested almost entirely upon the
expertise of social scientists and
professional city planners, “Plan Cincinnati”
draws upon a mantra that first emerged
(controversially) in the 1960s, the
maximum feasible participation of all those
concerned with the problem. Such a holistic
approach, while complex, represents an
expression of the hope that age-old
problems like unemployment, poverty, and
homelessness might yet yield to teamwork.
But that hope seems more like reality in the
arena of city rebuilding, as the city’s
renaissance since the 1980s suggests. As the
heart of a major metropolitan region of 2.1
million people, Cincinnati has access to the
resources and talents to continue along its
path of innovation and excellence. With
cultural, educational and medical
institutions that consistently rank among
the nation’s best—and entirely out of
proportion to the city’s relative size—
Cincinnati is well-placed to face the future.

FOR FURTHER READING
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Abbott, Carl. Boosters and Businessmen: Popular Economic Thought and Urban Growth in the Antebellum Middle West. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1981.
Adams, Edmund. History of St. Rose of Lima Church (St. Rosa Kirche), 1867-2002. Cincinnati, OH: St. Rose, 2002.
Architecture and Construction in Cincinnati: A Guide to Buildings, Designers, and Builders. Cincinnati, OH: Architectural Foundation of
Cincinnati, 1987.
Aronson, Julie, ed. The Cincinnati Wing: The Story of Art in the Queen City. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2003.
Bailey, Linda. Historic Photos of Cincinnati. Nashville, TN: Turner Publishing, 2006.
Banks, Michael A. Before Oprah: Ruth Lyons, the Woman Who Created Talk TV. Wilmington, OH: Orange Frazer Press, 2009.
Baughin, William A. “Murray Seasongood: Twentieth-Century Urban Reformer.” Ph.D. diss., University of Cincinnati, 1972.
Baughin, William A. “Nativism in Cincinnati before 1860.” Master’s thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1963.
Berry, Thomas Senior. Western Prices before 1861: A Study of the Cincinnati Market. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943.
Black, Samuel W. “The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.” Ohio Valley History 6 (Summer 2006): 18-27.
Bronson, Peter. Behind the Lines…The Untold Stories of the Cincinnati Riots. Milford, OH: Chilidog Press, 2006.
Burnet, Jacob. Notes on the Early Settlement of the North-western Territory. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1847.
Burnham, Robert A. “‘Pulling Together’ for Pluralism: Politics, Planning, and Government in Cincinnati, 1924-1959.” Ph.D. diss.,
University of Cincinnati, 1990.
Calkins, David L. “Black Education in Nineteenth Century Cincinnati.” Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin 38 (Summer 1980): 115-128.
Casebolt, Pamela Ciafardini and Philip G. Ciafardini. Italians of Newport and Northern Kentucky. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
Casey-Leininger, Charles Frederick. “Creating Democracy in Housing: Civil Rights and Housing Policy in Cincinnati, 1945-1980.” Ph.D.
diss., University of Cincinnati, 1993.
Cauffield, Joyce V.B. and Carolyn E. Banfield, eds. The River Book: Cincinnati and the Ohio. Cincinnati, OH: Program for Cincinnati, 1981.
Cebula, James E. “Kennedy Heights: A Fragmented Hilltop Suburb.” Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin 34 (Summer 1976): 78-101.
Centennial, 1845-1945, St. Paul’s Evangelical Protestant Church (Congregational). Cincinnati, OH: St. Paul’s, 1945.
Childress, Margaret Joann. “Norwood, Ohio, 1787-1915.” Master’s thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1970.
Ciafardini, Philip G. and Pamela Ciafardini Casebolt. Italians of Greater Cincinnati. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008.
Cincinnati Art Museum. Art Palace of the West: A Centennial Tribute, 1881-1981. Cincinnati, OH: The Museum, 1981.
Cincinnati Board of Education. Proceedings. Cincinnati, OH: The Board, 1963-1990.
Cincinnati Bureau of Governmental Research. An Urban Redevelopment Study of 10 Cincinnati Blighted Areas with Related Economic, Population
and Land Market Data. Cincinnati OH: The Bureau, 1951.
Cincinnati Business Committee Task Force on Public Schools (Clement L. Buenger, Chairman). Report & Recommendations. Cincinnati, OH:
The Committee, 1991.
Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC). Annual Reports. Cincinnati, OH: 3CDC, 2003-2012.
Cincinnati City Planning Commission. Central Riverfront Development: Preliminary Report. Cincinnati, OH: City Planning Commission, 1961.
Cincinnati City Planning Commission. The Cincinnati Metropolitan Master Plan and the Official City Plan of the City of Cincinnati. Cincinnati,
OH: City Planning Commission, 1948.
Cincinnati City Planning Commission. Downtown Riverfront Redevelopment Plan. Cincinnati, OH: City Planning Commission, 1946.
Cincinnati City Planning Commission. Plan Cincinnati: A Comprehensive Plan for the Future. Cincinnati, OH: City of Cincinnati, 2012.
Cincinnati Department of Urban Development. Urban Renewal Plan, Central Riverfront Project, Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati, OH: The
Department, 1962 (revised 1964).
Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority. Annual Reports. Cincinnati: OH: The Authority, 2001-2010.
Cincinnati Riverfront Advisory Committee. Central Riverfront Project, Cincinnati, Ohio. Report Number Five. Cincinnati, OH: 1970?
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: Centennial Portraits. Cincinnati, OH: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, 1994.
Cincinnati Union Terminal: The Design and Construction of an Art Deco Masterpiece. Cincinnati, OH: Cincinnati Railroad Club, 1999.
Cincinnati Working Review Committee. Cincinnati 2000 Plan: A Comprehensive Development Plan for Downtown. Cincinnati, OH: Department
of Economic Development, 1982.
Cist, Charles. Cincinnati in 1841: Its Early Annals and Future Prospects. Cincinnati, OH: The Author, 1841.
F O R F U R T H E R R E A D I N G
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Cleary, Edward J. The ORSANCO Story: Water Quality Management in the Ohio Valley under an Interstate Compact. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins Press, 1967.
Clubbe, John. Cincinnati Observed: Architecture and History. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1992.
Condit, Carl W. The Railroad and the City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of Cincinnati. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1977.
Dabney, Wendell P. Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens: Historical, Sociological and Biographical. Cincinnati, OH: Dabney Publishing, 1926.
Davis, John Emmeus. Contested Ground: Collective Action and the Urban Neighborhood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Dobbert, Guido André. “The Disintegration of an Immigrant Community: The Cincinnati Germans, 1870-1920.” Ph.D. diss., University of
Chicago, 1965.
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Drake, Daniel. Natural and Statistical View; or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country. Cincinnati, OH: Looker and Wallace, 1815.
Dwyer, Doris D. A Century of City-Building: The Kilgour Family in Cincinnati, 1798-1914. Cincinnati, OH: Young & Klein, 1983.
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PHOTOGRAPH BY RICK KESTERMAN.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Cincinnati: The Queen City, 225th Anniversary Edition was made possible through the contributions of many people and is built upon the
original 1982 edition of the book which was published by the Cincinnati Historical Society. Daniel Hurley, then head of the education
department, was the principal author of that first edition which was based on scripts he developed for a television series on Cincinnati
history. Virtually every member of the Historical Society staff at the time helped with the publication.
The 225th Anniversary Edition of the book is an effort to update this important general history of Cincinnati which had not been revised
since the release of a third edition in 1996. Much has happened in the city and surrounding region since that time and Dr. Paul Tenkotte
has picked up where the text left off and has written a fascinating new chapter that brings the story of the city up to the present and the
225th anniversary of the city’s founding in 1788.
The following individuals and organizations helped in the production of Cincinnati: The Queen City, 225th Anniversary Edition. Our sincere
thanks go out to all who helped make this edition possible.
3CDC
Linda Bailey
Jim Borgman
Karen Bouquet
Victor J. Canfield
Barbara Dawson
Mickey deVisé
Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority
Cincinnati Preservation Association
Downtown Cincinnati Inc.
Scott Gampfer
Beth Gerber
Lisa Gillespie
Colin Hart
Kathleen Hickey
Historical Publishing Network
Dave Ivory
Eric Jackson
Kenton County Public Library
M’Lissa Kesterman
Rick Kesterman
Danny Klingler
Ron Lammert
Kelly Leon
Tonya Matthews
Douglass McDonald
Anastasia Mileham
Zane L. Miller
Fred Mitchell
Mark Neikirk
Steve Oldfield
OTR A.D.O.P.T.
Mike Philipps
Elizabeth Pierce
Frank X. Prudent
Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
Deborah Rieselman
Mindy Rosen
Judy Schaefer
John Schlipp
David Schroeder
Anne Shepherd
Claire Smittle
Judith Spraul-Schmidt
Robert Stevie
Stevie Publishing Inc.
Jeff Suess
University of Cincinnati
Patricia Van Skaik
Margaret Warminski
Carolyn Washburn
WIN (Working in Neighborhoods)
Xavier University
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#
21c Museum Hotel, 150, 151
A
Abolitionists, 39
ACI Building, 72
Adams Place, 150
Aeronca, 123
African Americans. See Blacks
Agenda 360, 132
Agriculture and agricultural products, 18, 19, 23, 26, 29
Airports, 123, 125, 133, 162
AK Steel, 133
Albee Theater, 124, 125
Alexander, Ed, 102
All-America City Award, 113, 127, 146
Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.)
Church, 156
Allen Temple Real Estate Foundation, 157
Allen, Diarca Howe, 40
Alternative Rock, 136
Amberley, 117, 118, 137
American Alliance of Museums, 7
American Can, 160
American Citizens League, 91
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 144
American Federation of Labor, 108
American Financial Group, 133, 143
American Football League, 123
American Institute of Architects, 161
American Israelite. See Israelite
American Planning Association, 148
American Red Cross, 106
American Rivers, 134
American Sign Museum, 161
Amusement parks, 87, 112, 143, 159
Annexation, 63, 73, 82, 83, 91, 153, 160
Anti-Catholic sentiment, 39
Anti-foreign sentiment, 39
Anti-German sentiment, 89, 91
Antislavery movement, 28, 40
Apartment buildings, 72, 115, 136, 156
Apartments, 92, 109, 110
Appalachian Festival, 137
Appalachians, 118
Archdiocese of Cincinnati, 137
Ark by the River Church, 140
Aronoff Center for Design and Art, 155
Aronoff Center for the Arts, 150, 152
Art Academy of Cincinnati, 59, 152, 158
Art education, 59
Art Palace of the West, 61
Artisan shops, 26, 74, 75
Artists, 28, 33, 41, 53, 59, 90, 104
Ashland, 133
Associated Charities, 91, 104, 105
Attucks Blues, 42
Automobiles, 73, 85, 96, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119,
121, 135, 162
Avondale, 70, 73, 77, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, 140,
153, 155, 156
Avondale Community Council, 156
Avondale Comprehensive Development Corporation,
156
Avondale Town Center, 121
Avondale Youth Council, 156
B
Baha’i Center, 137
Baker and Norton Realty Company, 119
INDEX
Baldwin Piano Company, 86
Bank of Cincinnati, 28
Banks (The), 148, 149, 151
Banks and banking, 27, 28, 42, 47, 72, 87, 92, 121,
126, 127, 133
Baptist Ministers Conference, 146
Barrie, Dennis, 145
Bartlett Building, 72
Barton, James Pierce, 8
Baseball, 52, 53, 73, 115, 116, 147, 148, 157
Batte of Tippecanoe, 20
Battle of Fallen Timbers, 17, 18
Battle of the Thames, 20
Baum, Martin, 27, 28, 36
Bazaar, 35
Beard, James Henry, 20
Bebb, William, 49
Beech Acres Parenting Center, 143
Beecher, Catharine, 40
Beecher, Harriet. See Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Beecher, Rev. Lyman, 40
Beer gardens, 37, 79
Beiderbeck, Kay, 136
Bell Event Centre, 140
Belle of Louisville, 136
Bellevue Brewing Company, 84
Bellevue Incline, 65, 66
Benson, George, 136
Bentley, Henry, 99, 102
Berner, William, 77
Best-governed city award, 101
Better Housing League, 92, 110
Bettman, Alfred, 115
Bicentennial, 136
Bicentennial Commons, 136, 162
Bicycles, 148
Biden, U.S. Vice President Joe, 160
Bi-Okoto Cultural Institute, 137
Birdless ballot, 99
Birdless Ballot League, 102
Birney, James G., 39
Bisexual, 144, 145
Black Brigade, 43
Black education, 41, 44, 73, 74
Black school board, 41
Black Sunday, 107
Black United Front, 144
Blacks, 33, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 64, 70, 73, 74,
92, 95, 105, 109, 110, 118, 120, 121, 126, 146, 156
Blue Ash, 117, 123, 162
Blue Ash Airport, 162
Blue Chip City, 146
Blue Jacket (Shawnee chief), 17
Blues, 136
Board of Trade, 56
Bodmer, Karl, 12, 13
Boehner, John, 157
Bolton, Jack, 123
Bond Hill, 118, 126, 127, 155, 156, 157
Boomers, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 128
Boone County, Kentucky, 123, 131
Boone, Daniel, 8, 13
Boone, Jemima, 13
Boosters, 22, 24, 26, 28, 31, 32, 46, 47, 51, 53, 61,
115, 133
Booth, Junius Brutus, 43
Borgman, Jim, 145
Bossism, 63, 79, 80, 82
Boston, Massachusetts, 9, 45, 54
Boudinot, Elias, 15
Boundaries, 63, 117, 131, 149, 153
Bourdelle, Pierre, 104
Boyd, Henry, 36
Bracken County, Kentucky, 131
Branch Bank of the United States, 20
Brandt, J. Michael, 146
Brent Spence Bridge, 132
Breweries, 37, 83, 91, 107, 151
Bridges, 42, 43, 50, 51, 65, 66, 76, 107
Briol, Paul, 5, 91, 97, 99, 108, 111, 113, 124
British, 9, 10, 20, 88
Broadway Commons, 147, 151
Bronson, Mona, 147
Brown County, Ohio, 131
Brown, James, 136, 138
Brown, William, 160
Bucktown, 41, 64
Buddhists, 137
Buenger, Clement L., 146
Bullock Electric Manufacturing Company, 71
Bunbury Music Festival, 136
Burnet Woods, 54, 55
Burnet, Jacob, 17, 24, 28, 53
Burnham, Daniel, 72, 151
Business districts, 71, 159
Butler County, Ohio, 131, 134
Butler, Simon, 12
C
C&O Bridge, 136
Cable-cars, 66
Caine, Shirley, 126
California, 84, 107, 157, 158, 159
California Golf Course, 159
California Woods Nature Preserve, 159
Callaway, Elizabeth, 13
Callaway, Frances, 13
Callaway, Richard, 13
Calvary Episcopal Church, 140
Calvary United Methodist Church, 141
Camargo Country Club, 119
Camargo Realty Co., 119
Cambridge Tile, 111
Camp Dennison, 41, 43
Camp Washington, 70, 137, 140, 160, 161, 162
Camp Washington Chili, 161
Campbell County, Kentucky, 131
Campbell, Thomas C., 77
Canal boats, 26, 32
Canals, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 47, 48, 49, 50, 78, 85
Carew Building, 89, 102
Carew Tower, 94, 103, 104, 106, 107
Carey (Philip) Manufacturing Company, 108
Carl H. Lindner Jr. Family Center for Conservation and
Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW), 156
Carmel Presbyterian Church, 140
Carrel, George P., 97
Carriage making, 75
Carthage, 37, 136
Carthage Fairgrounds, 136
Casinos, 151
Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio, 143
Cattle, 32
Celeste, Richard, 142
Cemeteries, 41, 54, 55, 77
Census, 34, 46, 128, 131, 133, 135, 142, 146
Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and Central
States, 56, 57, 58
Center for Academic Research Excellence (CARE)/
Crawley Building, 155
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
170

Centinel of the North-Western Territory, 18
Central business district, 63, 115, 121, 122
Central Parkway, 95, 113, 151, 152, 153
Central Riverfront Plan of 2000, 149
Cesar Pelli Associates, 150
Chamber of Commerce, 56, 60, 95, 102, 146
Chamber of Commerce building, 102
Chamberlin, William T., 23
Champion, Aaron, 52
Changing Gears, 143
Charities, 96, 105, 143
Charity Navigator, 143
Charles Phelps Taft Memorial Fund, 100
Charles, Ray, 136
Charter Committee, 98, 101, 102
Charterites, 101, 127
Chase, Salmon P., 40
Chatfield College, 153
Chattanooga, Tennessee, 51
Chem-Dyne, 134
Chemed Center, 150
Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, 107
Chester Park, 87
Chevrolet plant, 108
Chicago, 46, 50, 51, 72, 87, 128, 131
Chili, 137
Chilifest, 137
Chiquita Brands International, 133
Christ Church, 21, 140
Christ Hospital, 153, 154, 155
Christian Moerlein Brewing Co., 83, 151
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 142
Church of the Advent Episcopal, 141
Cincinnati 2000 Plan, 128
Cincinnati and Hamilton Railroad, 48
Cincinnati and Suburban Bell Telephone Company,
102, 103
Cincinnati and Whitewater Canal, 26, 27
Cincinnati Art Museum, 49, 59, 60, 61, 81, 157, 158
Cincinnati Ballet, 143, 152
Cincinnati Bengals, 136, 147, 148
Cincinnati Board of Education, 89, 147
Cincinnati Business Men’s Club, 60, 95
Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation
(3CDC), 151, 152
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 70, 132,
153, 154, 156
Cincinnati Chili, 137
Cincinnati City Planning Commission, 113, 114, 115,
122, 128, 134, 162
Cincinnati Club, 102
Cincinnati College, 21, 24
Cincinnati Commercial, 61, 64, 69
Cincinnati Department of Community Development,
153
Cincinnati Enquirer, 35, 64, 102, 120, 121, 133, 136,
137, 138, 139, 142, 143, 145, 147, 149
Cincinnati Fall Festival, 58, 60
Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company, 102, 107
Cincinnati Gazette, 77
Cincinnati Hamilton and Dayton Railroad, 48, 50, 69
Cincinnati Historical Society, 5, 158, 161
Cincinnati History Library & Archives, 5, 6, 161
Cincinnati History Museum, 6, 161
Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, 100
Cincinnati Law School, 25, 84, 98, 100
Cincinnati Locomotive Works, 48
Cincinnati lung, 96
Cincinnati May Festival. See May Festival
Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority, 109, 110,
118, 161
Cincinnati Metropolitan Master Plan. See Metropolitan
Master Plan
Cincinnati Milacron, 159
Cincinnati Milling Machine Company, 111, 115
Cincinnati Model Homes Company, 91, 92, 109
Cincinnati Museum Center, 5, 6, 7, 161
Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport,
133
Cincinnati Northern Railroad, 69
Cincinnati Opera, 143, 152
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 157, 158
Cincinnati Police Department, 144
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, 152
Cincinnati Post, 97, 118, 133, 147
Cincinnati Preservation Association, 125, 141
Cincinnati Public Schools, 138, 139, 143, 146, 147,
152, 153, 158
Cincinnati Red Stockings, 52
Cincinnati Redevelopment Corporation, 122
Cincinnati Reds, 52, 116, 123, 136, 147, 148
Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, 148
Cincinnati Royals, 121
Cincinnati Southern Railroad, 51, 53, 85, 107, 125
Cincinnati State Technical and Community College,
143, 154, 160
Cincinnati Street Railway Company, 66, 115
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, 100, 101, 143, 152
Cincinnati Times-Star, 100, 118
Cincinnati Transit Company, 67, 97, 107
Cincinnati Union Terminal, 5, 6, 86, 103, 104, 107,
108, 109, 111, 123, 125, 161, 162
Cincinnati Volksblatt. See Volksblatt
Cincinnati Whitewater Canal. See Cincinnati and
Whitewater Canal
Cincinnati Works, 143
Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, 142
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, 55, 60, 109, 156
Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. See Cincinnati Zoo and
Botanical Garden
Cincinnatus Association, 16, 98
Cincinnatus, Lucius Quinctius, 16
Cincy Blues Fest, 136
CincyTech, 132
Cinergy Field, 136, 147, 148
Cintas Center, 157
Cintrifuse, 132
Cist, Charles, 28, 34, 36, 40, 45
CitiRAMA, 157, 160
Citizens Planning Association, 115
City charter, 25, 102, 145, 146
City council, 37, 65, 81, 101, 102, 113, 115, 120, 126,
127, 128, 143, 145, 146, 162
City government, 44, 45, 79, 96, 102, 105, 126, 127
City Hall, 80, 96, 115, 126, 128, 144
City living, return to, 127
City manager, 102, 105, 106, 121, 127, 146
City Plan of 1925. See Official City Plan of 1925
City Plan of 1948. See Master Plan (1948)
City planning, 95, 115, 128
City Planning Commission. See Cincinnati City
Planning Commission
City Planning Committee, 95
City West, 161, 162
CityLink Center, 143
Civil rights movement, 113
Civil War, 38, 41, 42, 46, 51, 56
Civilian Conservation Corps, 108
Clark, Peter H., 44
Clean Water Act, 133, 134
Clermont County, Ohio, 119, 137, 142
Cleveland, 25, 81, 87, 91, 98, 131, 132
Clifton, 56, 68, 69, 83, 84, 106, 119, 126, 140, 141,
153, 155, 156
Clifton Heights, 140, 153, 155, 156
Clifton Heights Community Urban Redevelopment
Corporation (CHCURC), 155
Clifton Town Meeting, 126
Climate, 45, 95
Clooney, Betty, 137
Clooney, George, 137
Clooney, Nick, 137
Clooney, Rosemary, 137
Clothing manufacturing, 35
Coast Guard, 106
Cobb, Henry, 155
Coffin, Levi, 39
Coliseum. See Riverfront Coliseum
Collaborative Agreement, 144
College Conservatory of Music, 154, 155
College Hill, 67, 69, 70, 118, 126, 127, 160
College Hill Community Urban Redevelopment
Corporation, 160
College Hill Forum, 160
College Hill Omnibus, 67
College Hill Railroad, 69
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
(DAAP), 154
College of Law, 154
College of Music, 59
Collins, Bootsy, 138
Collot, Victor, 14, 19
Colored Cemetery, 77
Colored Public Schools, 44
Columbia, 11, 14, 23, 127, 157, 158, 159
Columbia (statue), 89
Columbia Parkway, 95, 109, 110, 159
Columbia Township, 119
Columbia Tusculum, 127, 157, 158, 159
Columbus, Ohio, 78, 91, 107, 115, 131, 133
Commercial Arts Building, 150
Commercial Bank, 47
Committee on Public Information, 89
Common school system, 45
Communities, 63, 66, 69, 70, 71, 73, 77, 83, 117
Community Action Commission, 126
Community Builders, 156
Community councils, 126, 127
Community organizations, 73, 126, 127
Commuter transportation, 69
Concord, 117
Concordia Lutheran Church, 141
Condominiums, 149, 151, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161
Condon, Randall, 89
Coney Island, 81, 112, 120, 137, 143, 159
Confederate Army, 41, 42, 43
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 108
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 120
Construction projects, 102, 104, 120, 151
Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), 144, 145, 150
Convention center, 115, 125
Copperheads, 43
Corbett Foundation, 143
Corbett Opera Center, 152
Corbett, J. Ralph, 143
Corbett, Patricia, 143
Corry, William M., 51
Corryville, 120, 140, 153, 154, 155
Corryville Community Development Corporation, 155
Cotton Club, 120
Country clubs, 119
Courthouse Riot (1884), 77, 78, 79
Covenant First Presbyterian Church, 140
Covington and Cincinnati Suspension Bridge. See John
A. Roebling Suspension Bridge
Covington and Lexington Railroad, 48
Covington, Kentucky, 31, 32, 33, 41, 48, 65, 66, 69,
76, 136, 137, 145, 146
Cox organization, 82, 83, 84, 85
Cox, George B., 63, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 96
Craig, James, 146
Crapsey, Charles, 160
Crime, 38, 41, 75, 77, 126, 144, 156
Crosley Corporation, 116
Crosley Field, 107, 116, 135, 136
I N D E X
1 7 1

Crosley Motors, 116
Crosley, Powel, Jr., 116
Crossroads Community Church, 142, 143
CUF Neighborhood Association, 153
Cultural development, 25, 28, 53, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60,
61, 100
Cumminsville, 70, 71, 77, 85, 117
Cutler, Ephraim, 24
D
DAAP. See College of Design, Architecture, Art,
and Planning
Dabney Building, 74
Dabney, Wendell Phillips, 44, 74
Dairy farmers, 70
Dalai Lama, 142
Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, 51
Davidson, Tyler, 53
Davis, Miles, 136
Dayton Street, 64
Dayton, Ohio, 23, 25, 26, 48, 50, 69, 91, 107, 115
Deaconess Health Campus, 153
Deal, Tina, 147
Dearborn County, Indiana, 131
Deatrick, John, 149
Deer Creek Valley, 33, 64, 85
Deer Park, 117
Delaware Indians, 9
Delta Air Lines, 133
Delta Queen, 136
Democratic national convention, 60
Democratic Party, 39, 43, 44, 81, 84, 102, 127
Denman, Matthias, 11
Department of Neighborhood Housing and
Conservation, 127
Department stores, 73, 102, 105, 149
Depressions, 21, 50, 65, 75, 96, 102, 104, 105, 108,
109, 111, 115, 117, 118
DeSales Corner, 159
DeSales Flats, 159
Desegregation, 147
Desmond, John J., 78
Deupree, Richard R., 115
Deutscher Staats-Verband, 87, 91
DHL, 133
Diehl, Harrison P., 33
Discrimination, 120, 145
Dixie Terminal, 102
Doctors’ Building, 102
Donabedian, Bill, 136
Douglas, Stephen, 50
Douglass League, 74
Douglass School, 73
Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI), 151
Downtown development, 125, 128
Downtown redevelopment, 122
Downtown Riverfront Development Plan, 135
Drake, Benjamin, 29
Drake, Daniel, 25, 40, 51, 115
Draper, Walter, 115
Druiding, Adolphus, 140, 141
DuBois Tower, 122
Duke Energy Children’s Museum, 5, 6, 7, 161
Duke Energy Convention Center, 151
Duncanson, Robert S., 28, 33
dunnhumby Centre, 151
Duveneck, Frank, 81
Dykstra, C. A., 102, 105, 106
E
Eagle Iron Works, 34, 46
Earls, William T., 124
East End, 107, 118, 140, 141, 157, 158
East Price Hill, 160, 161
East Price Hill National Historic District, 161
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
172
East Walnut Hills, 127, 141, 159
Eaton, Joseph Oriel, 47
Economy, 18, 28, 31, 36, 41, 43, 47, 50, 51, 95, 102,
105, 109, 117, 132, 133
Eden Park, 54, 60, 61, 152, 157
Edge of Appalachia Preserve. See Richard and Lucile
Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve
Education, 45, 59, 74, 89, 146, 147, 154
Ehrgott, Forbriger and Company, 63
Eisenman, Peter, 155
Elberon (The), 161
Elder Beerman, 149
Elm Street School, 73
Elzner, Alfred O., 72
Emery Arcade, 102
Emery Hotel, 102
Emery, John J., 40, 102, 103, 115
Emery, Mary, 92, 93, 109
Emery, Thomas, 92
Emery’s (Thomas) Sons, 72, 106
Employment, 32, 41, 59, 105, 111, 120, 121, 133,
145, 151, 153, 155
Engineering Research Center, 154
English Woods, 109
Enquirer Building, 150
Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, 152
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 134
Equal Rights, Not Special Rights, 145
Equality Cincinnati, 145
Equality Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, 145
Erd, Franz Ignatz, 141
Erkenbrecher, Andrew, 55
Eulett Center, 6, 7
Evanston, 126, 140, 141, 157
Expositions, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60
Expressways, 113, 115, 119, 125, 134, 135
F
Factories, 29, 34, 43, 50, 59, 64, 70, 73, 74, 75, 86,
96, 104, 115, 118, 123, 135, 161
Factory workers, 71, 92
Fairfield, Ohio, 142
Fairmount, 160
Fairs, 37, 41, 56, 58
Fairview, 73, 153
Fairview Civic Association, 73
Fairview Heights Civic Association, 73
Fairview Incline, 66
Fall Festival Association, 60
Fallen Timbers, Battle of. See Battle of Fallen Timbers
Falls of the Ohio, 24, 50
Farmers and Mechanics Bank, 28
Farmers’ College, 69
Farny, Henry, 35, 79, 80
Federal Building, 120
Federal government, 17, 24, 105, 109, 111, 121, 122,
124, 131, 133, 161
Federal highway act, 115
Federal Reserve Bank, 122
Federal Writers Program, 108
Federated Civic Association, 73
Federated Department Stores, 149
Federated Improvement Association, 95
Fellheimer and Wagner, 104
Fernald Feed Materials Production Center, 134
Fernbank, 69
Fernbank Dam, 60
Fest-Halle, 57
Festivals, 38, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 73, 136, 137, 144, 152
Fifth Third Bancorp, 133
Fifth Third Bank, 122, 146, 150
Fifth Third Bank Center, 122
Fifth Third Bank Theater, 150
Filson, John, 11, 16
Fire companies, 45
Fire department, 45, 46, 82, 146
Fire engines, 45
Fire protection, 45
Fireworks, 33, 43, 125, 136
First Financial Center, 150
First German Reformed Church, 141
First Lutheran Church, 140
First National Bank, 72, 133
First Unitarian Church, 140
First United Church of Christ, 141
Fisher Body plant, 108
Flatboats, 18, 19, 22
Fleischmann, Julius, 84
Flint, Timothy, 22
Flood 1884, 76, 107
Flood 1913, 107
Flood 1937, 76, 105, 106, 107, 113, 122, 126, 133,
134, 135
Floods, 64, 107, 135, 140, 141, 162
Florence, Kentucky, 142
Flour milling, 27, 29
Foraker, Joseph, 80
Ford, 142
Fort Greenville, 17
Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, 43
Fort Washington, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 36
Fort Washington Way, 129, 135, 149
Fort Wayne, Treaty of. See Treaty of Fort Wayne
Fortune 500, 132, 133
Fortune Magazine, 101
Fosdick Church of God, 140
Foucar’s Cafe, 81, 83
Foundries, 34
Fountain Place, 149
Fountain Square, 122, 124, 128, 144, 151
Fountain Square South, 125
Fourth and Walnut Centre, 72
Fourth National Bank Building, 151
Fourth Street, 63, 64, 72, 76, 80, 102, 127, 149, 151
Fragmentation, 45, 131
Frampton, Peter, 138
Franklin County, Indiana, 131
Fraternal Order of Police, 144
Fred’s Place, 80
Freestore Foodbank, 142, 143
Freie Presse, 88, 91
French Bauer, 105
Frontier, 9, 12, 14, 18, 24, 26, 29, 59
Fulton, Robert, 18
Furniture manufacturing, 33, 34, 35, 36
G
Gabriel’s Corner, 140
Gabriel’s Place, 141, 156
Gaines High School, 41
Galbreath, John, 122
Gallatin County, Kentucky, 131
Galvin, John, 95
Garber & Woodward, 94
Garber, Tweddell and Wheeler, 122
Garden of Eden, 54
Garfield Park, 75, 127
Garfield Place, 64, 102, 150
Gasoline crisis, 127
Gateway Quarter, 151
Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Greater
Cincinnati, 144
Gay rights, 144, 145
GBBN, 150
Gehry, Frank, 154, 156
Geier Collections & Research Center, 6
Geier, Frederick V., 115
General Cable, 133
General Motors, 108, 142, 157
General Pike (Steamboat), 46

General Strike of May 1886, 79
Genius of Water, 53
Gentrification, 128
German Alliance, 87
German Americans, 87, 88, 89, 91
German Austrian Hungarian Aid Society, 88
German Mutual Insurance Company, 89
German singing societies, 38, 56, 58
Germania (statue), 89
Germans, 36, 37, 38, 42, 64, 69, 70, 73, 79, 82, 83,
87, 89, 91, 108, 111
Gest, Erasmus, 49
Gibson Art Company, 59
Gilbert, Cass, 94
Gillespie, Dizzy, 136
Glencoe Place, 127
Glendale, 69
Glendale Association, 69
Glenn, Edmund R., 69
Globe Carriage Company, 75
Goettafest, 137
Goforth, William, 25
Golf Manor, 118
Good Housing Foundation, 127
Good Samaritan Hospital, 153
Goshorn, Alfred T., 56, 57
Gothard, William Harry, 88
Governor Morrow (Locomotive), 50
Graeter’s Ice Cream, 157
Gramercy on Garfield, 150
Grand Hotel, 72
Grant County, Kentucky, 131
Graves, Michael, 154, 159
Great American Ball Park, 147, 148
Great American Insurance, 143
Great American Tower, 143, 148, 150, 151
Great Depression, 96, 102, 104, 105, 108, 111
Great Lakes, 25, 47, 51
Great Miami River, 10, 11, 14, 23
Great Western Sanitary Fair, 41, 43
Greater Cincinnati Airport, 108, 123, 125
Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. See
Chamber of Commerce
Greater Cincinnati Gay and Lesbian Coalition, 144
Greater Cincinnati Waterworks, 159
Greeks, 137
Greeley, Horace, 45
Greenbelt towns, 110
Greenhills, 110, 111
Greenville, Treaty of. See Treaty of Greenville
Greenwich on the Park, 150
Greenwood, Miles, 34, 45, 46, 56
Groton Lofts, 149
Gruber, R. W., 82
Guilford, Nathan, 25
H
Hadid, Zaha, 150
Hake, Harry, 103
Halstead, Murat, 61
Hamilton County, 48, 66, 80, 100, 107, 109, 117, 131,
133, 134, 144, 147, 152, 161
Hamilton County Agricultural Society, 21, 37
Hamilton County Courthouse, 78
Hamilton County Fire Insurance Company, 89
Hamilton County Good Government League, 98
Hamilton County Jail, 77, 78
Hamilton, Ohio, 23, 48, 123, 134
Handy, T. B., 68
Hannaford, Samuel, 103, 125, 128, 152, 155
Hardin, John, 15
Harding, Chester, 25
Harkness (Anthony) & Son, 48
Harmar, Josiah, 15
Harriet Beecher Stowe Cultural Heritage District, 141
Harriet Beecher Stowe School, 73, 74
Harrison, William Henry, 16, 20, 21, 28
Hartwell, 160
Hawkins, Morton, 78
Health care, 93, 95
Health Department, 142
Hearn, Lafcadio, 64
Hebrew Union College, 38, 126, 137, 154
Hecker, Frederick, 38
Hedeen, Stanley, 134
Heintz, Victor, 98
Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, 150
Henderson Lithographing Company, 65
Herrmann, August "Garry", 80, 96
Heth, Henry, 43
Hibernian Society, 38
Hickey, Kathleen, 159
Highways, 115, 132
Hill, J. W., 33
Hilton, Agnes, 102
Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati, 137
Hirsch Recreation Center, 156
Hispanic Chamber Cincinnati USA, 137
Historic Conservation Board, 125
Historic preservation, 113, 125, 127, 135
Hoff Academic Quad, 157
Hoff, Rev. James, 157
Hogs, 26, 32, 33, 34, 35, 50
Hollister, John, 98
Holterhoff, Ralph, 102
Holy Cross Immaculata Catholic Church, 129, 140
Holy Trinity St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, 137
Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati, 157
Home building industry, 117
Home guards, 42
Home State Savings Bank, 142
Homeless, 76, 106, 107, 142, 143, 144, 162
Homosexual, 145
Hope VI (Housing Opportunities for People
Everywhere), 161
Horsecars, 66, 67
Horseshoe Casino, 151, 152
Hospitals, 41, 126, 132, 153, 154, 155, 156
Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME), 145
Housing projects, 109
Hughes High School, 73
Hughes, Thomas, 45
Human Rights Ordinance, 145
Hunt, Henry, 84, 85
Hyde Park, 84, 140, 141, 157, 159
Hyde Park Baptist Church, 140
Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church, 141
Hyde Park Square, 84
Hynicka organization, 96
Hynicka, Rudolph "Rud", 80, 85, 96, 97, 99
I
Imago, 160
Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 140
Immigrants and immigration, 31, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41,
44, 46, 64, 87, 88, 91, 92, 118, 137, 151
Improvement associations, 73
Incline Public House, 161
Incline Village, 161
Inclines, 63, 66, 115, 117
Independent Colored School System, 41, 73
Indian Hill, 119, 138
Indianapolis, 48, 50, 115, 131, 133
Indians, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 29
Indie Rock, 136
Industrial expositions, 56, 57, 58, 60
Industrialization, 59, 74, 75
Industries, 19, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
41, 50, 59, 71, 75, 79, 86, 88, 90, 91, 92, 111,
115, 117, 133
Influenza, 93, 95
Ingalls Building, 72
Institute of Museum and Library Services, 7
Integration, 73, 74, 146, 147
Interurban system, 73, 85
Irish, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 63, 64, 87, 108, 137
Iron foundry, 27, 34
Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati, 137, 141
Island Queen, 81, 112
Israelite, 38
Italian Americans, 137
Italianfest, 137
J
Jacobs, Gerhard, 38
Jarson Kaplan Theater, 150
Jazz, 136
Jews, 38, 70, 73, 118, 137, 156
John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, 65, 66, 76,
107, 126
John G. and Phyllis W. Smale Riverfront Park, 148
Jones, George, 32
Jordan Crossing, 156
Joseph A. Steger Student Life Center, 155
K
Kauffman Brewery, 151
Keelboats, 18, 22
Kemper, Andrew, 77
Kennedy Heights, 83, 117, 126, 159
Kenny G, 136
Kenton County, Kentucky, 131
Kenton, Simon, 12
Kentucky Post, 133
Kenwood Shopping Center, 118
Kessler Plan, 95, 108
Kessler, George, 95
Kilgour family, 66, 102
Kilgour, John, 65
Kilgour, John G., 47
King Records, 138
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 142
Kings Island, 112
Kirk, William, 77
Knowlton’s Corner, 71, 107
Knox Presbyterian Church, 141
Kolping Society of Cincinnati, 136
Kreling, August von, 53
Kroger, 105, 122, 133, 146
Kruse Hardware, 162
Kunzel, Erich, 152
Kwanzaa, 137
L
L&N Bridge, 136
L.S. Ayres, 149
LaBelle, Patti, 136
Labor organizations, 75, 108
Laboring class, 64
Lachey, Drew, 139
Lachey, Nick, 139
Lafayette Avenue, 69
Lafayette Guards, 42
LaHood, Ray, 162
Lake Erie, 47, 48, 151
Land speculation, 10, 26, 28
Landy, James, 56, 76, 78
Lane Theological Seminary, 40
Laskey, Posteal, 120
Latino, 137
Latta, A. B., 45
Laurel Homes, 109, 110, 111, 134, 135, 161
Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 23, 26
Lazarus, 149
League of Women Voters, 101, 102
I N D E X
1 7 3

Lebanon, Ohio, 23
LeBlond (R.K.) Machine Tool Company, 111
Leis, Simon L., Jr., 145
Lesbian, 144, 145
Lewis, Samuel, 25
Lexington, Kentucky, 11, 41, 48, 50, 115, 131
Liberty Bond Crusade, 90, 91
Licking River, 11, 15, 16
Light-rail transportation, 131
Lilienthal, Max, 38
Lillard Law, 83
Limestone, Kentucky, 10
Lincoln apartment building, 72
Lincoln Court, 109, 110, 134, 135, 161
Lincoln Terrace apartments, 92
Lindner Family Tennis Center, 139
Lindner, Carl H., Jr., 143, 156
Linwood, 140, 157
Lippincott’s Magazine, 69
Little Miami Railroad, 47, 48, 50, 51, 67
Little Miami River, 10, 11, 23, 24, 106
Little Miami River Valley, 107
Little Turtle (Miami chief), 15
Livingston, Robert, 18
Lockland, 109, 111
Locks and dams, 60, 133
Locomotives, 36, 48, 50, 67, 96
Lofts at Shillito Place, 149
Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign, 21
Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary
Art, 150
Lombardy apartments, 72
Long, Alexander, 43
Longworth Hall, 144
Longworth, Joseph, 54, 59
Longworth, Maria. See Storer, Maria Longworth Nichols
Longworth, Nicholas, 28, 53, 54, 59
Losantiville, 11, 14, 15, 16
Louisville and Portland Canal, 24
Louisville, Kentucky, 10, 19, 24, 48, 50, 52, 106,
131, 133
Low income housing, 134
Lower Price Hill, 118, 140, 160
Lower Price Hill Community School, 140
Ludlow, Israel, 11, 14, 19
Luken, Charlie, 144, 146
Lunken Airport, 11, 123
Luxottica, 143
Lynch, Rev. Damon, Jr., 142
Lyons, Ruth, 124
Lytle apartment building, 72
Lytle Greys, 78
Lytle Park, 72, 81, 124
Lytle, Robert Todd, 29
Lytle, William Haines, 42
M
Machine tools, 29, 34, 36, 37, 87, 111
Macy’s, 133, 136, 138, 149
Macy’s Music Festival, 136, 138
Mad Anthony Wayne. See Wayne, Anthony
Madeira, 109
Madison, Indiana, 48
Madisonville, 43, 102, 127, 157, 160
Madisonville Welfare Association, 102
Maifest, 136
Main Strasse, 136
Main Street Incline, 66
Mallon, Guy, 102
Mallory, Mark, 138, 162
Mansfield, Edward D., 29
Manufacturing, 23, 26, 27, 29, 33, 34, 35, 45, 46, 50,
51, 60, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 96, 111, 116, 117, 142,
157, 159
Mappes, Charles E, 22, 26
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
174
Mapplethorpe, Robert, 144, 145
Maps, 10, 14, 19, 49, 106
Mariemont, 92, 93, 110
Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, 50
Marietta, Ohio, 11
Markets, 23, 37, 41, 44, 53
Martin, I. M., 87
Martineau, Harriet, 31
Mason, Ohio, 139, 142
Masonic Temple, 102
Mass communication, 90
Mass transit, 66, 69, 71
Master Plan (1948), 114, 115, 118, 121, 122, 135, 162
Mathews, Alfred E., 42
Matthews, Samuel R., 77
Matthews, T. S., 75
Maxwell, Sidney, 60
May Festival, 58, 59, 60, 143, 152
Mayerson Jewish Community Center, 137
Mayor’s Friendly Relations Committee, 120
Mayors, 36, 82, 84, 95, 97, 101, 102, 128, 138, 144,
146, 162
Maysville, Kentucky, 9, 10, 25
McAlpin’s, 149, 151
McLaughlin, James W., 68
Meat packing, 32, 33, 35
Mecca (The), 81, 82
Medical schools, 25, 77
Medpace, 160
Meijer, 159
Memorial Hall, 152
Mercantile Library Building, 72
Mercer Commons, 151
Metalworking industries, 34
Metro government, 131
Metropole Hotel, 151
Metropolitan Master Plan, 114, 115, 134
Metropolitan Sewer District, 134
Miami Canal, 25, 26
Miami Erie Canal, 33, 37, 58, 85, 151
Miami Exporting Company, 20, 27, 28
Miami Indians, 9, 15
Miami Land Warrant, 11
Miami Purchase, 11, 15, 18, 19
Miami Purchase Association for Historic Preservation,
125
Miami slaughterhouse, 9
Miami Valley, 19, 23, 26, 32
Miami, Ohio, 14
Michael J. Conaton Learning Commons, 157, 158
Mickey Jarson Kaplan Performance Studio, 152
Middle class, 41, 69, 70, 73, 83, 110, 126, 127, 128,
134
Middleton, Strobridge and Company, 42, 43, 55, 69, 70
Middleton, Wallace and Company, 47, 48
Middletown, Ohio, 26, 123
MidPoint Music Festival, 136
Midwest Regional Black Family Reunion Celebration,
137
Milford Contaminated Aquifer, 134
Milford, Ohio, 134
Militia units, 38, 39, 42, 78, 79
Mill Creek, 103, 117, 134
Mill Creek Barrier Dam, 134
Mill Creek Center, 117
Mill Creek Interceptor Sewer, 109
Mill Creek Valley, 54, 66, 69, 70, 73, 107, 115, 123
Mill, steam. See Steam mill
Millcreek Expressway (I-75), 135
Miller, Ferdinand von, 53, 54
Millvale, 118, 120
Milward and Oldershaw, 32
Mitchell, John, 10
Model Cities program, 126
Model housing, 92
Moerlein (Christian) Brewing Co. See Christian
Moerlein Brewing Co.
Moerlein Lager House, 148
Mohawk Brewing Company, 83
Mohawk Brighton, 93, 95
Mona Bronson et al. v. Board of Education of the City School
District of the City of Cincinnati, et al., 147
Monastery (recording studio), 141
Montgomery, 117
Moore, Robert, 48
Morgan, John Hunt, 41, 43
Mormons, 142
Morris, Froome, 96
Mosby, John, 82
Mosler, Henry, 37, 82
Most Livable City Award, 146
Mount Airy Forest, 108
Mr. Republican, 101
Mt. Adams, 33, 54, 61, 62, 96, 127, 129, 140, 157,
158, 159
Mt. Adams Incline, 62, 66
Mt. Airy, 118, 160
Mt. Auburn, 66, 69, 100, 118, 126, 127, 141, 153,
154, 155
Mt. Auburn Baptist Church, 141
Mt. Auburn Incline, 66
Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church, 141
Mt. Healthy, 110
Mt. Lookout, 66, 67, 157, 159
Mt. Lookout Steam Dummy, 66, 67
Mt. Washington, 157
Mullen, Mike, 80, 81, 96
Munich, Germany, 136
Municipal Code, 145
Municipal government, 41, 80, 111, 128, 146
Murals (Robert Duncanson), 28
Murals (Winold Reiss), 86, 104, 108, 123, 125
Museum of Natural History & Science, 5, 6, 7, 161
Music Hall, 51, 53, 56, 57, 58, 60, 77, 96, 106, 125,
151, 152
Music Hall Revitalization Corporation (MHRC), 152
N
NAACP. See National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP)
Nasty Corner, 89
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), 120, 146, 147
National Church Residences, 156
National Civic League, 146
National Guard. See Ohio National Guard
National Historic Landmark, 6, 137, 156
National Historic Preservation Act, 124
National Industrial Recovery Act, 108
National Labor Relations Act, 108
National Legal Aid Association, 98
National Medal for Museum and Library Service, 7
National Municipal League, 98, 113, 127
National Register of Historic Places, 125, 127, 128
National Social Unit Organization, 93, 95
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
(NURFC), 7, 142, 148, 149, 161, 162
Nature Conservancy, 6
Neighborhood associations, 73, 153
Neighborhood development corporations, 126
Neighborhood organizations, 113, 126, 127
Neighborhoods, 70, 71, 73, 115, 117, 118, 121, 125,
126, 127, 128, 132, 140, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158,
159, 160, 162
Netherland Hotel, 104
New Deal, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113
New Jerusalem Baptist Church, 142
New Markets Tax Credit Program, 151
New Orleans (Steamboat), 18, 19, 23
New Orleans, Louisiana, 18, 19, 23, 34, 45, 49

New Sardis Primitive Baptist Church, 141
New World (Steamboat), 23
New York, 45, 52, 54, 61
Newport Barracks, 17
Newport Dump, 134
Newport, Kentucky, 17, 33, 134, 136, 137
Newspapers, 25, 26, 38, 39, 74, 77, 87, 100, 101, 133
Newtown, 107
Ney, Arthur M., Jr., 145
Nichols, George Ward, 59, 60
Nichols, Maria Longworth. See Storer, Maria
Longworth Nichols
Niles and Company, 36
Niles Works, 41
Ninth Street YMCA, 120
Nippert Stadium, 155
Nippert, Louis, 143
Nippert, Louise Dieterle, 143
North Avondale, 126, 141, 155
North Avondale Neighborhood Association, 126
North Bend, 14, 20, 21, 23
North Cincinnati Gymnasium, 89
North Cincinnati Turners, 89
Northeast Expressway (I-71), 124, 135
Northeast Hills, 117
Northern Kentucky, 69, 107, 123, 131, 132, 133,
160, 161
NorthPointe Land Company, 157
Northside, 117, 118, 127, 140, 141, 144, 160
Northwest Ordinance, 11
Northwest Territory, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20,
24, 29
Norwood, 70, 71, 73, 83, 85, 92, 107, 108, 118, 123,
140, 142, 157
Notman, John, 55
Nuclear weapons, 134
O
O’Bryonville, 157, 159
O’Jays (The), 136, 138
Oakley, 85, 92, 142, 157, 159, 160
Official City Plan of 1925, 95, 96, 104, 105, 111, 113
Ohio Canal, 25
Ohio Female College, 69, 70
Ohio Grove, 112
Ohio Mechanics’ Institute, 27, 50, 55, 56, 62, 64
Ohio Medical College, 25
Ohio National Guard, 78, 120
Ohio Ninth Regiment, 38, 42
Ohio River, 9, 11, 14, 18, 31, 39, 43, 47, 48, 50, 60,
65, 76, 95, 106, 112, 133
Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission
(ORSANCO), 133
Ohio Second Regiment, 42
Ohio State Highway Patrol, 144
Ohio Tenth Regiment, 38, 42
Ohio Valley Exposition, 60
Ohio Valley Improvement Association, 60
Ohio Valley Jazz Festival, 136
OKI (Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of
Governments), 131
Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, 136
Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 140, 141
Old Tippecanoe. See William Henry Harrison
Olmsted, Frederick Law, 35
Omnibuses, 65, 66, 67
Omnicare, 133
One Lytle Place, 123, 136, 148
Onken, Otto, 32
ORSANCO. See Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation
Commission (ORSANCO)
Otto M. Budig Academy, 152
Our Lady of Loretta Catholic Church, 140
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, 140
Over-the-Rhine, 37, 39, 64, 79, 81, 83, 87, 118, 125,
126, 127, 131, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144, 149, 150,
151, 152, 153, 162
P
Paddock Hills, 126, 127, 155
Palmer, Joseph, 77
Panegyri Greek Festival, 137
Panic of 1819, 27, 28
Panic of 1837, 21, 47
Panic of 1873, 75
Parker, James H., 112
Parker, Sarah Jessica, 138
Parks, 53, 54, 55, 60, 75, 95, 123
Parkways, 95
Patterson, Robert, 11, 14
Paul Brown Stadium, 136, 138, 148
Peebles Corner, 71
Pendleton County, Kentucky, 131
Pendleton, George H., 43
Peters Cartridge Factory, 134
Phelps apartments, 102
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 9, 11, 14, 30, 54, 55, 56, 57
Philanthropist (The), 39
Philanthropy, 55, 92, 100, 143
Philip Carey Manufacturing Company. See Carey
(Philip) Manufacturing Company
Philippus United Church of Christ, 140
Phillips, Robert C., 69
Phillips, Wilbur C., 93
Piatt, John H., 28
Pickering, Ernest, 117
Pike’s Opera House, 43
Piket, Louis, 140
Pill Hill, 153
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 18, 23, 34, 49, 60, 66, 131,
133
Places Rated Almanac, 146
Plan Cincinnati, 162
Pleasant Ridge, 69, 73, 117, 157, 159
Pleasant Ridge Evangelical Lutheran Church, 73
Pleasant Ridge Hotel, 73
Pleasant Ridge Welfare Association, 73
Plum Street Temple, 137
PNC Bank, 133
PNC Tower, 94, 96
Pogue’s, 149
Police force, 41, 45, 75, 76, 78, 82, 106, 120, 121,
144, 145, 146, 156
Political machine, 63, 97, 98, 102
Politics, 39, 63, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 98, 102
Pollution, 96, 133
Pontoon bridge, 42, 43
Poole, William F., 53, 54
Population, 31, 39, 41, 47, 63, 70, 87, 95, 105, 118,
131, 135, 146; 1820, 19; 1826, 29; 1840, 37;
1850, 33, 37; 1860, 46, 63; 1880, 51; 1900, 51;
1920, 91; 1930, 102; 1950, 146; 1970, 128; 1980,
128; 1990, 131; 2010, 131, 146
Pork packing, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 50
Porkopolis, 32, 33, 50, 57
Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, 156
Porter, Jennie D., 73, 74
Portsmouth, Ohio, 25
Post office, 96, 109
Posters, 90, 111
Pottery, 59
Poverty, 42, 64, 142, 162
Powell, Lee Etta, 146
Powers, Hiram, 28, 29
Price Hill, 66, 69, 120, 127, 140, 141, 160
Price Hill Church of the Nazarene, 141
Price Hill Incline, 66
Price Hill Will, 160
Pride Parade, 144, 146
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 140
Pristine Inc., 134
Probasco, Henry, 53, 54, 68
Procter & Gamble, 71, 111, 115, 122, 125, 133, 146,
150, 156, 157
Procter & Gamble Cincinnati Major League Baseball
(MLB) Urban Youth Academy, 157
Procter & Gamble Hall, 150
Progressive reformers, 83
Prohibition, 82, 83, 84, 91
Propaganda, 21, 40, 89, 90
Prophet (The), 20
Proportional representation, 99, 102
Prospect Hill, 127
Provident Bank, 133
Public housing, 101, 109, 118, 134, 135, 159, 161
Public Landing, 30, 47, 76, 123, 133
Public Library, 89, 96, 122, 150
Public schools, 25, 73, 89, 91
Public transportation, 67, 131
Public Works Administration, 108, 109
Purcell, Bishop John Baptist, 39
Purple People Bridge, 136
PWA. See Public Works Administration
Pyro Garden, 33
Q
Queen City Blues Fest, 136
Queen City Club, 102
Queen City Jockey Club, 87
Queen City of the West, 29, 31, 47, 133
Queen City Trotting Park, 37
T
R&B, 136
Race relations, 120
Race riots. See Riots
Radio stations, 116
Railroads, 31, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 70, 96, 103, 107,
125, 161
Rapid transit system, 85, 96
Re, Vince, 125, 126, 129, 148
Reading Road, 118, 120, 121, 147, 155, 156, 157
Reading, Ohio, 33, 134
Real-estate speculation. See Land speculation
Recession of 1938, 105
Recession of 2008, 143, 149
Recording studio, 141
Red Stockings. See Cincinnati Red Stockings
Redevelopment, 114, 122, 124, 127, 147, 148, 150,
151, 155, 156, 160
Redland Field, 116
Reds Community Fund, 156
Reeder, Sherwood, 115
Reform administrations, 83, 84, 85
Reform Judaism, 38, 137
Reform movement, 98, 102
Reiss, Winold, 86, 104
Republican machine, 96
Republican Party, 44, 74, 81, 84, 85, 98, 101, 102
Resettlement Administration, 110
Rhiney, Sean, 136
Richard and Lucile Durrell Edge of Appalachia
Preserve, 6
Richard E. Lindner Athletic Center and Varsity
Village, 155
Richardson, John G., 48
Richmond, Kentucky, 42
Riddle, John, 69
Riots, 41, 78, 79, 120, 121, 144, 146, 156
River City Correctional Center, 162
River Downs, 159
River Road, 125, 126
River traffic, 51, 133
Riverbend Music Center, 159
Riverfest, 125, 136
I N D E X
1 7 5

Riverfront, 14, 33, 41, 64, 80, 113, 114, 115, 122,
123, 124, 127, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 147, 148,
149, 150, 151, 162
Riverfront Coliseum, 123, 136
Riverfront redevelopment, 114, 124
Riverfront Stadium, 123, 136, 147, 148
Riverside, 126
Riverside Civic and Welfare Club, 126
Riverview East Academy, 158
Roads, 23
Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX® Theater, 6, 161
Robert S. Marx Theatre, 158
Robertson, Oscar, 121
Rock Ohio Caesars, 151
Roebling, John A., 65
Rogers, Thomas, 50
Rollman and Sons Company, 118
Roman Catholic Church, 39, 137
Rombach and Groene, 78
Rookwood Commons, 157
Rookwood Pavilion, 157
Rookwood Pottery, 59, 96
Rose, Charles O., 102
Roselawn, 117, 118, 155, 156, 157
Roselawn Park, 157
Rosenberg, Louis Conrad, 103
Rosenthal, George, 116
Rover Guards, 42
Royal Bronze Foundry of Bavaria, 53
Rubel’s Bakery, 105
Rural cemeteries, 54
S
Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 137, 140, 161
Saengerfest, 38, 56, 57, 58
Saengerfest Hall, 56
Saks Fifth Avenue, 149
Salem United Church of Christ, 140
Salmar, Fred. B., 82
Saloons, 39, 64, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 91
Samuel Ach School, 120
San Marco apartments, 159
San Rafael apartments, 72
Sängerchor, 136
Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky, 134
Santangelo, Dino, 136
Savings and loan associations, 87, 110, 133, 142
Sawyer Point, 123, 136, 137
Sayler Park, 148
Schmidlapp, Jacob, 91, 92, 109
Schmidt, Walter S., 115
Schneller, Fred, 96
Schoenberger, Geo. K., 68
School for the Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA),
138, 139, 152, 153
School of Design, 59, 61
Schreiber (L.) & Sons Company, 75, 77
Schützenfest, 136
Schwaab, John, 87
Scott, Jacob, 31
Scripps, 133, 150
Scripps Center, 150
Scudder, William, 73
Seasongood, Murray, 98, 99, 102
Second Bank of the United States, 28, 32
Sedamsville, 126, 140
Segal, Al, 97
Segoe, Ladislas, 121
Segregation, 73, 74, 89, 110, 120, 143, 147
Semple, Louise Taft, 100
Semple, William T., 101
Serpentine Wall, 123
Seventh Presbyterian Church, 141
Sewerage, 41, 73, 82, 83, 84, 134
Sharonville, 118
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
176
Sharpsburg, 70
Shawnee Indians, 9, 17, 20
Sherrill, C. O., 102, 105
Shillito, John, 68
Shillito’s, 105, 149
Shoe manufacturing, 75
Shopping centers, 117, 118, 121, 156, 157, 159
Shriners Hospitals for Children, 153
Shuttlesworth, Rev. Fred L., 142
Silverton, 117
Sinton, Anna. See Taft, Anna Sinton
Sinton, David, 100
Sinton-Taft family, 72
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 150
Skinner Landfill, 134
Skyscraper district, 72
Skywalk, 122
Slavery, 39, 40
Slum clearance, 109, 134, 147
SmartMoney Community Services, 143
Smith Hall, 157
Smith, Kirby, 42
Smith, Leonard, 98
Smoke Abatement League, 96
Smoke inspector, 96
Soap manufacturing, 33, 111
Social reform, 95
Social services, 45, 95
Society of St. Pius X, 140
Society of St. Vincent de Paul, 143
Society of the Cincinnati, 15, 16
Sohn (J. G.) & Co., 83
Solway, Carl, 123
Sonntag, William Louis, 9
South Avondale, 126
South Cumminsville, 140, 160
South Fairmount, 141
South Kensington Museum, 60, 61
Southern Railroad. See Cincinnati Southern Railroad
Spaghetti Knob, 137
Spencer, Donald, 143
Spencer, Marian, 143, 147
Spring Grove Cemetery, 41, 54, 55
Spring Grove Village, 153
Springer, Reuben, 58
Squirrel hunters, 43
St. Andrew Catholic Church, 140
St. Bernard, 70, 83
St. Bonaventure Catholic Church, 141
St. Clair, Arthur, 15, 16, 17, 18
St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, 140
St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 140, 159
St. George Catholic Church, 140, 155
St. Lawrence Catholic Church, 140
St. Louis, Missouri, 23, 30, 46, 131, 133
St. Mark Catholic Church, 140
St. Mary Catholic Church. See Old St. Mary's Catholic
Church
St. Matthew Catholic Church, 140
St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church, 141
St. Michael Catholic Church, 140
St. Nicholas Hotel, 72
St. Patrick Catholic Church, 140
St. Patrick’s Day Parade, 137
St. Paul Catholic Church, 140
St. Paul’s German Evangelical Protestant Church, 152
St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, 140
St. Pius Catholic Church, 140
St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 140, 141
St. Xavier Catholic Church, 140
Staats-Verband. See Deutscher Staats-Verband
Stadiums, 109, 115, 123, 135, 147, 148
Stanton Ave. Church of the Nazarene, 141
Steam dummy. See Mt. Lookout Steam Dummy
Steam engines, 27, 29, 34, 47
Steam mill, 27
Steamboat construction and repair, 19, 34
Steamboats, 18, 19, 23, 24, 29, 31, 34, 46, 47, 49, 50,
96, 112, 133
Steele Sub, 70
Steele, Charles M., 70
Steffens, Lincoln, 81, 82
Stern, Ed, 157
Stites, Benjamin, 10, 11
Stock-market crash, 102
Storer, Bellamy, 39, 59
Storer, Maria Longworth Nichols, 59
Stouffer’s, 122
Stowe School. See Harriet Beecher Stowe School
Stowe, Calvin E., 40
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 40, 73, 141
Strader, Jacob, 47
Strategies to End Homelessness, 144
Strauch, Adolph, 54, 55
Street railway, 66, 85
Streetcars, 65, 66, 71, 79, 135, 162
Streets, 14, 37, 67, 73, 82, 89, 96, 97, 98, 102, 115,
121, 126, 134
Streicher, Tom, 146
Strikes, 63, 75, 79, 108
Strobridge and Company, 16, 66
Strobridge Lithographing Company, 58, 60
Strong Mayor system, 138, 146
Student Recreation Center, 155
Suburbs, 67, 69, 70, 71, 82, 83, 85, 96, 113, 117,
118, 119, 123, 125, 127, 131, 133, 134, 140,
146, 147, 162
Subway, 85
Suspension Bridge. See John A. Roebling
Suspension Bridge
Swifton Commons Shopping Center, 156
Swifton Village Shopping Center, 118
Swormstedt, Tod, 161
Symmes, Anna, 20
Symmes, John Cleves, 10, 11, 14, 15, 20
Synagogues, 38, 73, 137, 142, 156
T
Tafel, Gustav, 83, 84
Taft Broadcasting Company, 101
Taft family, 72, 100, 104
Taft Museum of Art, 27, 72, 100, 101, 150
Taft Theatre, 150
Taft, Alphonso, 100, 101
Taft, Anna Sinton, 100, 101
Taft, Charles Phelps, 60, 100, 101, 102
Taft, Charles Phelps, II, 101, 102, 124
Taft, Fanny Phelps, 100
Taft, Harry, 100
Taft, Horace, 100
Taft, Hulbert, 100, 101
Taft, Hulbert, Jr., 101
Taft, Louise Torrey, 100
Taft, Matilda, 101
Taft, Peter Rawson, 100, 101
Taft, Robert A., 98, 101
Taft, Robert, Jr., 101
Taft, William Howard, 100, 101, 154
Tall Stacks, 130, 136
Tangeman University Center, 155
Target, 159
Taste of Cincinnati, 137
Tawney, Marietta, 102
Taylor, Fred, 102
Tecumseh, 20, 21
Television broadcasting, 124
Tenement housing, 91, 92, 109, 111, 115
Tennis, 119, 139
Terrace Hilton, 122
Thames, Battle of the. See Battle of the Thames

Third Street Distributor, 115, 121, 135
Thomas Emery's Sons. See Emery's (Thomas) Sons
Thomas, Theodore, 57, 58
Thomas, Timothy, 144
Times-Star Building, 103, 104
Tina Deal v. Cincinnati Board of Education, 147
Tippecanoe, Battle of. See Battle of Tippecanoe
TJ Maxx, 149
Toledo, Ohio, 17, 25, 91, 151
Tome, Brian, 142
Topography, 64, 115, 131
Towboats, 133
Tower Place Mall, 149
Townhouses, 72
Toyota, 133
Trade fairs, 56
Trade unions, 108, 120
Transgendered, 144, 145
Transit Company. See Cincinnati Transit Company
Transportation, 18, 19, 23, 25, 31, 46, 47, 48, 50, 63,
65, 66, 72, 84, 115
Treaties, 9, 10, 15, 17, 20
Treaty of Fort Wayne, 20
Treaty of Greenville, 15, 17
Tri-County Shopping Center, 118
Trinity Methodist Church, 141
Trolleys, 63, 66, 107
Trollope, Frances, 34, 35
Tryed Stone Community and Family Development
Center, 157
Tuchfarber (F.) and Company, 48, 83
Turner, Bailey, 126
Turner, E. Robert, 127
Turnpikes, 23, 48
Turnverein, 38
Tusculum. See Columbia Tusculum
Twain’s Point, 158
Tyler Davidson Fountain, 5, 53, 54, 122, 128
U
U Square @ the Loop, 155, 156
UC Cancer Institute, 153
UC Health, 153
UC Medical Center, 153
UC Physicians, 153
UC West Chester Hospital, 153
Uncle Joe Ross, 45
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 40
Underground Railroad, 7, 39, 148
Unemployment, 44, 81, 96, 105, 111, 117, 121,
143, 162
Union (The), 74
Union Central Building, 94, 96
Union Cricket Club, 52
Union Savings Bank and Trust Company, 72
Union School Board, 45
Union Terminal. See Cincinnati Union Terminal
Unions, 108, 120, 125
United Automobile Workers, 108
United City Planning Committee, 95
United Mine Workers, 108
United Paperworkers International Union, 108
United States Agricultural Fair, 37
United States Army Corps of Engineers, 134
United States Centennial Exposition, 56, 57
United States Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), 161
United States Department of Justice, 144
United States Playing Card Company, 70, 111
United States Sanitary Commission, 41
University Heights, 153
University of Cincinnati, 25, 84, 98, 100, 109, 121,
126, 131, 132, 149, 153, 154, 155, 156, 160, See
also UC
University Park, 155
University Pavilion, 155
University Station, 157
Upper-class, 64, 69
Upson Report, 99
Upson, Lent D., 99
UpTech, 132
Uptown, 141, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 162
Uptown Church, 141
Uptown Consortium, 156
Urban League of Greater Cincinnati, 156
Urban planning, 95, 110, 115, 127
Urban renewal, 134, 135
Urban Walls, Cincinnati, 123
US Bank, 133, 136, 148
US Bank Arena, 136, 148
V
Vandross, Luther, 136
Verdin Company, 140
Vernon Manor Hotel, 156
Vesta (Steamboat), 19
Victory Parkway, 95
Village at Stetson Square, 155
Villages of Daybreak, 157
Vision 2015, 132
Vogt, Louis Charles, 62
Volksblatt, 38, 88, 89, 91
Volunteer fire companies, 45
Vontz Center for Molecular Studies, 154, 156
W
Walker, Timothy, 22, 25
Walking city, 63, 64, 72
Wallace Woods, 69
Wallace, Lew, 42, 43
Walnut Hills, 40, 69, 70, 71, 73, 92, 118, 120, 121,
127, 140, 141, 157, 159
Walnut Hills Avondale United Methodist Church, 141
Walnut Hills Evangelical Lutheran Church, 141
Walnut Hills Presbyterian Church, 141
Walter, Henry, 140
Walter, William, 140
War of 1812, 20, 28
Ward boss, 79, 80
Warren County, Ohio, 119, 131
Washington Park, 57, 151, 152
Washington Terrace, 92
Washington, Grover, 136
Washington, Kentucky, 10
Water supply, 83
Waterworks, 54, 82, 84, 107
Watson, Luman, 28
Wayne, Anthony, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20
Webber, Charles T., 39
Weeks, Hazel, 111
Wein, George, 136
Weinzapfel, Leers, 155
Weiss, Leah, 105
Wesley Chapel, 125
West Chester, Ohio, 134, 137, 141, 153
West End, 48, 64, 70, 73, 74, 109, 110, 115, 118, 120,
126, 133, 134, 135, 141, 143, 144, 155, 160, 161,
162
West Price Hill, 160
Western & Southern Financial Group, 133, 139
Western Hills, 119
Western Hills Country Club, 119
Western Hills Shopping Center, 118
Western Museum, 28
Western Riverwalk, 148
Western Spy, 25
Westmoreland, Carl, 127
Weston Art Gallery, 150
Westwood, 119, 141, 160
Westwood First Presbyterian Church, 141
Westwood Town Hall, 160
Westwood United Methodist Church, 141
Whalen, Lawrence E., 145
Whigs, 21
Whirl and Twirl, 139
White, John H., Jr., 50
Whitewater Canal, 26
Wielert’s, 79, 80, 81, 84
Wild, John Caspar, 30, 31
Wilder, Kentucky, 134
William Howard Taft National Historic Site, 101, 154
Williams College of Business, 157, 158
Williams, Caroline, 125
Williams, Micajah Terrell, 25
Wilson, James K., 137
Winton Place, 37, 69, 117, 153
Winton Terrace, 109
Wise, Isaac M., 38
WLW, 116, 124
Woman’s City Club, 95, 102
Women's Art Museum Association, 28, 60, 61
Women's employment, 35, 41, 59, 75, 90
Women's suffrage movement, 101, 102
Wooden Shoe Hollow, 69
Woodruff, William, 21
Woodward High School, 153
Woodward, Abigail, 45
Woodward, William, 45
Workhouse, 125, 162
Working class, 42, 84, 91, 92, 93, 118, 126
Working in Neighborhoods (WIN), 140
Works Progress Administration, 105, 106, 107,
108, 111
World Choir Games, 136, 139
World War I, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 98, 108, 111
World War II, 96, 111, 113, 116, 125, 133, 134, 162
Worth, Gorham, 28
WPA. See Works Progress Administration
Wright Aeronautical Plant, 111
Wright, Gary, 145
Wright, Harry, 52
Wyandot Indians, 9
Wynnburne Park, 119
Wyoming, 107
X
Xavier University, 157, 158
Y
Year 2000 Plan, 128
Yeatman’s Cove, 123, 136, 137
Young Men’s Blaine Clubs, 80
Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association, 49
Z
Zappenfeld, Victor, 16
Ziegler, David, 36, 37
Zoning, 96, 119
Zoo. See Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
Zoological Society of Cincinnati, 55
Zouave Guards, 42
I N D E X
1 7 7

Panorama of the Cincinnati skyline, 2013.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
178

SHARING THE HERITAGE
H i s t o r i c p r o f i l e s o f b u s i n e s s e s ,
o r g a n i z a t i o n s , a n d f a m i l i e s t h a t h a v e
c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e d e v e l o p m e n t a n d
e c o n o m i c b a s e o f C i n c i n n a t i — T h e Q u e e n C i t y
The Marketplace .........................................................................1 8 0
Quality of Life ...........................................................................2 1 2
Building a Greater Cincinnati .......................................................2 2 0
S H A R I N G T H E H E R I T A G E
1 7 9

C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
180

THE MARKETPLACE
C i n c i n n a t i ’ s r e t a i l a n d
c o m m e r c i a l e s t a b l i s h m e n t s o f f e r
a n i m p r e s s i v e v a r i e t y o f c h o i c e s
Cincom Systems, Inc. .................................................................1 8 2
Habegger Corporation ................................................................1 8 6
Western & Southern Financial Group ............................................1 8 8
Castellini Group of Companies .....................................................1 9 0
Crowne Plaza Cincinnati Blue Ash ................................................1 9 2
Cintas Corporation ....................................................................1 9 4
The Mariemont Inn ....................................................................1 9 6
Ohio National Financial Services .................................................1 9 8
The Cincinnatian Hotel ..............................................................2 0 0
Heidelberg Distributing Company .................................................2 0 2
Ransohoff .................................................................................2 0 3
Cincinnati Financial Corporation .................................................2 0 4
J. D. Cloud & Co. ......................................................................2 0 5
Martin Franchises Inc. ...............................................................2 0 6
Wood Herron & Evans LLP ..........................................................2 0 7
A. J. Rahn Greenhouses, Inc. .......................................................2 0 8
Cadre Computer Resources ..........................................................2 0 9
Bartlett & Co............................................................................2 1 0
The Banks mixed-use residential and
commercial project (center) with the
Scripps Center (left), and the Great
American Tower (right).
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 8 1

CINCOM
SYSTEMS, INC.
Right: Cincom World Headquarters in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Below: During the 1970s, Cincom
TOTAL became the best-selling database
management system in the market.
Bottom: Thomas M. Nies, Cincom’s founder
and CEO, c. 1970. “It was at IBM that
I first fell in love with software when
I realized it made all the difference.”
In 1968, Thomas M. Nies founded Cincom
Systems, Inc., on his belief that software was the
future of the information technology industry.
Today this Cincinnati-based company with
offices on five continents is one of the largest
international independent software companies
in the world—providing innovative, integrated
software solutions that simplify complex
business processes. On average, Cincom
customers realize a profit of $30 to $50 from
every dollar they invest in Cincom software.
Because of this high return on investment and
the long lifecycles of the company’s software,
many clients have remained with Cincom for
more than forty years.
In 1962, after college graduation from the
University of Cincinnati (where he also
obtained his master’s degree), Nies began his
professional life as an IBM salesman. It was
here that he first saw the tremendous potential
of software as the “driver” for the computers
IBM was selling. However, in the 1960s
IBM was giving software away—free—with
the purchase of computer systems. When
IBM failed to share his belief in the value of
selling software separately from the hardware,
Nies struck out on his own. Two others from
IBM, Claude Bogardus and Tom Richley, soon
joined him in this great adventure, and they
founded Cincom in 1968.
Little did these men know at the time that
they were on the forefront of what was to
explode into the software industry—or that
software would soon eclipse hardware as the
driving force of the larger computer revolution.
Initially the fledgling
company provided technical
support to clients
struggling to implement
computer systems. As it
turned out, most of the
companies were primarily
having problems with
data management and the
trio found that they were
resolving the same issues
over and over. They
decided they could
improve efficiency and
reduce the cost to the
customer by developing a
program that would take care of the data
management issues they were encountering.
So they ended up working days for the clients
they already had under contract and nights
on research and development for this new
product: TOTAL. During the 1970s, Cincom
TOTAL became the best-selling database
management system in the market.
Cincinnati may have seemed an unlikely
birthplace for a high-tech computer software
company. However, it really was not so surprising
when you consider that the city was no
more than an hour and a half away from
70 to 80 percent of the manufacturing and support
resources used by America’s industries.
Within this so-called “rust belt” was a heavy
concentration of Fortune 100 clients.
Additionally, because of the close
proximity of several colleges and universities,
the company was able to recruit top
graduates. And since Cincinnati’s cost of
living was tremendously favorable compared
with New York or Los Angeles, the best and
brightest flocked to Cincom and made
Cincinnati their home. According to Nies, “In
retrospect, we couldn’t have picked a better
city to be in than Cincinnati.”
Cincinnati had nurtured the young software
company to the place where they could now
think about geographical expansion. In 1971,
Cincom opened its first international office
in Canada. Then, in 1972, Cincom became the
first U.S. software firm to enter the European
market with offices near London and in
Brussels. The same year the company also
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
182

expanded into South America with an office
in Brazil. And, in 1974, Cincom was the first
American software firm to recognize the
importance of the Asia/Pacific markets and
opened an office in Australia, followed by
Japan in 1978. Today, the company has offices
in sixteen countries around the world.
In the early 1970s, Nies predicted that the
software industry would become so important
to the national economy that presidents would
confer with the leaders of the industry. And,
indeed, in 1982, Cincom became the first software
firm to receive the President’s “E” award
for superior performance in increasing
exports. Then, on August 20, 1984, during a
speech in Cincinnati’s downtown Fountain
Square, U.S. President Ronald Reagan recognized
Cincom and Nies as “the epitome of the
entrepreneurial spirit of American business.”
Nies himself had fulfilled his own prediction.
and practices that they are recognizable
anywhere. An early Cincom agent in Italy put
it this way: “Regardless of personal style, all
Cincom people seem to have the same basic
values. The company has survived when
times got tough because of this unique mix
of respect, based on trust, mutual regard,
and loyalty.”
A good part of the reason for Cincom’s
longevity in an industry fraught with “shooting
stars,” is this unique mix, along with
a near missionary zeal in representing the
company and its products. One of Cincom’s
employees observed that, “There’s a spiritual
element to working here. Something almost
undefinable that has a lot to do with Tom
Nies’ ‘lengthened shadow.’ Here, there’s a
great commitment to doing what’s right.”
During Cincom’s first fifteen years (1968-
1983), software became one of the fastest
growing industries in the world. But while the
Above: Tom Nies receiving the
President’s “E-Star” award for continued
export excellence.
Left: Nies with U.S. President Ronald
Reagan, after a speech in which the
president lauded Cincom “as the epitome of
the entrepreneurial spirit of American
business,” 1984.
Below: Tom Nies at the Concorde reception
at the Greater Cincinnati Northern
Kentucky International Airport in 1988.
In 1988, Cincom celebrated its twentieth
anniversary—and Cincinnati’s bicentennial—
by bringing a British Airways Concorde
supersonic jet to Cincinnati, carrying seventy
Cincom customers from ten European countries.
A local radio station, 55KRC, broadcast
the five low-altitude “fly-bys” that Cincom
had arranged for the people of Cincinnati.
In a newspaper interview, Nies said, “We are
proud to share with Cincinnati this kind of
high technology, which is leading us into the
twenty-first century.”
Every company has a culture. But Cincom
has what has been called a mystique—a
uniqueness that so clearly defines its people
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 8 3

industry as a whole grew about twenty-five
fold during this time, Cincom grew to nearly
500 times its original size. And then, in 1990,
for the first time, American investments in
software surpassed those made in hardware.
Nies’ belief in the value of software had been
well placed: software had officially eclipsed
hardware in the marketplace.
Then in 1993, the U.S. Defense Information
Systems Agency designated Cincom as its
“vendor of choice.” This was the first time the
U.S. government had ever specified a single
vendor’s products as the standard.
By 1995, Cincom’s development had mirrored—and
surpassed—the emergence and
expansion of the industry of which it was a
part. It was fitting then, that the Smithsonian
Institution visited Cincom at that time for a
video interview with Nies regarding Cincom’s
role in the evolution of the computer software
industry. Today, Nies is featured alongside
other IT leaders such as Bill Gates (Microsoft),
Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Steve Jobs (Apple),
in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian
Institution’s Computer History Collection.
Still active today in the day-to-day operations
of the company he founded, Nies is
officially the longest actively-serving CEO in
the entire computer industry. His dream of
selling computer software separately from
hardware revolutionized the way computers
and their components were sold, and pioneered
the software industry.
Cincom continues to make history. In 2004,
Nies won the Ernst & Young Technology
Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Former
national winners include Steve Case (AOL),
Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and David Filo (Yahoo!).
In 2005, along with the CEO of Adobe, Nies
won the International Stevie Award for Best
Executive—“the business world’s own Oscars,”
according to the New York Post. And in 2006,
the year he was named as one of the Top Ten
Top: Dr. David K. Allison with the
Smithsonian Institution and Thomas M.
Nies, 1995. Nies is featured in the
Smithsonian as one of the “pioneers of the
computer industry.”
Above: An early Cincom ad, featuring then
eight year old Eric Nies.
Right: Tom Nies’ sons, Eric, left, and
Tom Nies, Jr., right, share their father’s love
of software. Both hold positions in the
company today.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
184

IT Visionaries by START-IT magazine, Nies
addressed the United Nations on the topic of
maximizing technology investments through
innovative simplification.
In 2008 the Cincom mystique was further
examined in a case study published by the
Harvard Business School. These studies are
used by many business schools around the
world to present MBA students with realworld
business issues and problems. Unique
about this study, however, was that the
students were able to ask Nies some hard
questions about his decisions—in person.
This opportunity rarely happens because by
the time most companies become the subjects
of Harvard Business Review (HBR) cases,
founders have typically long since retired.
That same year, Cincom’s fortieth anniversary
was recognized in an unusual way. Nies
thanked Cincom’s customers and employees
for “forty years of impossible dreaming in
the software industry” on large screens in
New York City’s Times Square, as well as
in Las Vegas.
In 2010, Nies launched an entrepreneurial
leadership website to provide ideas, inspirations,
insights and information to help tomorrow’s
entrepreneurial leaders. And, in 2012,
Nies received the Carl H. Lindner Award
for Outstanding Business Achievement at the
twenty-seventh annual Cincinnati Business
Achievement Awards.
The world has changed drastically since
Cincom was founded in 1968. The pace of
business continues to accelerate at a rapid
rate, with new technologies being introduced
every day. But some things do not change:
Cincom has always defined its success by the
success of its clients.
Cincom clients represent a range of markets,
including financial services and insurance,
manufacturing, healthcare, energy and
utilities, retail, telecommunications, as well as
nonprofit and government agencies. By providing
high value at low cost and low risk,
along with a rapid return on investment,
Cincom’s problem-solving software continues
to help thousands of companies all over the
world grow and manage their businesses.
Top, left: Tom Nies at the Harvard Business
School, 2008.
Top, right: Tom Nies addressing the
United Nations, 2006.
Below: In 2008, Nies thanked Cincom
customers and employees for “Forty years
of impossible dreaming in the software
industry” on large screens in
New York City’s Times Square.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 8 5

HABEGGER
CORPORATION
Above: The second generation of
Habeggers—Tom Habegger, Sue Frey,
Fred Habegger and Jim Habegger.
Below: O. F. Habegger—The Habegger
Corporation’s founder.
The Habegger dream began in 1952 when
Fred Habegger, Sr., a former sales manager for
the Bryant HVAC distributor in Pittsburgh,
purchased the Bryant distribution office
in Cincinnati.
Habegger was an outstanding salesman but
his longtime dream was to have a business
of his own. When he heard that the Bryant
distributorship in Cincinnati was for sale
he jumped at the opportunity and the Bryant
Gas Heating Company had a new owner.
Money was tight and business was difficult
in the early days, but Fred was soon able to
capitalize on the boom years of the 1950s
as homeowners converted from coal to gas
and new suburban neighborhoods created a
strong demand for his products.
The core values that have guided the
Habegger Corporation over the years were
forged during those early days. Fred’s main
focus was to work closely with his customers
and develop a strong personal as well as business
relationship. Customers soon became
loyal friends.
In 1963 the name of the company was
changed to the Bryant-Habegger Company
when Fred, Jr., newly graduated from the
College of Business at the University of
Cincinnati, joined his father in the business.
Tragedy struck a year later when Fred, Sr.,
came down with a virus that damaged the
muscles of his heart. He eventually returned to
work but never regained the stamina that had
enabled him to build the business. He died on
July 20, 1970, at the young age of fifty-one.
By this time, another son, Jim, had joined his
brother Fred, Jr., in the business and it was not
long before two more Habeggers were on board;
brother Tom and sister Sue Habegger Frey.
Despite their relative inexperience, the
young Habeggers, all University of Cincinnati
graduates, found that their talents complemented
each other and the four moved quickly
to build on their father’s legacy.
In 1972 the company moved from the
cramped Blue Rock Avenue location to a
much larger and more modern facility on
Winton Road. Fred, Jr., was now president of
the company, Jim was operations manager,
Tom was Dayton sales manager, and Sue was
the company’s controller.
The Habeggers began their expansion phase
in 1980 when they purchased the Bryant
distributorship in Columbus, Ohio. This was
their first foray outside their father’s original
territory and it made for some nervous
moments. However, they soon found out
that the Habegger style of developing strong
personal—as well as business—relationships
with their customers had a universal quality and
the Columbus branch soon became one of the
most successful Bryant territories in the country.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
186

Their success in Columbus soon had the
Habeggers looking for additional opportunities
and this led to a period of unprecedented
growth as follows:
• 1982, acquisition of Bryant Branch
Operations, Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1984, new office and warehouse facility,
Dayton, Ohio.
• 1987, acquisition of Carrier Branch
Operations, Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio.
• 1989, new office and warehouse facility,
Lima, Ohio.
• 1990, new Carrier office and warehouse
facility, Cincinnati, Ohio.
• 1992, new Carrier office and parts center,
Dayton, Ohio.
• 1995, acquisition of Bryant Operations in all
of Kentucky and Indiana.
• 1996, new office and warehouse facilities
in Columbus, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Indiana;
and Florence, Kentucky.
• 1997, new office and warehouse facility,
Lexington, Kentucky.
• 1998, new office and warehouse facilities
in Indianapolis and Evansville, Indiana.
• 1999, new HVAC store in Zanesville.
• 2000, new HVAC store in Chillicothe, Ohio.
• 2001, new HVAC stores in Cincinnati,
South Bend, Bowling Green, Evansville,
and Southport.
• 2002, new HVAC stores in Lafayette,
Indiana and Sandusky, Ohio.
With the purchase of the Carrier operations
in 1980 the company name was
changed to the Habegger Corporation.
In 2002 the company celebrated its fiftieth
anniversary. The second generation of
Habeggers had taken their father’s business
from $1.5 million in 1970 to over $135
million in 2002. It was now time for the
third generation of Habegger family members
to make their mark.
In November 2002 Fred, Jr., stepped
down as company CEO and was succeeded
by interim CEO John Dorr. John would
lead the company for the next thirteen
years and continue the pattern of customer
service and geographical expansion. During
his tenure the company would open
additional locations in Illinois, Iowa,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Northern
Ohio, and annual sales would grow to over
$250 million.
Today the Habegger Corporation is one
of the largest Bryant and Carrier distributors
in the country.
On January 1, 2015, the current company
President Brian Habegger will become
CEO as the transition to the third generation
continues. Fred, Sr., would be very proud.
Above: The third generation of Habeggers—
Susan Brickweg, Ken Habegger,
Rob Habegger, Karen Adkins, Steve Frey,
Brian Habegger, Michael Habegger,
Gregg Habegger, Lori Messmer,
Tony Adkins and Doug Habegger.
Below: Fred Habegger welcomes
new CEO John Dorr at the company’s
fiftieth anniversary celebration,
November 9, 2002.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 8 7

WESTERN &SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP
With nearly $60 billion in assets owned
and managed, as well as financial ratings that
make it one of the highest-rated life insurance
groups in the world, Western & Southern
Financial Group (Western & Southern) has
earned recognition as a world-class financial
services organization.
From modest beginnings a century-and-aquarter
ago, Western & Southern has grown into
a highly respected Fortune 500 company
because of the traditional, timeless values at the
core of the organization. No wonder Chairman,
President, and CEO John F. Barrett refers to the
firm as “a unique financial services powerhouse.”
The history of Western & Southern began
in Cincinnati in 1888 with the founding of
The Western and Southern Life Insurance
Company. In those days, Western &
Southern sold one product only—life
insurance—through agents who collected
weekly premiums in person, either at the
policyholder’s workplace or at their home.
Those friendly visits often included a cup of
coffee and slice of pie with the customer and
perhaps a Western & Southern comic book
for a young family member.
Over the next century, this warm, “frontdoor
service” approach helped Western &
Southern grow into one of the largest home
service life insurance companies in the country.
As times changed, Western & Southern
made several strategic moves in the 1980s to
expand its life insurance product offerings
and grow its customer base. This new direction
included discontinuation of the weekly
premium business in order to focus more
on middle-income Americans. Western &
Southern also expanded its reach by acquiring
life insurance companies whose agents
serviced affluent consumers.
In the early 1990s, Western & Southern
leaders recognized a trend. Although life
insurance had driven the company’s economic
engine for more than a century, the demographics,
mortality and lifestyles of the United
States population were changing. Families
now had more than one breadwinner, and
improvements in healthcare had shifted the
customer’s primary concern from, “What
happens to my spouse and kids if I die?” to
“What happens to me if I outlive my money?”
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
188

The changing concerns of the
American family sparked a Western &
Southern diversification strategy related
to its products, distribution channels
and revenue sources. The company
began to focus on strategic growth
through acquisitions and by organically
creating new core businesses through
subsidiary companies.
As a result of its long-term thinking
and focused business strategies,
Western & Southern’s family of
companies now spans twelve
subsidiaries. Assets under management
of $6 billion in 1991 grew over the
next 20 years to approach $60 billion
in assets owned and managed in 2012.
The organization’s workforce is as
diverse as its products, which now
include life insurance; fixed, variable
and income annuities; mutual funds;
investment management for public and
private institutions, foundations, and
high-net-worth individuals; retirement
plans; pension products; and insurance
fulfillment services.
“We have developed a unique culture
that permeates all facets of our corporate
headquarters in Cincinnati,” explains Barrett.
“Our culture is defined by hard work, sensible
decision making, teamwork, collegiality, topnotch
performance of our responsibilities and
the continuous upgrading of our businesses
and our competencies.”
As Western & Southern celebrates its 125th
anniversary in 2013, the company continues
to strive to provide world-class service, develop
world-class associates, create a world-class
culture and earn world-class profits. Western
& Southern’s most visible commitment to
downtown Cincinnati is the construction of
Cincinnati’s newest skyscraper, which opened
its doors shortly after New Year’s Day 2011.
However, the 665-foot-tall Great American
Tower at Queen City Square is only the tip of
the company’s commitment to Cincinnati.
Despite the economic challenges, Western
& Southern remains one of the most generous
corporations in America. In 2011, Western &
Southern donated more than $12.7 million,
or four percent of net income, to 194 local
organizations. These causes spanned education,
arts, culture, community development,
youth services, and health services. Many of
the beneficiaries are household names:
National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Cincinnati
Art Museum, the Taft Museum and United
Way of Greater Cincinnati to name a few.
Additionally, Western & Southern’s commitment
to Cincinnati remains steadfast with past
and present economic development at Queen
City Square, Over-the-Rhine, and Lytle Park.
Perhaps the organization’s most recognized
sponsorship is the Western & Southern Open
tennis tournament, a premier event in the
U.S. Open Series that features the world’s
top-ranked men and women professional
tennis players and contributes tens of millions
of dollars in annual economic impact to the
Southwest Ohio region.
From heart to history to humanitarianism,
it is clear that Western & Southern is simply a
great place for employees to work—and a
place that does great work for its customers
and its community.
Opposite, top: Store-front advertisement of
decades ago.
Opposite, center: Western & Southern
main office building at the company’s
headquarters in Cincinnati.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ANDERSON COBB.
Opposite, bottom: Great American Tower
at Queen City Square groundbreaking
ceremony on June 23, 2008. Left to right:
John F. Barrett, William J. Williams,
Carl H. Lindner III, Carl H. Lindner, Jr.,
S. Craig Lindner, Gyo Obata,
Kim Satzger, Mario San Marco, Senator
George Voinovich and Milton Dohoney.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DAVID LEIGHTON.
Above: Great American Tower, Cincinnati’s
newest and tallest office building in
the background and the renovated
Residence Inn at the Phelps on the right.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DAVID LEIGHTON.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 8 9

CASTELLINI
GROUP OF
COMPANIES
The Castellini Group of Companies was
founded in 1896 by Joseph J. “J. J.” Castellini,
an innovative and entrepreneurial young
businessman who was determined to build
a company that would become a leader in
produce distribution.
As a young man, Castellini, a native of
Cincinnati, worked in the produce business
during the day and attended school at night.
In time, he and two business partners scraped
together $500 and started the company on the
original Cincinnati produce terminal market.
Castellini eventually bought out his partners
and gave the company his own name.
Cincinnati was a major railroad hub in those
early days and also accommodated heavy river
traffic. This ease of transportation allowed the
company to expand its distribution operation
and the Castellini Company soon built a
solid reputation in the produce markets of
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit,
St. Louis, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York
and Boston. Then, as now, quick and reliable
transportation was an essential element in
keeping perishable inventories fresh.
A forward-thinking business leader,
Castellini was always searching for new and
more efficient ways of doing business. The
company began using typewriters, adding
machines, Dictaphones and other mechanical
office equipment long before most others
in the produce business. Castellini even
invented a celery washer, which provided
another value-added service for his customers.
A strong supporter of industry trade
associations, Castellini served as president of
the National League of Wholesale Fresh Fruit
and Vegetable Distributors, was instrumental
in founding the Cincinnati Fruit and Produce
Credit Association, and was president of the
United Fruit Auction Company in Cincinnati.
The Castellini family has continued to
operate the company through the years,
carrying on Castellini’s vision and spirit
of entrepreneurship.
Castellini’s son, Robert, assumed the
company leadership in 1927 and made his
own valuable contributions to the company
and to the produce industry. He understood
the advantages of grower cooperatives and
encouraged more than a hundred local
produce growers to form the Cincinnati
Produce Growers Association. After his
untimely death in 1952, his daughter, Claire
Castellini Wilger, became president.
Robert’s son, Robert H. “Bob” Castellini,
joined the company in 1966 and now
serves as chairman. His leadership has
resulted in the acquisition or formation of
the related companies that enable the
Castellini Group to efficiently handle all
aspects of produce distribution.
Today, the Castellini Group of Companies
combine to form one of the largest
distributors of fresh produce in the United
States, with more than twenty-five hundred
fruits, vegetables and floral items including a
complete line of fresh-cut, value-added,
organic, specialty and locally grown products
for the retail and food service markets.
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190

The Castellini Group is composed
largely of six business entities.
Castellini Company LLC, located
in Wilder, Kentucky, distributes fresh
fruits and vegetables to seventeen
states from the Greater Cincinnati
area and serves as headquarters, procurement
branch, and information
source for all of the companies, which
include a number of distributionrelated
and value-added businesses.
Crosset Company LLC, the
Castellini Group’s service wholesale
arm, distributes fresh produce and
floral items and provides support
services to retail grocers throughout
the Midwest.
Club Chef LLC, one of the largest
regional fresh produce processors in
the United States, offers a broad line
of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables for
foodservice and retail customers.
Grant County Foods LLC, one of the
Midwest’s largest repackers of tomatoes and
ripeners of bananas, also specializes in consumer-oriented
packaging of fresh tomatoes,
potatoes and onions.
RWI Transportation LLC is the asset-based
Castellini-affiliated common carrier that
provides transportation services from growing
and shipping regions. With a fleet of over
300 trucks and 53-foot refrigerated trailers,
RWI provides both refrigerated and dry
transportation to customers nationwide.
RWI Logistics is a non-asset based
transportation provider offering a wide array
of logistics services to customers throughout
the United States.
For 117 years, the Castellini Group of
Companies has cultivated long-term relationships
with the most reputable growers and
shippers in the nation to ensure access to
the highest quality products year round.
At this same time, it has responded
to changes within the industry
with tenacity, perseverance and a
customer-focused strategy. The
company’s Mission Statement reflects
the values of its founder and the
commitment that has sustained the
company’s success: “Our mission
is to provide the safest, highest
quality and most efficient distribution
of fresh fruits and vegetables
and value-added services by continually
exceeding our customers’
expectations through our people, continual
improvement, innovation, and technology.”
Castellini’s strategy for the future is to
focus on globalization, the marketing of
goods and services that support healthy
and convenience-oriented lifestyles, and the
ever-changing demands of the consumer. By
investing in these aspects of the business,
the Castellini Group of Companies plans to
continue to meet the needs of its customers—
just as it has since 1896.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 9 1

CROWNE PLAZA CINCINNATI BLUE ASH
Above: The exterior of the Crowne Plaza
Cincinnati Blue Ash.
Below: The Towne Square
Atrium Restaurant.
The Crowne Plaza Cincinnati Blue Ash, a
full-service hotel and conference center, is
proud of its tradition of hospitality that began
forty-four years ago with construction of a
100 room hotel. The hotel has grown and
prospered under several names and ownership
groups over the years and continues to provide
quality lodging and catering services to guests
in the Cincinnati area.
Ernie Barker built the original hotel in
1969 as a Ramada Inn. A Mt. Carmel, Illinois,
businessman, Ernie had a successful career in
the oil, natural gas, and banking businesses.
The Ramada was the first hotel built in
Blue Ash and had the Ramada’s signature dual
curved stairways in the lobby. The original
two-story building contained 100 guest
rooms, a coffee shop, small cocktail lounge,
outdoor swimming pool and two small
meeting rooms. With easy access to the newly
completed Interstates 71 and 275, the hotel
was an immediate success.
A six-story tower with 115 additional
rooms was added in 1980, along with an
atrium, indoor pool and whirlpool, Oasis
Lounge, Connection Lounge and the Main
Event, a fine dining restaurant with top name
entertainment and big band and live theater
presentations. The hotel was upgraded to a
Ramada Hotel and continued to prosper
during the 1980s.
Barker continued to develop hotels
throughout the United States until his death
in the late 1980s.
The Ramada Hotel was sold in the early
1990s and the name was changed to Best
Western in 1994. It later became part of the
Clarion Hotel and Suites group and remained
so until 2007.
The current ownership group acquired the
hotel in March 2004 and operated it as a
Clarion Hotel until 2007. The present owners
obtained a Crowne Plaza franchise in late 2006
and began a major refurbishment of the hotel.
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On May 30, 2007, the completely renovated
facility became a Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Today, the Crowne Plaza offers 200
beautifully appointed guest rooms, including
two-room suites with refrigerators,
microwaves and wet bars. Crowne Plaza Sleep
Advantage Amenities ® provides a refreshing
night’s sleep. Guests enjoy such features as
complimentary high-speed Internet access
in all rooms, in-room dining, twenty-fourhour
concierge services, and a state-of-theart
business center with complimentary
wireless access.
The Crowne Plaza at 5901 Pfeiffer Road is
conveniently located only fifteen minutes
from downtown Cincinnati and close to
many area attractions. Guests may enjoy
shopping at Rookwood Pavilion or Kenwood
Towne Center or relieve the stress of travel
at our indoor tropical pool, a nearby golf
course or fitness center. Guests enjoy
delicious meals on-site at The Towne Square
Atrium Restaurant or Lobby Lounge, or may
visit one of the numerous locally favorite
restaurants such as Montgomery Inn and
Carlo and Johnny’s.
The hotel is in close proximity to many
local attractions such as the Reds’ Great
American Ball Park, the NFL Bengals Paul
Brown Stadium, Kings Island, and Beach
Water Park. Guests may immerse themselves
in the rich history of the area with a tour of
the National Underground Railroad Freedom
Center or experience Cincinnati culture with
a trip to Newport on the Levee.
If you are on a business trip, the
Crowne Plaza is only minutes away from
Ethicon, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Siemens,
Fifth Third Bank, Cincinnati Eye Institute,
Coca-Cola, and other major corporations in
Blue Ash.
The Crowne Plaza is also an ideal place
for meetings and conferences with more
than 13,000 square feet of flexible meeting
space capable of accommodating groups
from five to 500. Professional state-of-the-art
audio/visual services are available, along with
complimentary wireless Internet access in
all meeting rooms. A dedicated Crowne Plaza
meetings director will make sure your event
exceeds all your expectations.
The hotel employs about eighty people
who provide full-service lodging and catering
services. The Crowne Plaza’s ownership group
is based in Cincinnati and also manages the
Hilton Garden Inn at Loveland and several
retail properties in Cincinnati.
From its beginning as a 100 room Ramada
Inn in 1969, the Crowne Plaza Cincinnati
Blue Ash has evolved into one of the area’s
premier travel destinations. For more
information about the Crowne Plaza, visit
www.cpcincinnati.com/
Above: A wedding reception with a circular
table seating arrangement.
Below: A special day at the Crowne Plaza.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 9 3

CINTAS
CORPORATION
The annals of American business are filled
with fascinating success stories, but few can
equal the improbable “rags to riches” story of
the little family business that in 2012 had
become the $4.1-billion enterprise known as
Cintas Corporation.
The colorful and inspiring story of Cintas
began in 1929 when Richard “Doc” Farmer
began a small rag salvage business out of
sheer necessity. Prior to this time, Doc had
been a circus animal trainer and with his
wife, Amelia, a trapeze artist. But the circus
closed because of the Great Depression, and
Doc and Amelia were forced to find a new
way to earn a living. Doc dabbled in amateur
boxing before—and after—turning to rag
collection in 1930.
Doc saw a way to make a living by picking
up soiled industrial rags at factories that used
them to clean up industrial soils and equipment.
The factories were sending the soiled
rags to the dump to be burned. Doc intercepted
the rags, took them home to his wife,
Amelia, and together they washed the rags,
reclaiming about eighty percent, and resold
them back to the factories that used them.
The business quickly outgrew the family
washing machine, so Doc had to find more
space. He took over a public bath house on
the banks of the Ohio River and turned it into
a laundry. He and Amelia worked nights and
weekends, and attracted their adopted son,
Hershell, who was a commercial artist with a
local newspaper, to join them and help run
the business. The flood of 1937 washed the
bath house and the factory down the Ohio
River. So, Doc and the family built a plant
on the Ohio side of the river, on Duck Creek
Road in Cincinnati. The business grew
rapidly during the years of World War II. By
this time, Hershell was married and had two
children—Joan and Dick. During the war, the
whole family worked and almost lived in that
little plant on Duck Creek Road to produce
the services necessary to supply the industries
supporting the war effort in Cincinnati.
The small industrial wiping laundry developed
a loyal customer base and continued to
grow during the second world war years. By
this time, Hershell assumed leadership of the
company and continued to operate the firm
much as his father had. By the beginning of
the war, domestic rags were replaced by shop
towels, and instead of selling the towels to
the customer, the company rented them to
the customers. By doing this, the company
would pick up soiled towels each week,
wash them, and replace the dirtied towels
with freshly laundered ones. This process
continued and sustained the small family
business even after Doc’s passing in 1948.
The company’s rapid growth came nearly
a decade later when, in 1957, Hershell’s son,
Richard T. “Dick” Farmer, joined the firm.
Dick graduated from Miami University in
Oxford, Ohio, in 1956 and joined the U.S.
Marine Corps. However, his career as a Marine
officer was cut short for medical reasons and
Dick decided to join the family business.
Dick was brimming with ideas, including
a plan to expand the business into uniform
rental. Hershell, scarred by the financial
struggles of the Great Depression, resisted his
son’s proposal that the company borrow money
to finance its growth. Dick’s enthusiasm and
insistence finally prevailed. In 1958, Hershell
relinquished day-to-day management of the
business to his twenty-four year old son.
The company entered the uniform rental
business, a move that dramatically reshaped
the company into an expanded marketplace.
Within two years, this line of business had
grown to such an extent that the firm changed
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its name from Acme Wiper and Industrial
Laundry to Acme Uniform & Shop Towel
Supply Co., and revenues increased twenty
to thirty percent per year over the next
five years. During this period, the company
rented uniforms to mostly blue-collar
businesses ranging from large industrial
plants to corner auto repair shops.
Dick also developed several innovations
that would make the company an industry
leader, including poly-cotton blend fabrics
that resisted wrinkles and stains and provided
a great improvement in quality. But this
required additional capital. Dick’s father,
being very conservative, did not want to
borrow money. So, in 1968, Dick left the
family business and started a new company
that he called Satellite Corporation. He raised
$400,000 in capital by selling stock to outside
investors. In 1968 the company opened its
first plant in Cleveland, Ohio. New operations
followed in Detroit, St. Louis, and other
Midwestern cities.
In 1995, Dick turned over the role of CEO
to Bob Kohlhepp but remained very active in
running the business as chairman.
Cintas expanded its product and
service offerings in the mid-1990s,
beginning with facility services,
first aid and safety products
and others. In 2003, Dick’s son,
Scott Farmer, was named CEO and
has since focused on expanding
Cintas’ product and service offerings
throughout North America.
Cintas now operates more than
430 facilities in North America,
Europe, Latin America and Asia,
including six manufacturing plants
and nine distribution centers. The
company employs approximately
thirty thousand people and operates
its corporate headquarters in Mason,
Ohio, just north of Cincinnati.
Company revenues were a record
$4.1 billion in the fiscal year that
ended May 31, 2012.
Cintas considers its corporate
culture to be its most significant
competitive advantage and according
to its founder, Dick Farmer,
“The glue that makes it unlike any other
company.” It has also been recognized by
many widely known publications, including
Fortune magazine’s list of “Most Admired”
companies, GI Job’s list of “Military-Friendly
Employers,” Newsweek’s Green Rankings,
and was ranked among the Top 150 Best
Workplaces in the U.S. by WorkplaceDynamics.
Today, Cintas is the world’s largest corporate
identity uniform provider, servicing
industrial, commercial, hospitality, healthcare,
gaming and many other industries. It is the
second largest fire protection business in the
United States, including fire extinguishers
and other fire service products; the third
largest document storage and destruction
business in the U.S., and services over one
million businesses weekly.
Looking to the future, the company
remains focused on planning and organizing
itself for continued growth by continuing to
offer the best products and services to its
customers with the most talented and diverse
team of employee-partners committed to
exemplary customer service.
Opposite, top: Richard “Doc” and Amelia
Farmer in their circus costumes. Doc was
a self-proclaimed veterinarian, animal
trainer and trapeze artist. Amelia was the
queen of the circus. When the Great
Depression struck and the circus shut down,
it was Doc and Amelia who had the idea
to start washing rags from factories and
selling them back to the factories for profit.
Opposite, bottom: Some of Cintas’ products
and service offerings are represented in this
photograph, taken in front of its corporate
headquarters in Mason, Ohio.
Above: Left to right, Hershell and Dick
Farmer go over blueprints at the site of
what would become the new uniform rental
plant in 1962. This site is now known as
Cintas Location 01 on Ridge Road in
Pleasant Ridge.
Left: Corporate identity uniform programs
have been Cintas’ core business for the past
forty years. More than five million people
go to work wearing a Cintas uniform
every day.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 9 5

THE MARIEMONT INN
The historic Mariemont Inn, is located in
the heart of Mariemont’s unforgettable historic
district, only fifteen minutes from downtown
Cincinnati. A stay at the Mariemont Inn steeps
guests in Cincinnati history as few other
places can.
Designed in the early 1920s, the Village
of Mariemont was intended to be a model
English garden community and self-sufficient
town where good planning would prevent
common big-city problems. Mariemont
pronounced “Mary-mont,” not “Marie-mont,”
was named for Mary Emery’s summer home
in Rhode Island which, in turn, was named
for a town in England.
The town was designed to illustrate the
best architectural, engineering and environmental
concerns possible for this type of
development. Today, the village is designated
a National Historic Landmark.
The Inn, listed on the National Register of
Historic Places, offers guests luxurious comfort
in the heart of Mariemont’s unforgettable historic
district. Three striking stories of timberand-brick
beckon guests from Mariemont’s
tree-lined streets. The building, constructed
in 1926, was a centerpiece of Emery’s vision
of an ideal town. However, the picturesque
Tudor architecture is only the beginning of
what the Inn offers. Guestrooms offer a sense
of the Inn’s history and are designed with a
residential look and feel. The Inn offers all the
amenities an experienced traveler expects,
plus unexpected surprises that showcase the
hotel’s unique character.
The original spirit of elegance and hospitality
is still alive at the Mariemont Inn
today. A complete renovation has resulted in
a uniquely beautiful décor for each of the
forty-five guestrooms, which feature fireplaces,
original artwork and custom-designed
furniture. Modern touches include built-in
refrigerators and safes, forty-two inch LCD
televisions, large desks with Herman-Miller ®
desk chairs, and complimentary high-speed
Internet access.
Guests find the facilities at Mariemont Inn
both comfortable and convenient. You will
relax on a comfortable Tempur-Pedic ® bed
and renew your senses with multiple head
showers and the added convenience of fogfree
mirrors in the classically tiled bathroom.
Some rooms offer a separate bathtub. Each
guestroom wraps you in luxurious boutiquehotel
ambiance, yet is spacious enough for
guests and all of their luggage.
You may choose from among four room
types, each of which has been meticulously
designed to meet your particular needs.
Other amenities offered in the 100 percent
smoke-free Inn include handicap accessibility,
meeting facilities, room service, safe deposit
box and free parking.
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The Gymnasium at Mariemont Inn features
Precor ® equipment to help you keep in shape
during your visit. The Exchange, the Inn’s
business center, provides all the services
you will need to stay in touch with the office
back home.
Complimentary newspapers and coffee are
available for guests each morning in the lobby.
Valet laundry and dry-cleaning services are
also available.
When it comes to dining, the National
Exemplar Restaurant, located on the first floor
of the hotel, is a popular neighborhood
restaurant. It offers American-style cuisine in
its spacious dining room or relaxing outdoor
patio. Open daily for breakfast, lunch and
dinner, the National Exemplar offers an
outstanding dining experience.
Southerby’s Pub, located off the lobby, offers
dining as well as a cozy place to have a drink.
The Pub features oversized chairs overlooking
one of the original 1920s-era fireplaces,
or guests may settle down in an overstuffed
sofa and savor a drink with the locals in this
intimate, but inviting, pub.
The Inn has five other sit-down dining
experiences, one carryout option, and even a
Starbucks ® coffee shop, all within 500 feet of
the hotel. These unique, independent restaurants
range from award-winning Mediterranean
cuisine to classic deli sandwiches.
Also sharing the town square with the Inn
are a movie theatre, boutique shops and even
an ice cream parlor. A walk or jog around
Mariemont’s tranquil village streets is always a
pleasure, day or night.
The Mariemont Inn is affiliated with
Historic Hotels of America, Preferred Hotel
Group, a program of the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. HHA identifies quality
hotels that have faithfully maintained their
historic integrity, architecture and ambiance.
These hotels are promoted nationally and
internationally to those who prefer historic
settings for their leisure and business travel.
The Mariemont Inn is also a Premier hotel
within the Best Western brand.
The Mariemont Inn is located at 6880
Wooster Pike and is only a short drive from
Interstate 71, Exit 9, or from downtown
Cincinnati via Columbia Parkway (Route 50).
For an online tour and other information
about the Mariemont Inn, visit the website at
www.mariemontinn.com.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 9 7

OHIO NATIONAL FINANCIAL SERVICES
Above: Ohio National’s former
headquarters: its first single-room office in
downtown Cincinnati in 1909; its
headquarters on Reading Road, which was
later donated to Community Chest/United
Way; and its William Howard Taft Road
corporate offices.
Below: Ohio National’s current corporate
headquarters at One Financial Way
in Montgomery.
Ohio National Financial Services began in
a single-room office in downtown Cincinnati
in 1909 and wrote its first policy in 1910.
Only four years later, the company had $2
million of life insurance in force.
During the 1920s, Ohio National entered
the participating whole life insurance market,
which gave policyholders an ownership stake
in the company. This was a first step toward
becoming a mutual company, a company
owned by its policyholders. The company
also entered the automation age in 1928 with
the installation of its first key punch machines
for record keeping.
The Great Depression had a devastating
impact on the life insurance industry, but
Ohio National was able to survive and grow
with the acquisitions of four major insurance
firms in a merger that has been called “the
largest voluntary consolidation in the history
of the insurance business, where both
companies were in good financial condition.”
By the time Ohio National celebrated its
twenty-fifth anniversary in 1934, it had
reached $37 million in assets and was
operating in 20 states. The company’s home
office moved from downtown Cincinnati to a
former factory building on Reading Road.
Home office publications at the time promoted
the move and touted the new location and its
amenities such as indirect lighting, “silent”
typewriters, fans to circulate the air and chairs
that minimized back strain!
During the 1940s, the Board of Directors
recommended that Ohio National be
converted to a mutual company, owned by the
policyholders. The courts approved the
structure change, but the process took nearly
twenty years to complete. Meanwhile, Ohio
National continued to expand to $100 million
in assets by concentrating on reinsuring the
business of other companies. The company
was also recognized for its patriotism during
World War II.
Ohio National’s fiftieth anniversary in 1959
marked a new beginning for the company in
two important ways. The company was now
owned by, and operated in, the interests of its
policyholders. And the company entered the
computer age with its first IBM computer.
The 1960s saw Ohio National’s assets
exceed $218 million as the company moved
into the individual disability income
insurance market. The growth prompted a
move to larger headquarters on William
Howard Taft Road in 1961, an office that was
home to the company for thirty-five years.
Ohio National entered the universal life
insurance market in 1982 and the variable
universal life market five years later. It was
also during this era that The Ohio National
Foundation was formed.
For twenty-five years, The Ohio National
Foundation has provided funds to numerous
nonprofit organizations, both local and
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198

national in scope. Since its inception in
1987, The Ohio National Foundation has
donated more than $14.6 million, including
an ongoing significant involvement with
the United Way of Greater Cincinnati.
Organizations benefiting from The Ohio
National Foundation include The Taft
Museum of Art’s Duncanson Artist-in-
Residence program, Cincinnati Habitat for
Humanity, Make-A-Wish Foundation ® , and
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Throughout the 1990s the company
continued to grow. The growth necessitated
another corporate headquarters move, this
time to One Financial Way in the northern
suburb of Montgomery. The company was
reorganized as a mutual insurance holding
company in 1998, enhancing its ability to
raise capital and provide potentially greater
growth opportunities.
Ohio National celebrated its hundredth
anniversary in 2009. To mark the occasion,
the company joined with Habitat for
Humanity and committed $780,000 to build
ten houses for low-income residents over
five years. This gift remains the largest
one-time donation in the history of the
Cincinnati affiliate.
Today, Ohio National is recognized as an
industry leader in providing competitive
individual life insurance and annuity
products through more than 50,000
representatives nationwide. Ohio National’s
U.S. domestic individual life insurance
sales exceed $100 million in new sales
and sales have grown at a pace well ahead
of the industry. The company is the
twenty-fourth largest life insurance provider
in terms of total company sales of term
and permanent life premium, according to
LIMRA International, the leading industry
marketing information association. Ohio
National is also the fifteenth largest provider
of variable annuity products in the United
States, according to Morningstar Annuity
Research Center.
Ohio National has also experienced
another milestone: a more than two decadelong
streak of individual life insurance sales
growth. No other life insurer has had such a
long record of consistent sales success.
Ohio National has more than a 1,000 home
office associates and the company has gained
wide recognition as an attractive employer for
both sales and home office associates. The
company has been consistently honored as an
outstanding employer, including recognition
by the Business Courier and the Great Places
to Work Institute. The company has also
been repeatedly recognized as Cincinnati’s
“#1 Top Workplace” by Enquirer Media.
Above: Current Ohio National Chairman,
President and Chief Executive Officer
Gary “Doc” Huffman, CLU, ChFC.
Below: To mark its hundredth anniversary
in 2009, Ohio National joined with Habitat
for Humanity to build ten houses for
residents over five years.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 9 9

THE
CINCINNATIAN
HOTEL
The year was 1882 and Procter & Gamble
was just beginning to manufacture Ivory
Soap in a new factory along Mill Creek. The
Cincinnati Reds, who had left the National
League because of a ban on beer and Sunday
baseball, won the inaugural pennant of the new
American Association. Architects dubbed
Cincinnati the “Paris of America” because of
an array of dazzling projects, including The
Music Hall, Shillitos Department Store and the
new Palace Hotel.
The Palace Hotel, an elegant example of
nineteenth century grand hotels, began to crumble
over the years and came close to destruction,
but was saved from the wrecking ball and
restored to its former glory. Today the hotel is
known as The Cincinnatian and is now a Forbes
Four Star, AAA Four Diamond hotel that epitomizes
modern luxury in a historic setting.
The eight-story Palace Hotel, built in
French Second Empire style, was the tallest
building in Cincinnati when it opened at the
peak of the Gilded Age. The hotel had 300
guest rooms and guests shared a bathroom
located at the end of each corridor. As the
finest hotel in the city, The Palace contained
the very latest in modern conveniences,
including elevators and incandescent lighting.
There was a marble and grand walnut
staircase and a mansard roof. It also had
hitching posts along the front of the hotel,
which was strategically located in the heart
of the city where trolley cars made their turn.
The Palace Hotel’s restaurant, The Cricket,
soon became one of the city’s most popular.
The Palace retained its fashionable reputation
through World War II but, by the early
1950s, its popularity was beginning to fade
and the name of The Palace was changed
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200

to The Cincinnatian. Unfortunately, the hotel
continued to deteriorate over the next three
decades and by the 1980s it was about to be
torn down to make way for a parking garage.
However, new owners decided to preserve
and restore the historic old hotel and
it closed for four years and $25-million
worth of renovation. The Cincinnatian Hotel
reopened in 1987 as the grand hotel it once
was and remains today.
A beautiful atrium topped with a vast
skylight was created during the renovation, and
the hotel that once contained three hundred
rooms now offers half that number in order to
accommodate larger rooms with private baths.
The extensive renovation managed to
maintain the style of the original Palace Hotel
in the exterior façade with its mansard roof
and marble and walnut grand staircase.
The hotel’s original safe is now on display in
the Cricket Lounge.
The fine dining room in The Cincinnatian,
The Palace Restaurant, took the original name
of the hotel and the Cricket Lounge took its
name from the original Palace restaurant. There
are four meeting rooms on the second floor—
Filson, Denman, Ludlow and Symmes—reflect
the names of Cincinnati’s founding fathers.
The St. Clair Room was named in honor of
Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest
Territory who changed the name of the town
of Losantiville to Cincinnati.
The hotel’s three major suites also have
historic origins: the Emery Presidential Suite
is named for the original owners of the hotel,
Thomas and Joseph Emery; the Hannaford
Suite is named for The Palace Hotel’s
architect, Samuel Hannaford; and the Briggs
Suite is named for the hotel’s first general
manager, Joseph Briggs. The Maria Nichols
Room is named for the woman who founded
Rookwood Pottery in 1880.
The Cincinnatian Hotel now offers 146
luxurious guestrooms with oversized Roman
bathtubs and granite showers. The hotel
also embraces all the modern amenities
required by guests seeking to retreat into
an atmosphere of the past without sacrificing
the present, including high-speed Internet
access, full health and fitness facilities, and
easy access to all of downtown Cincinnati
from an address well-respected for more
than a century: 601 Vine Street. The hotel is
within walking distance of the Convention
Center, major league sports stadiums and
fine shopping. The Greater Cincinnati
Northern Kentucky International Airport is
only a short twenty-five minute drive away.
The fine dining restaurant, The Palace,
serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and
upscale casual dining is available in the
Cricket Lounge from 11:30 a.m. to midnight.
The Cincinnatian Hotel is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places and is also a
proud member of Historic Hotels of America.
The Cincinnatian Hotel is traditional in
both atmosphere and service, and continues
to capture the warmth and gracious artistry of
the turn-of-the-century. To learn more about
The Cincinnatian Hotel, check the website at
www.cincinnatianhotel.com.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
2 0 1

HEIDELBERG
DISTRIBUTING
COMPANY
For more than seventy-five years, Heidelberg
Distributing Company has provided the highestquality
beer, wine, spirits and other beverages
to customers throughout Ohio and Kentucky.
Heidelberg Distributing is a family-owned
business, with the third and fourth generations
of the Miller and Vontz families actively
involved in the firm’s day-to-day operations.
The company founder, Albert Vontz, was
only twenty-two years old when he arrived in
Cincinnati in 1907 determined to make his
American dream come true. A trained brewer,
Vontz invested in two local taverns that did well
until Prohibition turned the country dry in 1919.
Prohibition ended in 1933
and despite the harsh
economic conditions of the
Great Depression, Vontz
helped open the Vienna
Brewery near the corner of
Reading and Sycamore
Streets. Five years later, he
sold the brewery to his
brother-in-law and invested
in the Dayton delivery
branch of the Heidelberg
Brewery, known for its
popular Student Prince
and Heirloom beers. Vontz
named his operation
Heidelberg Distributing
Company and kept the
name even after the brewery
closed in 1946.
Albert’s son, Albert Vontz,
Jr., joined the business in
1947 after returning home
from World War II as a
Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.
With a degree in economics
from the University of Cincinnati, Al began
investigating opportunities for expanding
Heidelberg Distributing.
The company handled other beers, including
Pfeiffer and Goebel, after the brewery
closed, but it was wine sales that kept the
business going during the post-war years.
Heidelberg’s big breakthrough came in
1959 when it purchased the Cincinnati branch
of Anheuser-Busch beer. August Busch, Jr.,
had estimated the distributorship’s value at
$54,000, but he was so impressed by Vontz’
determination to make Budweiser a success in
Cincinnati that he sold the distributorship for
$27,000. Heidelberg acquired the Anheuser-
Busch distributorship from a private firm in
Dayton just a year later.
The company expanded into the Toledo
market in 1967, while continuing to grow
the Cincinnati and Dayton markets. In 1989,
Heidelberg entered the Columbus market and
in 1994 continued its growth in Ohio’s largest
markets, expanding into Cleveland.
In 2008, Heidelberg purchased the stock
of Wine Trends, a high-end wine distributor,
plus a two-facility wine and beer company
in northern Ohio. Through mergers, acquisitions
and industry consolidation, Heidelberg
now has facilities in Cincinnati, Dayton,
Evendale, Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Lorain
and Youngstown, Ohio, as well as Louisville
and Hebron, Kentucky.
Heidelberg associates are passionate about
the markets where the company operates
and its employees are involved in hundreds
of charities. The company has partnered
with numerous not-for-profit organizations to
initiate and produce some of Ohio’s finest wine
and beer events, including the Cincinnati
International Wine Festival. These festivals,
along with other fundraising events, have
contributed millions of dollars to local communities.
The company contributes to the
higher education of Heidelberg associates’
children with the Albert W. Vontz, Jr.,
Scholarship, an annual scholarship award
that focuses on community involvement and
volunteerism. Heidelberg also promotes the
safe and moderate use of all alcohol beverages
and actively supports a number of alcohol
awareness and education programs.
“Life roars through us.” That is the Heidelberg
Distributing Company mission statement that
has helped to foster over seventy-five years of
partnerships with breweries, wineries and
global suppliers to bring superb products to
the market. What began as a “one-man and
one-truck” operation in 1938 has grown to
10 warehouse/office facilities with over 1,500
associates, more than 850 suppliers and 13,000
different products, serving more over 26,000
retail establishments in Ohio and Kentucky.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
202

Ransohoff has been a leader in developing
innovative solutions for industrial cleaning
problems for nearly a century. Ransohoff is
a worldwide leader in development and
manufacturing of aqueous and solvent-based
industrial parts cleaning systems including
spray, immersion, and ultrasonics. The company
has an installed base of more than fifteen
thousand parts washing machines worldwide.
The Ransohoff Company was founded in
1916 as the Ideal Concrete Machinery Company,
which developed a line of concrete mixers
and barrel finishing equipment.
When Nathan Ransohoff, the company
founder, invented the original
concrete block maker, the company
entered the special machinery manufacturing
business. Other lines of
specialty machinery were added
over time, including tumbling
deburring barrels and parts washers.
By the 1930s, the company’s name
had changed twice, first to the Ideal
Machinery Corporation and then to
the N. Ransohoff Company. The company
sold its aluminum swimming
pool manufacturing operation in
1963 and merged with Roto Finish
Company of Michigan. The new
company was called Ransohoff/
Rotofinish. The company continued
to focus on industrial parts washers
and built a strong reputation for
innovative designs, high quality manufacturing
and excellent service.
Following the death of Ransohoff in 1969,
the company became a division of F. J. Lamb
Company, and since has had a series of both
private and public owners. Most recently
Ransohoff became a subsidiary of privately
held Cleaning Technologies Group, which
was formed in 2002.
The company’s first standardized line of
products, called the Pro Clean series, was
launched in 1988. This line allowed customers
to purchase an economically-priced, quickdelivery
parts washing machine that provided
high-quality aqueous based cleaning equipment
in a nearly “off-the-shelf” package. In 2001 the
company launched the Lean Series product
line, which is the flexible, cost competitive base
platform used for ninety percent of the
machines built at Ransohoff today.
Chuck Noonan, who retired from Ransohoff
in 2011 after sixty-five years with the company,
worked in practically every department in the
company. He feels Ransohoff’s success can be
attributed to developing the latest technology
and incorporating the designs into their
cleaning equipment. “Service has always been
very important as well,” he says. “We have
full-service crews available on a moment’s
notice should a customer have a problem.”
Ransohoff utilizes more than 100,000
square feet of manufacturing floor space at
its Cincinnati headquarters, in addition to a
comprehensive onsite test and development
laboratory with certified clean room facilities
and in-house laser cutting capability for all
sheet steel. Ransohoff offers a full range
of standard machine designs with extensive
custom design capabilities.
Ransohoff has over 130 employees in
Cincinnati and makes up the majority of the
230 employee global CTG team. Also under
the Cleaning Technology Group umbrella are
Blackstone–NEY Ultrasonics of Jamestown,
New York, a leader in ultrasonic technology, and
CTG Asia in Suzhou, China, which provides a
combination of technologies offered by Cleaning
Technologies Group in the United States.
RANSOHOFF
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
2 0 3

CINCINNATI FINANCIAL CORPORATION
Above: Cincinnati Financial Corporation
Headquarters, in Fairfield, Ohio.
Below: Associates are gathered outside the
headquarters location.
Cincinnati Financial Corporation traces its
roots to 1950 when four independent insurance
agents—John J. Schiff, Robert C. Schiff,
Harry M. Turner and Chester F. Field—set
about forming their own insurance company.
Living and working in Ohio, they saw a
need for a company that would make it
easier for agents to do business—a company
that would treat agents as partners, offering
the highest quality policies and local services.
The Cincinnati Insurance
Company found a ready market,
and, in its first year,
wrote $92,000 in gross premiums.
Originally, the company
provided fire and allied
lines, marine and physical
damage insurance in Ohio.
Because it was chartered to
provide only property casualty
insurance, additional companies
were formed to permit
wider growth. Cincinnati
Financial Corporation, the
holding company for all operations,
was founded in 1968.
This organization, publicly
traded in the Nasdaq Global Select Market,
now includes The Cincinnati Insurance
Company, its four insurance subsidiaries and
two financial services companies.
CFC reported $3.5 billion in net written
premiums in 2012, ranking among the
nation’s top twenty-five property casualty
insurer groups. Today, approximately 2,800
associates at the company’s Fairfield headquarters
support nearly 1,300 associates in
field locations. Together, they serve a select
group of 1,400 independent insurance agencies
across 39 states, marketing the company’s
business, home, auto, and life policies.
The Cincinnati Insurance Company began
in modest quarters on Central Parkway,
soon moving to larger offices nearby, and in
1973 to a handsome Georgian building on
Princeton Pike, previously the home of
the Glenmary Missioners. Growth continued
and the company built a nine-story office
tower in Fairfield in 1985, adding a second
tower in 1999 and a third in 2008. Designed
specifically for their insurance operations,
the headquarters buildings are energy
efficient and measure 1.2 million square
feet—grown from their original 1,200-
square-foot Central Parkway home.
The current executive team, led by President
and CEO Steve Johnston and Chairman Ken
Stecher, still practices hands-on management.
They believe in the philosophy that has served
the company well over the years: valuing its
partnership with independent agents who sell
its policies and providing great customer service.
The company was recognized in 2012 and
2013 in Forbes as the top-performing largecap
insurance company for openness and
integrity in accounting, governance and management.
Agents and policyholders consistently
rank Cincinnati Financial among top
insurers for claims satisfaction. By investing
in the community and fostering associate
involvement with nonprofit organizations,
CFC supports education, the arts and community
outreach programs.
While success has broadened the scope
of operations, it has not changed the goals.
The Cincinnati Insurance Companies operate
with conservative underwriting and reserving
practices and a firm commitment to provide
superior claims service and a stable market
for independent agents and their clients.
For additional information, please visit
www.cinfin.com.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
204

Cincinnati’s first accounting firm, J. D. Cloud
& Co. shares much history with the Queen
City’s business community. Companies such
as Kahn’s, U.S. Shoe, the Cincinnati Street
Railway Company, Fleischmann Margarine,
and the Cincinnati Reds are just a few of the
companies that were served by the accountants
at J. D. Cloud over the past 100 years.
Joseph Dominic (“Dom”) Cloud was one of
the first licensed CPAs in Cincinnati and
began the firm bearing his name in 1913.
With the same name ever since, the firm has
continued its independence while continuing
to serve a strong and diverse client base.
When Dom began the firm, accounting was a
relatively new profession—at least in the United
States. It is hard to believe, but many companies
did not have outside auditors and there were no
U.S. securities laws requiring public financial
reporting. Nor was there a federal income tax!
It was in 1887 that the American Institute of
CPAs was established. The Ohio State Society of
Certified Public Accountants followed in 1903.
Joseph D. Cloud was admitted as a CPA in the
State of Ohio four years later with Certificate
No. 80. He led the firm for thirty years. His son
John (“Jack”) D. Cloud, who was an attorney
and a certified public accountant, led the firm
for the next thirty years.
The firm’s client list has included many of
Cincinnati’s prominent commercial and industrial
companies. Whereas Cloud has had an
office in the downtown business district for
all 100 years, its clients were—and still are—
located throughout the region, from LCNB
Corp. in Lebanon to Vulcan International
Corporation downtown.
When the Village of Mariemont was being
planned by Mary Emery in the 1920s, Emery
Industries—a client of J. D. Cloud at the time—
needed assistance in a very unique project.
Cloud’s accountants were given the task of
calculating the value of the land and all the
improvements in the Village—from the cost of
pavement to street lamps!
Through the years, the CPAs at J. D. Cloud
have served a wide variety of closely-held
and family-owned businesses. A few of these
became registered with the Securities &
Exchange Commission as publicly-owned
enterprises. American Controlled Industries,
Inc., and Vulcan Corporation are a couple of
public companies from the past; LCNB Corp.
is a more recent public company conversion.
J. D. Cloud has prospered throughout its 100
year history, adapting to numerous changes
in the accounting profession. From the First
Revenue Act in 1913, there have been continual
changes in the tax laws, accounting and auditing
standards, and the variety of services
offered by a CPA firm. In addition
to the firm’s practice before the
Securities & Exchange Commission,
it has a well-established niche in
the financial services sector. Always
known for technical excellence,
Cloud has remained at the forefront of
the profession—adapting to a changing
landscape of service offerings
designed to assist companies in their
growth, succession and profitability.
Having shared so much of
Cincinnati’s history, Cloud’s stated purposes have
not changed through the years. The firm remains
committed to: providing superior service,
developing people to their highest potential,
having an orientation for growth, and giving
back to the communities in which they work
and live. To that end, the partners and staff have
been and remain actively involved in numerous
philanthropic and community organizations.
For additional information, please visit
www.jdcloud.com on the Internet.
J. D. CLOUD &CO.
Above: Certificate No. 80 issued to
Joseph D. Cloud on September 7, 1907.
Below: Service Day 2012 at Matthew 25
Ministries.” This organization ships goods—
of all types—to people in need all around
the world.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
2 0 5

MARTIN
FRANCHISES
INC.
Above: George Strike.
The well-known dry cleaning process
known as Martinizing ® was developed in
1949 when Henry Martin recognized that
a new solvent being used in dry cleaning
made it feasible for smaller, full-service dry
cleaning plants to offer quicker and more
cost-effective service.
The solvent, known as “perc” for its almost
unpronounceable chemical name, led to
the birth of “One Hour” Martinizing Dry
Cleaning, the pioneer of on-premise, high
quality, and quick dry cleaning service.
Previously, customers had to drop off their
garments at a shop that would then ship it
to a processing plant located in an industrial
area. The system was slow and customers
had to wait days for their dry cleaning to
be delivered.
Martinizing became a household name
during the 1950s and 1960s, using such
advertising slogans as, “Fresh as a flower in
just one hour.” Dry cleaners using the new
solvent were able to offer one-hour service
while their competitors had a turnaround
time of several days. Martin Equipment Co.,
as the company was then known, provided
licenses to multiple store chains as well as
individual stores.
In the early 1960s, Martin Equipment
Co. was purchased by American Laundry
Machinery, Inc., and was called Martin
Equipment Division or Martin Equipment Sales.
Martinizing expanded rapidly through
franchising and by the early 1970s there were
around three thousand stores in the United
States. However, the introduction of polyester
and permanent press fabrics in the mid-1970s
encouraged customers to cut back on dry
cleaning services and the system lost nearly
half its locations.
In 1978, George Strike purchased American
Laundry Machinery, which included Martin
Franchises Inc. Martinizing had been a brand
license but in 1987-1988, a new franchise
agreement was introduced providing more
support to franchisees, including in-house
training, operations and equipment support
and marketing.
In the 1990s, Martin Franchises opened
several master franchises in such countries
as Japan, Ecuador, Peru, and Indonesia,
resulting in several hundred stores in more
than seventeen countries.
Franchisees began using a more environmentally
friendly solvent, called GreenEarth ® ,
in the late 1990s. Since 2003, Martinizing
has become the Greener Cleaner, utilizing the
most environmentally safe methods and
friendly solvents available.
In 2010 the Martinizing ® Delivers franchise
system was introduced to allow new entrepreneur’s
a lower investment option.
The corporate headquarters for Martin
Franchises Inc. is located in Milford, Ohio,
and the company currently has more than
four hundred franchised locations worldwide.
Strike served as chairman for UC Health
and was also on the board of the UC
Foundation. He helped found the Health
Alliance of Greater Cincinnati and served
on its board. He was also
a partner of the Cincinnati
Reds from 1981-2009.
Strike was a strong believer
in giving back to the community
and members of
the current staff are active
in such organizations as
Habitat for Humanity and
Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Strike died in 2012 but
his family continues his
commitment to invest and
develop the Martinizing
brand throughout the
United States and overseas.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
206

For more than 140 years, Wood Herron &
Evans has provided innovative solutions for
clients seeking to protect their intellectual
property. The dedicated attorneys and support
staff at Wood Herron & Evans achieve
superior results because protecting intellectual
property—from patents to trademarks to
copyrights—has, for nearly a century and a
half, been the firm’s central focus.
The Wood Herron & Evans legacy in intellectual
property law began in 1868 when
Colonel Edmund E. Wood returned from a
distinguished career as a Civil War officer and
first opened his firm in Cincinnati. The economy
was recovering from the Civil War and innovation
was booming. Cincinnati, in particular,
was a manufacturing city and a hub of patent
activity. Wood became an expert in intellectual
property law by successfully prosecuting patents
for everything from farming equipment and
machine tools to new modes of transportation.
In 1871, Colonel Wood was joined by a
business partner, Edward Boyd, and together
they formed the firm Wood and Boyd. The first
reference to this firm is in the 1871 Cincinnati
City Directory. The attorneys continued to gain
experience working in the chemical, machine
tool, graphics and electrical industries as they
emerged into the early twentieth century.
Colonel Wood’s son, William R. Wood,
joined the firm in 1899 and became a partner
in the practice. By the 1930s, grandson Edmund
P. Wood was leading the firm and brought in
partners Truman Herron and Edward Evans to
accelerate the firm’s growth. Over the years, the
firm has also operated under the names Wood
& Wood, and Wood, Arey, Herron & Evans.
Wood Herron & Evans was one of the
original tenants of Carew Tower, Cincinnati’s
landmark forty-nine story office tower
overlooking the Ohio River. The firm moved
into Carew Tower in 1930 and is still
headquartered in the historic building.
“Intellectual property law is all we’ve ever
practiced,” comments Dick Evans, a now retired
partner in the firm. Evans, who practiced with
Wood Herron & Evans for forty years, recalls
that a number of the firm’s cases helped set
important precedents in intellectual property
law. These included the Anchor Hocking vs.
Corning patent infringement case in the 1960s
that involved the patent on crystallized glass.
The firm also represented Dow Chemical in a
patent infringement suit involving high impact
polystyrene, and represented the inventor of carbonless
carbon paper in suits against companies
that were using his patent without paying for it.
As the firm’s client base grew, so, too, did the
range of expertise of the lawyers who practiced
at WH&E. Among the arts in which its attorneys
became skilled were machine tools, chemicals,
materials science, electronics, hydraulic mechanisms,
and diverse mechanical fields too
numerous to itemize. More recently, the firm has
developed a depth of experience in the fields of
software, computer sciences, and internet technologies,
as well as in the area of biotechnology.
As the intellectual property landscape
changed over the years, Wood Herron & Evans
also evolved, becoming a leader in intellectual
property law services not only on a regional
level, but nationally and internationally, as well.
In 2010, Wood Herron & Evans experienced
significant growth through the addition
of several attorneys with an established publishing
and media practice in Cincinnati. This
expansion brought
new expertise in
the IP fields of
advertising, publishing,
media, privacy,
and licensing. The
firm now employs
more than a hundred
people, including
fifty attorneys.
WOOD HERRON
& EVANS LLP
Below: Wood Herron & Evans Partners
in 1970.
Bottom: Wood Herron & Evans Partners
in 1988.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
2 0 7

A. J. RAHN
GREENHOUSES,
INC.
Above: Kunigunde and John Rahn with their
five children.
“Papa, what have we done?” Kunigunde
asked her husband, John, surveying the
rolling four acres they purchased in 1890 for
$25. Recent immigrants from Kulmbach,
Germany, they bought land on Gray Road to
carry on their ancestors’ gardening tradition.
Together with their five
children, Kunigunde and John
grew radishes, parsley, carrots,
cabbage, cauliflower, beets,
turnips, and onions in hot
beds and cold frames. Their
fourth son, Lawrence, built
the first greenhouse in 1915.
Lawrence’s son, Albert, enlarged
greenhouse production to provide
a flavorful supply of
tomatoes and cucumbers in
the warm months, and fresh
lettuce in the cold months.
The family annually grew
10,000 baskets of lettuce and 14,000 tomato
plants yielding 80,000 pounds of tomatoes.
In the 1960s air conditioned semis introduced
vegetables from Florida and California,
which drove down produce prices. In response,
Albert began retailing tomatoes and cucumbers
on site. In 1962 he added geraniums, petunias
and begonias and thus began flower production.
Albert’s third child, Joe, took on the business
in 1972 and Joe’s sister, Susan joined as
partner in 1977. They focused on product
quality, selection, and zone appropriate flowering
beauty for Cincinnati homes and gardens.
Their year round seasonal business provides
early spring plants such as pansies and
primroses, summer vegetable plants, flowering
annuals, herbs, perennials and nursery plants.
In fall, mums are in color and winter months
feature poinsettias and cyclamen.
A. J. Rahn Greenhouses has been an award
winning participant in the Cincinnati Flower
Show. In 2012, Cincinnati Magazine awarded
A. J. Rahn Greenhouses “Best of the City in
Annuals and Roses!”
A. J. Rahn Greenhouses provides Cincinnati
flower lovers with 15,000 poinsettias,15,000
garden mums, 3,000 cyclamen, 35,000 pansies,
4,000 primulas, 20,000 geraniums, 15,000 New
Guinea impatiens, 1,000 potted mums, 1,000
lilies, and 20,000 flats of bedding plants,
including 110 varieties of annuals! They grow
31 varieties of herbs and 24 varieties of vegetables,
including 14 varieties of pepper plants
and 41 varieties of tomato plants. They offer a
selection of nursery and tropical foliage,
and grow 172 varieties of rose bushes and
tree roses. A. J. Rahn Greenhouses grows over
250 perennials including 34 varieties of hosta!
Not only has the Rahn family been providing
flowering beauty on Gray Road for generations,
loyal Cincinnati customers who value
flower quality, for generations have come to
A. J. Rahn Greenhouses. Many walk in and,
smiling, share, “I remember coming here for
flowers with my grandmother and mom. Now,
I’m bringing my grandchildren.” So, the tradition
of flower loving and flower growing continues
at 4944 Gray Road in Cincinnati, Ohio.
For more information on location, hours,
and availability of seasonal flowers, please visit
www.ajrahn.com.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
208

In today’s high-tech world, nothing is more
important to a business than the security of its
network. Cadre Computer Resources is dedicated
to making sure your information is secure.
Cadre is a network and information security
solutions provider serving both large and medium-sized
organizations. Cadre is committed to
delivering value through superior customer
service, advanced engineering and a resolute
focus on design, assessment, installation, training
and support of information security systems.
Cadre began in 1991 when Chemed
Corporation divested its DuBois Chemical
division. When Chemed CEO Edward Hutton
heard that a few of the DuBois software
developers had chosen not to go with the new
owners, he hired four of the former employees
and formed a new division called Cadre
Computer Resources. The new venture was
incorporated in 1992.
Cadre’s original assignment was to write a
proprietary software program for Omnicare,
another division of Chemed. Software development
was a booming business in the mid-1990s,
but, at the same time, the data security industry
was beginning to take shape. The first
commercial firewall was introduced in 1996 and
Cadre’s management recognized the new
opportunities and began to shift Cadre’s focus
from software development to internet security.
Cadre Computer Resources was sold by
Chemed Corporation in 2001 and became an
employee-owned company, at which time
Sandra E. Laney was appointed CEO and
Chairman. Since the sale, stockholders equity
has grown 102 percent per annum. Despite the
recent recession, Cadre was able to post sales
growth of sixteen percent between 2008 and
2011. Annual revenues now total $74 million.
Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cadre
has operations in Kentucky, Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, Michigan, and Indiana. Cadre’s
customer base of more than five hundred
companies includes some of the most respected
and highly recognized blue chip companies in
the world, in industries such as financial services,
healthcare, manufacturing, and education.
Cadre has received numerous awards since it
was organized, the most recent being from
Check Point Software Technologies in 2012
when Cadre was selected from among thousands
of partners worldwide as the Check Point
Platinum Partner of the year. A few months prior
to that award, Cadre was also named the Blue
Coat Systems’ Partner of the Year. In 2012 alone,
Cadre’s sales and engineering teams have
acquired more than 400 certifications, with
two of the company engineers holding the
prestigious Blue Coat title of “Blue Knight.” Also,
in 2012, Cadre received the Woman’s Business
Enterprise Certification by the National Women
Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC).
Looking to the future, expanding into
network infrastructure, i.e., routers, switches
and wireless, as well as growing Cadre-provided
services, will be the firm’s primary focus. Cadre
has a tremendously talented staff of security
engineers who are cross-trained in security,
networking, operating systems and software
applications. Along with a dedicated team of
security consultants, Cadre is poised to expand
beyond security, as a single point of contact for
its customer’s information lifecycle needs.
CADRE
COMPUTER
RESOURCES
Left to right: Vice Chairman Jon Naylor;
Manager Jon Roberto, SMB Sales;
Chairman and CEO Sandra Laney;
President Steve Snider; Vice President
Steve Krumpelman, treasurer; and
AVP/Director Melissa Majewski,
sales support.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
2 0 9

BARTLETT & CO.
Above: Benjamin D. Bartlett.
Sleek, contemporary offices with panoramic
city views are home to Bartlett & Co.,
where up-to-the-minute research and market
data light up computer screens and investment
advisors confer with high-net-worth
clients in light-filled glass conference rooms.
It is not a scene that might be expected from
the nation’s oldest existing registered investment
advisory firm, founded in 1898.
The firm’s impressive history, which spans
three centuries, began when Benjamin D.
Bartlett purchased a seat on the New York
Stock Exchange. At the time, Bartlett was a
partner in George Eustis & Co., then the
oldest investment house in Cincinnati. When
the partnership divided in 1916, he continued
the business as Bartlett & Co. In 1926, he
sold the firm to prominent Cincinnatians
Marcus “Mike” Fechheimer and Herbert R.
Bloch who were later joined by active business
and civic leaders Joseph Marks, John R. Lewis,
Alfred J. Friedlander and Joseph B. Reynolds.
Originally a stock and bond brokerage
firm, Bartlett became an investment advisory
firm in 1946. Today, Bartlett provides investment
management and financial planning to
high-net-worth individuals and families,
corporate and nonprofit retirement plans,
foundations and endowments, public funds
and Taft-Hartley plans.
In more recent history, Bartlett was
acquired by the asset management firm Legg
Mason in 1996, a relationship that brought
resources to better serve clients, such as
wealth management tools and back-office
support. However, when Legg Mason sold its
brokerage firm and became a manufacturer
and distributor of mutual funds, Bartlett recognized
the need to separate. In 2012, ten
Bartlett wealth advisors formed an ownership
team to purchase the firm, returning it to its
private, employee-owned, Cincinnati roots.
Bartlett’s objective is to keep its great culture
and traditions while nurturing innovative
solutions that result from collaboration and
technology. Its deep roots have provided the
experience, stability and expertise that clients
value, while leading-edge business practices
have been a part of the firm’s culture, too. For
example, as far back as the 1960s, Bartlett
adopted computerized portfolio management
systems, and in 1977 the firm introduced
socially responsible investing. The first female
partner was named thirty years ago. Kelley
Downing, the current president and CEO,
earned those titles in 2007.
As Bartlett continues its rich history of
investment excellence, it also plays an active
role in creating and supporting community
excellence, a focus instilled by its founders.
Through the years and today, it is not unusual
to see the Bartlett name associated with
worthy events spanning the arts, education,
social services and other nonprofit efforts.
Employees are active volunteers, serving on
committees and boards as well as being handson
workers. Bartlett’s legacy to the Cincinnati
community has and will continue to inspire
positive change through the generations.
As a staple of the Cincinnati business and
civic community, Bartlett is positioned to continue
its respected reputation established in 1898.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
210

Towboat pushing barges. In the background
are the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge,
Paul Brown Stadium, Great American
Ball Park, and the steamer American
Queen, 2013.
PHOTOGRAPH © VICTOR J. CANFIELD.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
2 1 1

C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
212

QUALITY OF LIFE
H e a l t h c a r e p r o v i d e r s , f o u n d a t i o n s ,
u n i v e r s i t i e s , a n d o t h e r i n s t i t u t i o n s t h a t
c o n t r i b u t e t o t h e q u a l i t y o f l i f e i n C i n c i n n a t i
Life Enriching Communities
Twin Towers and Twin Lakes Senior Living Communities ...............2 1 4
University of Cincinnati .............................................................2 1 6
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation...............................................2 1 7
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati ...................................................2 1 8
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center ...............................2 1 9
Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park. The
sculpture, by artist Jim Dine, is entitled
Pinocchio (Emotional).
PHOTOGRAPH © STEVE OLDFIELD.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
2 1 3

LIFE ENRICHING
COMMUNITIES
TWIN TOWERS
AND TWIN LAKES
SENIOR LIVING
COMMUNITIES
Above: The original Methodist Home for
the Aged building, completed in 1908, only
included one tower. The second tower was
added in 1939.
Below: The Twin Towers Senior Living
Community today.
Life Enriching Communities, an organization
committed to whole-person well-being
for everyone it serves is best known for the
Twin Towers and Twin Lakes Senior Living
Communities. These senior living communities
provide life-enriching services and residential
accommodations for about fourteen
hundred senior adults. A Christian ministry
and a philosophy of whole-person wellness
support the lifestyle of each resident. This
innovative “Way of Wellness” has contributed
to Life Enriching Communities status as a
recognized leader in wellness for adults.
The history of Twin Towers dates from the
late nineteenth century when Reverend Henry
C. Weakley, a Methodist minister, coordinated
the efforts of five Methodist Conferences to
establish the Methodist Home for
the Aged in 1899. The first home
was created in an old hotel and
health spa on ten acres of land in
Yellow Springs, Ohio.
One of the original trustees
was President William McKinley,
believed to be the only sitting
President of the United States to
be a member of the board of any
retirement home.
Following a fire in 1902 that
heavily damaged the original structure,
the Methodist Conferences
accepted the offer of Mr. and
Mrs. Obed J. Wilson to build a
new home on twenty acres of
land in the College Hill area of
Cincinnati. In April 1908, forty
residents moved into the facility
known today as Twin Towers.
Today, the Twin Towers campus
has expanded to 120 acres
overlooking Mt. Airy Forest, and
includes the original historic
buildings, a chapel, charming
neighborhoods, a community
center, sidewalk café, and The
Connection (the onsite location
for health and fitness programs),
all located within picturesque
landscapes with plentiful wildlife,
gardens, and walking trails.
Patio homes with studioand
one-or-two bedroom floor plans enable
senior adults to continue their independent
lifestyle while enjoying the comfort and
convenience of the Twin Towers Community.
Amenities include dining rooms, the Wilson
Art Gallery, a library, a greenhouse, and game
and hobby rooms.
The sixty-six-acre Twin Lakes Community,
established in 2003, is located in the heart
of Montgomery, an historic city not far
from downtown Cincinnati. Twin Lakes offers
both Villa Living and Apartment Living for
independent lifestyles. Either choice provides
such desirable features as full kitchens, walkin
closets, and a patio or balcony. Residents
have access to the Community Center, where
beautiful artwork and plush furnishings
create an inviting atmosphere for interacting
with family and friends. The Center is home
to an aquatic center, fitness programs, health
and therapy suite, art studio, chapel, game
and card rooms, library and business center,
full-service bank, and dine-in restaurants.
The health and enrichment programs at
Twin Towers include health services for
every stage of life, including assistedliving
apartments, skilled nursing around the
clock, adult day care, and a wide range of
rehabilitative therapies.
In late 2012, Twin Towers opened a new
80,000-square-foot Health Pavilion where
residents and associates alike embrace the
concepts of “person-centered care”—a philosophy
of care that concentrates on a balance
between residents and associates giving and
receiving care. The new Health Pavilion is the
new home for the Memory Support Assisted
Living and Long Term Nursing residents.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
214

At Twin Lakes, health and enrichment programs
are provided in McKinley Place, where
compassionate associates strive to meet every
resident’s needs, even as those needs change.
The Hannaford Court assisted-living area
provides the pleasure and privacy of apartment
living with necessary assistance.
Walden Court offers compassionate services
and support for residents with memory
impairment. Shepherd Court offers skilled
nursing in private rooms.
Life Enriching Communities has a sacred
commitment to being a world-class leader
in adult living and is guided by
the Christian principles of its United
Methodist heritage. These principles
include, “Enhancing life with meaning
and purpose, providing enriching
opportunities and experiences, and
developing communities that foster
relationships and perpetuate legacy.”
LEC believes that empowering its
associates gives them the freedom to
take action and embrace opportunities
with confidence. This philosophy goes
hand-in-hand with LEC’s values of
respect, innovation, spirituality, and
excellence, and its mission to enhance
the lifestyle of older adults through the
“Way of Wellness.”
In 2007, Life Enriching Communities
was selected as a finalist for the
Organizations of Noteworthy Excellence
Award, which recognizes the best practices
of nonprofit organizations in
Greater Cincinnati.
Life Enriching Communities has long
been recognized as a leader among senior
living communities for incorporating the
principles of wellness into adult lifestyles. Our
focus is to provide opportunities for a lifestyle
that promotes holistic health, ministering to
the emotional, intellectual, physical, social,
spiritual, and vocational dimensions of the
whole person. In addition to a full continuum
of services, LEC offers residents in both communities
a wide range of social, recreational,
and cultural opportunities that make their lives
richer and keep them in touch with neighbors.
For more information about Life Enriching
Communities, Twin Towers and Twin Lakes,
check the website at www.lec.org.
Above: The main campus of the
Twin Lakes Senior Living Community in
Montgomery, Ohio.
Below: Opportunities abound for
maintaining whole person wellness and
leading fulfilling lives.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
2 1 5

UNIVERSITY OF
CINCINNATI
Above: Class of 1896.
Below: Students relax on the modern-day
University of Cincinnati campus.
The University of Cincinnati ranks among
America’s top twenty-five public research
institutions and among the Cincinnati region’s
largest employers. The Chronicle of Higher
Education calls UC a “research heavyweight,”
while Forbes magazine and Travel+Leisure
magazine have recognized the university
among the world’s most beautiful campuses,
following a physical transformation that took
place over the course of two decades.
Santa J. Ono serves as UC’s twenty-eighth
president, appointed in 2012. The University
of Cincinnati will mark its bicentennial in 2019
and has a strategic plan under way to achieve
even higher academic success in preparation
for the anniversary, expected to be the greatest
celebration in the university’s history.
It was in 1819, due to the tireless energy
of Daniel Drake—physician, scholar, teacher,
and lecturer—that Ohio chartered both the
Cincinnati College and the Medical College
of Ohio. These institutions endure today as
UC’s Colleges of Law and Medicine. Scarce
funds and internal friction handicapped both
institutions and they fell into inactivity.
In 1835 the Cincinnati College was revived
under President William Holmes McGuffey,
author of the famous McGuffey readers.
Again, financial trouble and the effects of
the Civil War prevented the institution
from achieving success. Only the college’s Law
School survived.
In 1858 a wealthy merchant and landowner
named Charles McMicken bequeathed his estate
to Cincinnati for the creation of a municipal
university. This gift provided the foundation
of the University of Cincinnati, chartered in
1870 by the Ohio General Assembly.
During the next century, a number of
Cincinnati educational institutions were merged
with the University of Cincinnati, including
the colleges of medicine, law, and pharmacy.
Also merging were the esteemed College-
Conservatory of Music, the Ohio Mechanics’
Institute, and the Cincinnati Observatory. Over
the course of its first century, UC founded
colleges of engineering, business, education,
nursing, and art. The university has awarded
graduate degrees since 1878.
By the mid-1960s it was apparent that the
resources of the City of Cincinnati could not be
stretched to accommodate the rapidly growing
student body and an aging physical
plant. The citizens of Cincinnati voted
overwhelmingly to convert their
university to full state status, and
UC was named Ohio’s twelfth state
university on July 1, 1977.
The University of Cincinnati has
established a continuing reputation
for academic accomplishment and
innovative ideas. Since its founding,
UC has been the source of many
contributions to society, including the
oral polio vaccine, the first program
of cooperative education, the first electronic
organ, the first safe anti-knock
gasoline, and the first antihistamine.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
216

The Greater Cincinnati Foundation
provides a powerful, very personal approach
to giving by helping individuals achieve their
charitable goals and create lasting good works
in the community.
The organization was founded in 1963 when
a group of Greater Cincinnati area business
leaders was inspired by the success of community
foundations in other cities and decided to
establish a similar organization in Cincinnati.
About this same time, the board of
directors of the Fresh Air and Convalescent
Aid Society realized that its mission had
become outdated and was searching for new
directions. For sixty-four years, the Fresh Air
and Convalescent Aid Society had operated a
Fresh Air Farm, which brought mothers and
their children out of the crowded tenement
areas during the hottest months of the
summer for two weeks of good food,
comfortable living and planned recreation in
the country. However, times were changing in
the early 1960s and the Society realized its
services were becoming obsolete.
The Society voted to disband and find an
alternative charitable use for its $600,000
endowment. Local business leaders and the
Fresh Air Board came together and The
Greater Cincinnati Foundation was born,
with the Society’s endowment as its first
unrestricted fund.
Since its founding, GCF has made more
than $760 million in grants. More than threequarters
of grants are made to causes chosen by
our donors, either here or in the region, or in
other communities close to their hearts. They
support a wide variety of causes including
health and human service organizations, the
arts, and education.
The assets entrusted to GCF by generous
donors and its community knowledge have
enabled it to respond to the changing needs
of the community over time, providing leadership
on such issues as early childhood
education, racial equity, neighborhood development,
and cultural vitality.
In response to the 2009 economic crisis,
GCF organized the Weathering the Economic
Storm initiative, led by a group of local funders.
During the three years, it touched the lives of
nearly 95,000 children, adults and seniors.
Grants totaling $4.5 million were awarded to
127 nonprofit organizations in the areas of safety
net services, housing stability, early childhood
education, and organization stability.
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation is overseen
by a sixteen-member volunteer governing
board comprised of leaders of diverse, representative
local groups. The day-to-day activities
are carried out by a dedicated professional staff
led by President/CEO Kathryn E. Merchant.
GCF is located in the Robert & Ruth Westheimer
Center for Philanthropy at 200 West Fourth
Street in downtown Cincinnati. Detailed information
on all the Foundation’s activities may
be found at www.gcfdn.org.
The Foundation marked its fiftieth
anniversary in 2013 with a series of activities
and celebrations.
THE GREATER
CINCINNATI
FOUNDATION
Left: The staff of The Greater Cincinnati
Foundation with an Artworks’ Big Pig.
The Foundation sponsored this pig in 2012.
It’s a Pig World was created by artist
Zoe Rodriguez.
Below: A young girl enjoys the Mason
Food Pantry’s summer camp. GCF’s Grants
for Kids program funds innovative and
educational programs for local children in
the summer and school year.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
2 1 7

JEWISH
FEDERATION
OF CINCINNATI
Below: The Manuel D. and Rhoda
Mayerson JCC.
The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati is dedicated
to helping people in need, creating an
engaged community, assuring a Jewish future,
and supporting the Jewish people in Cincinnati,
in Israel, and throughout the world.
The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati holds
the distinction of being the longest continually
operating Federation in North America.
Founded in 1896 as the United Jewish Charities,
it set up a combined city-wide campaign for
funds, bringing eight agencies under one
central administration with the objective of
“helping the poor respect themselves and
become self-sustaining through employment.”
In 1910, $117,312—the equivalent of
$2.86 million in 2013 dollars—was raised by
the Federation, the highest per capita rate of
giving of any major Jewish community in the
United States.
During the dark days of the mid-1930s,
alarmed by the rising political power of Adolf
Hitler, a group of five Jewish men in Cincinnati
organized an opposition group. Those men
were Dr. J. Louis Ransohoff, Rabbi Abraham
Franzblau, attorney Julius Holzberg, Dr. Jacob
Rader Marcus, and Henry C. Segal. The men
opened an office and planted the seeds for the
eventual formation of the Jewish Community
Relations Council (JCRC), which is now the
public affairs arm of the Jewish Federation
of Cincinnati, tasked with combating anti-
Semitism, educating the non-Jewish community,
and advocating for Israel.
In 1967 the Associated Jewish Agencies (as
UJC was then called) merged with the Jewish
Welfare Fund to form today’s Jewish Federation
of Cincinnati. The city soon became known
nationwide as a leader in the field of Jewish
philanthropy. The Community Chest, today’s
United Way, was modeled in large part on the
Federation concept.
The Federation has grown tremendously
over the years, from the first fundraising goal
of $10,000 in 1896 to $9.5 million raised
in 2013. After contracting during the recent
recession, the Federation’s annual Community
Campaign has since grown by five percent or
more each year.
Funds raised during the Campaign help
support forty-five programs that serve the
Jewish communities in Cincinnati, in Israel
and around the world. The majority of the
programs funded by the Federation are
operated by six partner agencies: Cincinnati
Hebrew Day School, Cincinnati Hillel, Jewish
Family Service, JVS Career Services, the
Mayerson JCC and Rockwern Academy.
The Federation’s efforts today are guided by
Cincinnati 2020, a collaborative initiative to
secure the Cincinnati Jewish community’s future
by providing an exceptional quality of life—
caring for people who are struggling, connecting
all of its residents to Jewish life and helping
them discover their Jewish identities. The
Federation employs about thirty people and is
located on The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati
Campus on Ridge Road in Amberley Village.
For additional information, see the website
at www.jewishcincinnati.org.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
218

Hospitals were considered an option of last
resort in the 1800s, and the idea of a charity
hospital dedicated to Cincinnati’s children was
almost unheard of. Nevertheless, the Episcopal
diocese was persuaded by Mrs. Robert Dayton
and two of her friends—Isabelle Hopkins and
Mary Emery—to support the idea of opening a
hospital for children.
That small hospital grew to become today’s
highly acclaimed Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Medical Center, which is ranked among the
nation’s leading pediatric hospitals and
research centers.
The growth and development of Cincinnati
Children’s has been little short of phenomenal.
The hospital moved to a new two-hundredbed
facility near the University of Cincinnati
College of Medicine in 1926 and established
an academic affiliation as the Department of
Pediatrics. When the department chairman
envisioned a research mission for the hospital,
Board President William Cooper Procter
donated $2.5 million to build and endow the
Children’s Hospital Research Foundation.
Among the notable scientists who worked
there in its early years were Dr. Josef Warkany,
a pioneer in the study of congenital birth
defects, and Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed
the oral polio vaccine. The world’s first functional
heart-lung machine was perfected there
in the early 1950s.
In the 1970s, five independent organizations
moved to Cincinnati Children’s to consolidate
pediatric care in the community. Steady
growth in the 1980s and 1990s brought the
first satellite location and new clinical and
research buildings on the main campus.
In recent years, the pace of growth has
increased dramatically as the hospital pursues
its vision to be the leader in improving
child health.
CINCINNATI CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
With over fourteen thousand employees,
Cincinnati Children’s is one of the area’s largest
employers. The hospital is both a treasured local
resource and an international referral center
for children with rare and complex conditions.
Discoveries by Cincinnati Children’s research
scientists are improving child health around
the globe, and as the US healthcare system
increasingly focuses on improving quality, safety,
experience, and value, Cincinnati Children’s
has emerged as a leader in transforming care.
No matter how much it grows, Cincinnati
Children’s remains committed to the city it
has called home for 130 years. The hospital is
collaborating with local partners to address
community health issues and strengthen the
region’s development as a center for biotech
innovation and start-up companies. And with
an eye toward its next 130 years, Cincinnati
Children’s is investing in the facilities, programs
and talent necessary to be the leader in
pediatric care for tomorrow’s children.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
is located at 3333 Burnet Avenue in Cincinnati,
Ohio and at www.cincinnatichildrens.org.
MEDICAL CENTER
Above: Young patients, 1897.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE CINCINNATI
CHILDREN’S ARCHIVE.
Below: A panoramic view of our
campus today.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE CINCINNATI
CHILDREN’S ARCHIVE. PHOTOGRAPH BY
ROBERT FLISCHEL.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
2 1 9

C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
220

BUILDING A GREATER CINCINNATI
C i n c i n n a t i ’ s r e a l e s t a t e d e v e l o p e r s ,
c o n s t r u c t i o n c o m p a n i e s , h e a v y
i n d u s t r i e s , a n d m a n u f a c t u r e r s p r o v i d e
t h e e c o n o m i c f o u n d a t i o n o f t h e c i t y
Fenton Rigging & Contracting, Inc. ..............................................2 2 2
Ruthman Companies
Gusher Pumps ........................................................................2 2 4
Cincinnati Mine Machinery Company ............................................2 2 6
Reliable Castings Corporation .....................................................2 2 8
Derrick Company, Inc. ................................................................2 3 0
Faxon Machining, Inc. ................................................................2 3 2
Kordenbrock Tool & Die Co., Inc. .................................................2 3 4
BHDP Architecture .....................................................................2 3 6
Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Inc. ...............................................2 3 8
O’Rourke Wrecking Company .......................................................2 4 0
Magna Machine Company ............................................................2 4 2
The Cincinnati Air Conditioning Co. .............................................2 4 4
CBT Company ...........................................................................2 4 5
Cincinnati Precision Instruments, Inc. ..........................................2 4 6
Wm. Kramer & Son, Inc. ............................................................2 4 7
The Johnson Electric Supply Company ...........................................2 4 8
R. E. Kramig & Co.
Kramig Insulation ..................................................................2 4 9
AES Controls, Inc. .....................................................................2 5 0
DuBois Chemicals ......................................................................2 5 1
Wm. Powell Company
Powell Valves .........................................................................2 5 2
Charles F. Shiels and Company ....................................................2 5 3
Sibcy Cline Realtors ® .................................................................2 5 4
H. Nagel & Son Co. (Brighton Mills) ............................................2 5 5
Pride Cast Metals, Inc. ...............................................................2 5 6
Aerial view of the reconstruction of Fort
Washington Way, c. 1999. Covington, Kentucky,
lies in the background, across the John A.
Roebling Suspension Bridge.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAN FRANCIS. CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 2 1

FENTON
RIGGING &
CONTRACTING,
INC.
Above: A twelve horse team and special
drag to relocate a strainer on Front Street in
downtown Cincinnati, 1905.
Below: Jacks, blocks and skates to relocate
the Tyler Davidson Fountain from the
middle of Fifth Street to Fountain
Square, 1969.
When the City of Cincinnati needed to
move the Tyler Davidson Fountain (The
Genius of Water) from its original location on
Fifth Street north to Fountain Square,
the city depended on Fenton Rigging &
Contracting to handle the job correctly. When
the historic art deco style murals that adorned
the old Union Terminal needed to be moved
to the Greater Cincinnati Airport, the skills of
Fenton were again utilized and each mural was
delivered in pristine condition, with not one of
the millions of glass tiles cracked or missing.
The sophisticated knowledge and special
equipment that has made Fenton a leading
rigging contractor is a natural outgrowth of a
simple drayage operation that began in 1898
when founder Jim Fenton used a team of
mules and wagons to load and off-load large
equipment from floats and ferries along the
Ohio River. Fenton named his new endeavor
the J. A. Fenton Company.
Today, Fenton Rigging & Contracting is a
specialty contractor serving industrial, commercial
and contracting businesses in both
the public and private sectors. The Rigging
Division specializes in rigging, millwrighting,
equipment and facility maintenance, precision
alignment, machine moving, specialty steel
erection, and crane rental. The Contracting
Division works primarily for the railroad and
power generation plants specializing in bridge
repair and replacement work as well as
concrete restoration. The Shotcrete Division,
based out of Jacksboro, Tennessee, specializes
in concrete repair and subsurface stabilization.
In the company’s early days, Cincinnati was
beginning to see a surge in river trade and
the 1920s brought new life to the downtown
area. These factors, along with Fenton’s business
knowledge, helped the company grow
through its first three decades. The name of
the business was changed to Fenton Transfer
Company in 1907. As the business continued
to grow, Fenton realized that in addition to
hauling materials and merchandise, there was
a need to unload and set whatever was hauled.
Thus, the company name was changed to
Fenton Transfer & Rigging Company in 1911.
The name was changed again in 1920 to
Fenton Rigging Company.
After Fenton’s death in 1929, his wife, Ida,
tried to run the company but found it was
too much to handle. In 1930, she sold the
business to Edward A. Roth, who owned and
operated the business for the next eighteen
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
222

years. During Roth’s ownership, much of
the business was performed for breweries
and distillers in Cincinnati and Newport.
According to company folklore, company
trucks and equipment were used to transport
thousands of gallons of illegal alcohol during
the prohibition era, making Roth a wealthy
man. After prohibition, Roth had so much
cash stashed in his attic and a nearby sewer;
he needed to turn the business into a shell
operation, so he could put the money back
into circulation.
The rigging business was allowed to
decline during this period and Lester Besl
was able to purchase the company in 1948
for $17,000. Lester hired his nephew, Bill,
to work part-time as a time keeper. As the
business began to grow, Bill left his job as an
insurance salesman and went to work for the
company full-time.
Lester was involved in an accident that
required Bill to take over and run the company
and, in 1958, Lester sold majority interest in
the firm to Bill. He operated the company until
his death in 1985 and his ownership passed to
his nine children and Larry Roy. Richard Kohls
became a part owner in 1987, but he and Roy
were later bought out by the Besl family.
Currently, Mike, Bill, and Tim Besl are sole
owners of the company. Chris Besl started
working with Fenton Rigging in 2009,
becoming the fourth generation of the Besl
family to work for the company.
Fenton Rigging & Contracting has enjoyed
steady growth under direction of the Besl family.
Sales exceeded $1 million for the first time
in 1965 and the company was awarded its first
million dollar contract in 1969 when Babcock
& Wilcox hired the firm to install a large
boring mill for fabrication of reactor vessels to
be used in nuclear submarines. The company
won their first of six nationally recognized
“Rigging Job of the Year” awards in 1969.
Today, Fenton employs approximately 120
people and has yearly revenue of $20 million.
Fenton works for more than 250 different
customers each year, and generates the majority
of its sales from fifty repeat customers. The
company moved to its current location at
2150 Langdon Farm Road in the suburb of
Golf Manor in 1975.
The management and staff at Fenton are
actively involved in a number of local and
national industrial associations. Fenton owners
have served on boards and as presidents
of the National Subcontractor Association,
Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association
and Allied Contractors Industries.
As it moves into its second century of
service with the fourth generation of the Besl
family, Fenton Rigging & Contracting, Inc.,
continues to grow by serving its current customer
base with distinct specialty services,
while adding new customers with our skill
and ingenuity to solve any problem.
Above: Specially designed box frame,
crane and tractor drag to relocate the first
of fourteen murals from Union Terminal
in Cincinnati to the Greater Cincinnati
Airport, 1974.
Below: Helicopter used to set a cooling
tower on the rooftop of the Provident
Building in downtown Cincinnati, 1999.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 2 3

RUTHMAN
COMPANIES
GUSHER PUMPS
In the early years of the twentieth century,
Cincinnati was known as the machine tool
capital of the world, a reputation that inspired
scores of enterprising young businessmen,
including Alois Ruthman, who co-founded
the Ruthman Machinery Company, which
serviced and repaired the steamboats that
traveled the Ohio River.
The year was 1912 and the Ruthman
Machinery Company set up shop manufacturing
its own metal parts for steamboats
at 216 East Second Street. Soon the shop
expanded its customer base beyond
Cincinnati, making a variety of parts for
presses, dies and vending machines for
customers around the country.
Alois Ruthman was a visionary who realized
that the future success of his company
was in the development of a reliable industrial
pump. With the conception of the first
vertical ball bearing seal-less centrifugal
pump, the company—now known as
Ruthman Pump and Engineering—furthered
the design on a unit with a one-piece motordriven
shaft. The pump was named “Gusher,”
giving birth to the trade name Gusher
Pumps, as well as the term “coolant pump.”
According to company lore, Alois Ruthman
at first considered naming the pump “Geyser,”
but decided to call it Gusher instead because
it sounded more forceful.
Gusher Pumps is now the flagship company
of the Ruthman Companies and is one of
the oldest and best known of the sixteen
companies now owned by Ruthman.
Ruthman Companies survived the economic
devastation of the Great Depression
of the 1930s and began its steady growth
as a leader in design and manufacturing of
industrial pumps for American industry.
With the advent of World War II,
Ruthman Machinery and Gusher Pumps
provided vital products for the nation’s
wartime production, moving from Front and
Pike Streets to a much larger facility on
Reading Road to accommodate the critical
needs for war-time production.
Thomas R. Ruthman, the son of company
founder Alois Ruthman, joined the company
in 1949 and continues today as owner and
president. Thomas, although only sixteen
years old at the time, was determined to
carry on his father’s tradition of quality and
reliability. Pete Smith, who joined the
company in 1929, was joined by his son,
Les Smith, now executive vice president, in
1960 and has since been joined his son, Scott.
In the early 1990s, Thomas Ruthman’s son,
Thomas G. Ruthman, now executive vice
president, joined the company with the aim of
continuing the company tradition of growth,
innovation and customer service.
In the post-war decade of the 1950s,
Ruthman Companies and the Gusher Pump
line became an essential part of the rapidly
expanding modern tool industry. While many
in the industry are content to produce “offthe-shelf”
standard models, Gusher engineers
products for specific customer requirements
and is willing to meet unusual situations
with innovative engineering. The
result is Gusher’s unique ability to
serve today’s global market with
one of the largest selections of
centrifugal pumps and equipment
available anywhere in the world.
The era of the ’60s was a period
of expansion and technological
innovation for the Ruthman
Companies that included the
opening of additional facilities in
Kentucky and Indiana, an acquisition
in Ohio, and across the continent
to California. The Ruthman
product lines expanded to meet
the increasing demands of the
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machine tool industry, as well as the
engineering of innovative new products for
paint and manufacturing systems. In 1964
the company moved its headquarters
from Reading Road to Streng Street.
Ruthman Companies continued to grow
and expand through the 1970s and 1980s,
opening a Gusher plant in Dry Ridge,
Kentucky and acquiring Pioneer Pumps
in 1978. An additional center was
opened in Newcastle, Indiana in 1978;
the same year the company acquired
Southwest Pumps, which became Gusher
Pumps of California.
Meanwhile, improvements to the
Gusher pumps continued to solidify its
position as the top pump in the industry.
By 1982, Gusher was offering a full
range of ANSI pumps, which became
Gusher’s flagship line.
The company continued to expand
by acquisition from the late 1980s and
on into the early twenty-first century.
These acquisitions included the Fulflo
Valve Company, Vulcan Tool Company
of Dayton, Ohio, Brown & Sharpe
Company, and Great Lakes Pumps
& Supply in Michigan. The company
went international with acquisition of
Birmingham Pumps of Great Britain and
the establishment of Ruthmann Pumpen
of Germany and Guan Shen (Gusher Pumps
of China).
As the Ruthman Companies move into
their second century of business, the Gusher
brand now includes more than 14,000 products.
The companies operating under the
Ruthman banner include BSM Pump Corp.,
Providence, Rhode Island; Fulflo, Blanchester,
Ohio; Great Lakes Pump & Supply Co., Troy,
Michigan; Nagle Pumps, Chicago, Illinois;
Process Systems, Inc., Warren, Michigan;
Deming Vertical Turbine Pumps, Warren,
Michigan; Vulcan Tool Corporation, Dayton,
Ohio; Wagner Process Equipment, Stockton,
California; Great Southern Pump, Titusville
Florida; Birmingham Pump Supplies, Ltd. in
Great Britain; Ruthmann Pumpen, Eschweiler,
Germany; PFE Filter, Eschweiler, Germany;
and Guan Shen, Shanghai, China.
Ruthman’s customer base includes firms
in the machine tool industry, automobile
manufacturing, mining, steel, municipal
water treatment, chemical, paint, power generation,
filtration, HVAC, pharmaceuticals,
agriculture, and the military.
The Ruthman Companies, which directly
employs more than 250, is headquartered at
1212 Streng Street in Cincinnati.
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2 2 5

CINCINNATI MINE MACHINERY COMPANY
Above: Robert J., Robert C., Anthony J.
and William D. Stenger—third and fourth
generations of the Cincinnati Mine
Machinery Company.
Below: Cutting edge machinery has helped
the Cincinnati Mine Machinery Company
streamline production and maintain
quality standards.
The Cincinnati Mine Machinery Company
has served the mining industry since 1924
and is recognized worldwide for products
that combine high performance, reliability
and trouble-free service life.
Cincinnati Mine Machinery Company was
founded in the early 1920s but began its
growth under Edwin Stenger, who purchased
the firm in 1924. In the early years, the
company shared a facility with Cincinnati
Shaper Company and Lodge and Shipley, two
prominent members of the area’s booming
machine tool industry.
Armin Bruestle, a graduate of the University
of Cincinnati’s College of Engineering, joined
the firm in 1928 and he and Edwin Stenger
worked together for more than forty years,
establishing the principles and ethics that
guided the company. Bruestle retired in 1993
after sixty-five years with the company.
Cutter chains were CMM’s sole focus in the
early 1930s. A forged block and connector
distinguished the product from the cast and
fabricated alternatives available elsewhere and
helped earn CMM a reputation for quality
and durability that continues to this day.
Shortly thereafter, CMM manufactured the
first cutter bar from hammered stock and also
began making sprockets from alloy
steel, rather than castings, establishing a new
benchmark for strength and durability.
Sales efforts expanded quickly despite
the Great Depression of the 1930s and the
company was soon servicing customers in
the eastern and western United States and
Canada. CMM’s reputation as a quality
chain manufacturer continued to grow and,
in 1938, CMM developed and patented the
Duplex Chain, which became the company’s
dominant product throughout the 1940s.
During World War II, the company was
selected by the U.S. Army to manufacture
Tank Track pins. This earned the company
the prestigious “E” award for excellence
in service to the country. Only two percent
of companies involved in manufacturing
for the war effort achieved this high honor.
The “E” flag, which is replicated and
displayed on a shop wall, remains a valued
reminder of CMM’s proud history.
The early 1950s saw
development of the Rap-
Lock bit holders for the
continuous miner, which had
five or six chains running
over the machine head. The
125 and 405 type chains
incorporated the patented
Rap-Lock. By the mid-1950s,
the company was selling
more than 12 million bits
per year for this chain.
Each month, 120 tons of
steel rods were cut to
specifications using machines
designed by CMM.
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The era of the 1960s saw development of
the Quick-Pik bit lug, which incorporated
the point attack bit and was patented by
CMM in 1960. CMM continued to offer this
versatile, high-performing product for more
than three decades.
Other innovative and patented designs
were introduced in rapid-fire succession
during the 1970s. During this period, projects
such as the 814 Ripperveyor chain for the
JOY 11CM miner and the 734 chain for the
Jeffrey Heliminer 120-H machine, were
developed. These two chains represented
significant advances for both CMM and the
miners, who were able to immediately achieve
higher productivity and longer service life.
During this same time period, the Pin-On
bit lug was developed and patented. This was
a revolutionary product for the coal industry
because it allowed the fast and straightforward
replacement of the bit holder to the
exact bit location without the need to burn off
the existing lug and weld a new one in place.
In the early 1980s, a multi-national
company based in the Netherlands enlisted
the assistance of CMM in development of a
front end for their high wall miner. The chain
for this machine was a derivative of the 734
trim chain and continues to be sold widely
throughout the mining industry today.
The decade of the 1990s saw development
of the patented Cone-Tite holder, with the
holding device at the rear of the lug. This
innovation impacted the coal industry
dramatically as most bit holders in use today
are a variation of this important design.
Shortly thereafter, CMM brought to market
the Cone-Lok, an advanced version of the
Cone-Tite bit lug and base combination.
After doing business in South Africa
for more than sixty years, CMM opened
its own office and distribution facility in
Witbank, South Africa, in 1998. In 2002 a
warehouse was opened in Chapmanville,
West Virginia, to better service customers
in that area. In 2004, CMM opened its own
office and distribution center in Australia
to better serve New South Wales and
Queensland miners. Other CMM warehouses
are located throughout the United States,
Canada, Australia, Mexico and Europe.
The innovative spirit is still alive at CMM,
as evidenced by the recent development of
a conveyor chain for the high wall miners,
crawler chains for a variety of continuous
miners, a tramming-conveying chain for
continuous haulage systems, quick change
foot shaft and stub shaft assemblies, and a
new patented dual-sprocket conveyor chain.
Cincinnati Mine Machinery is now a fourthgeneration
family company, led by President
Robert (Bob) Stenger, grandson of the founder.
Bobby and Tony Stenger, great-grandsons of
the founder, represent the fourth generation.
The forty-five employees at CMM have an average
of more than twenty years of service. “The
loyalty and commitment of our employees has
been a major factor in our success,” says Bob
Stenger. “They are the heart and soul of CMM.
“We base our reputation on honesty and
integrity and that’s been our by-words through
the years. It’s our people who make the
company what it is.”
Above: Early assembly of cutter chains for
the underground coal miner.
Below: The Cincinnati Mine Machinery
Company received the Army/Navy E Award
for their efforts during World War II.
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2 2 7

Above: The company’s founders,
January 13, 1925.
RELIABLE CASTINGS CORPORATION
Bottom, left: The company’s first building.
Bottom, right: The headquarters’ foundry
under floodwaters.
During its ninety-plus years, Reliable
Castings Corporation has evolved to become
a leader in aluminum casting technologies.
One reason for its success over the decades
is its philosophy that there is “Safety in
Diversity.” Reliable Castings manufactures aluminum
castings for a wide variety of customers
in a number of different industries. Reliable
Castings provides cast, machined, and assembled
components serving the automotive,
diesel-engine, construction, rail systems, mining,
power generation, military, plastic thermoforming,
and machine tool markets with a wide
variety of aluminum castings, designs, sizes,
and volumes. About eighty percent of Reliable
Castings’ customer base is in the Midwest.
Another key reason to Reliable’s success is its
long-term and dedicated people. Reliable
Castings is blessed with many employees who
have decades of service at Reliable. Uniquely
adding to that statistic is that there are multiple
family clans that have worked for multiple generations
at Reliable. Complicating that statistic is
that many of the families have become interrelated
as they worked together over the decades.
The company was organized in 1922 when
seven patternmakers from Ohio Pattern Works
formed a partnership to begin producing masters,
pattern, and molds for local manufacturers,
primarily in the machine tool industry.
This partnership led eventually to producing
samples with customer tooling, which then
grew to larger volumes of brass, bronze, and
aluminum casting production. Two of the
seven original patternmakers, Ed Korten and
Arthur Kuhn, became principal owners and
operators of Reliable Castings Corporation.
At first, the company leased space in a
building on Spring Grove Avenue across from
what is now KAO Brands. A few years later,
Reliable purchased a building on Spring Grove
a few blocks north of the original location.
Reliable Castings purchased its current
foundry headquarters at 3530 Spring Grove
Avenue in 1935. Reliable Castings was banking
with a prominent local bank at the time
(Provident Bank), but was turned down when it
requested a mortgage on the building. Reliable
Castings then turned to the Fifth/Third Bank,
which approved the mortgage for the building.
Reliable Castings is proud to have banked with
Fifth/Third ever since.
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The timing of the purchase of the new
foundry and headquarters in 1935 was not
very good. In addition of being in the midst of
the Great Depression, the great flood of 1937
flooded the entire first floor of the building.
The stories that the original owners told of
numerous local businesses and the community
pulling together and helping each other to clean
up and restart operations are inspirational.
In 1968, Korten and Kuhn transferred
company ownership and management to Bob
Baesel, Bob Kuhn, and George Schultz. Baesel
passed away in the early-to-mid 1980s.
George and Bob then acquired his balance of
ownership in the company.
Even though Korten and Kuhn sold their
ownership in 1968, they continued to maintain
an office at Reliable and came to work
nearly every day until both men were in their
nineties. They supplied “free advice” although
not always solicited, to the current management
in return for the “free office space.”
Since World War II, aluminum alloy castings
became a continuing growing larger
percentage of Reliable Castings’ product mix.
Brass, bronze, and copper castings were
discontinued in the early 1990s. Before the
discontinuance of bronze castings, Reliable
made cast bronze products such as bronze bomb
navigational sights for WWII aircraft, commemorative
plaques for the Roebling Suspension
Bridge, and bronze ornamental scrollwork for
the Omni Netherland restoration in the 1980s.
In 1986, Reliable Castings acquired a
shuttered aluminum foundry in Sidney, Ohio,
and restarted that operation. That acquisition
has allowed Reliable to grow its high-volume
aluminum sand castings, automated highvolume
aluminum permanent mold castings,
and production machining capabilities. The
additional capacity allows Reliable Castings the
ability to better serve its customers’ needs by
sourcing the cast product to the best fit facility
and process, which enables Reliable to give
its customer the best value we can achieve.
Reliable’s Cincinnati Operations include a
sand foundry, permanent mold foundry, and
Tooling Division. The foundry focus is more
on lower-volume/custom produced aluminum
castings. The Tooling Division produces
patterns, tools, and molds to service Reliable’s
internal tooling needs in addition to building
cast-aluminum tools for the plastics thermoforming
industry.
Reliable’s Sidney Operations include a higher-volume,
semi-automated sand foundry, a
high-volume automated permanent mold
foundry, and production machining operations.
Reliable Castings Corporation is classified
as a “jobbing foundry” in that none of
its products are sold directly to the public.
All of the castings are produced for original
equipment manufacturers (OEM’s) or their
authorized machine houses/manufacturers.
George and Bob sold thirty-two percent of
their shares in the company to the Reliable
Castings’ employees in 1994 through an
Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
George and Bob then sold the balance of their
company ownership to the ESOP in 2008,
and Reliable Castings is now a hundredpercent
employee-owned ESOP company.
The tradition of “free office space” in trade
for “free advice” continues with George and
Bob at Reliable Castings. When in town, both
continue to come in to the plant and both are
in their mid-eighties.
The entire organization at Reliable Castings
Corporation is dedicated to continuous innovation
and improvement in casting technology
with the goal of exceeding customer expectations
on a daily basis.
Reliable Castings is located at 3530 Spring
Grove Avenue and at www.reliablecastings.com.
The robotic casting equipment in operation.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 2 9

DERRICK
COMPANY, INC.
Above: Second- and third-generation
family members of the Derrick Company.
Harry Derrick, Sr., his wife Iva, with their
son and daughter Harry, Jr., and
Kathryn (Mickey).
Below: Program cover for the award
ceremony on September 22, 1943, when
Derrick Company officials were presented
with the Army-Navy E Award.
Derrick Company, Inc., now in its fifth
generation as a family-owned and operated
company, provides metal heat treating,
industrial blasting, and spray painting services
to customers throughout the United States
and Canada.
The company specializes in processing
medium to very large size
parts from 1,000 to 100,000 pounds
plus. Derrick Company processes
steel, alloys, weldments, fabrications,
castings, pressure vessels, and other
heavy industrial components.
The current business is an outgrowth
of The Frank J. Derrick Brick
Manufacturing Company, founded in
Newport, Kentucky in the early
1920s. Derrick Brick became part
of many major building projects
throughout the region, including the
region’s premier high-rise building
project of the era, the Carew Tower in
downtown Cincinnati.
After relocating the operation just
across the river to Cincinnati the
company entered the heat-treating
field in the early 1940s when the United
States government was in need of very long
heat-treating furnaces to process tank tread
parts during World War II. Frank Derrick’s
son, Harry Derrick, Sr., and his Derrick
Company crew devised a method to convert
the company’s brick kilns into heat-treating
furnaces to successfully heat treat the tank
treads. Derrick’s method for heat treating
metals was credited with helping U.S. forces
win the war in North Africa during World
War II, and the heat-treating procedure
developed by Derrick became the standard
adopted by heat treaters across the country.
Mr. Derrick, Sr., received a letter from
President Roosevelt thanking him and his
crew for their efforts, but Mr. Derrick was
proudest of a penciled note he received
from a G.I. in the tank corps which said,
“Thanks buddy—you guys saved my life.”
A local newspaper story in 1943 described
the ingenious process used in the heat-treating
procedure, noting that such plants “are vital
to the war industry.” The Derrick Company
was honored during a public ceremony in
Cincinnati, during which the government
presented each member of the firm with the
prestigious U.S. Army/Navy “E” Award.
When the war ended, the firm was reorganized
to specialize in metal heat treating
and the brick business was phased out over
the ensuing years.
Derrick Company continues to proudly
serve the U.S. military effort on several fronts
today, while performing work on parts for
Navy destroyers for the past twenty-five years
as well as on components for the many armored
vehicles currently deployed around the world.
Following the death of Harry Derrick, Sr.,
in 1959, third- and fourth-generation Derrick
family members continued to successfully
operate and grow the business over the years,
guiding the company through the transition
from brick manufacturing to the premiere
metal heat treating, industrial blasting and
painting source in the region.
Derrick Company is currently owned and
operated by Kathie and Gary Schmid and
their son, Jason Schmid. Kathie is the daughter
of Kathryn Derrick-Perry, and Kathie and
Jason are fourth and fifth generations of
Derrick family members to proudly own and
operate the business.
Derrick customers receive individual,
focused attention for their projects, from
management to truck drivers and all points in
between. The tradition at Derrick Company
is not so much to be trendy, but to hold to a
core set of values and principles that have
guided the company through the generations—respect,
hard work, and dedication.
Because the management and employees
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230

firmly believe in these principles, the ensuing
result is a high-quality and highly valued
service for their customers. The daily objective
at Derrick Company is to meet the
customer’s needs in every way possible.
The blasting facilities at Derrick can
process small parts in automated barrel/rotoblast
machines as well as very large parts in
excess of fifty tons in their large air blast
rooms. Derrick’s Wheel Blast machine handles
flat plates up to 100 inches wide, pipes up to
42 inches OD, and structural I-beams up to
42 inches tall with lengths up to 288 inches.
Derrick’s unique industrial painting facilities
provide the ability to apply single or
multiple coat paint systems to
many types of medium to very large
industrial components.
With their recent addition of a massive
dual-zone paint booth, Derrick’s
environmentally controlled industrial
paint facilities can now handle the painting
of very large shapes, sizes, and configurations
up to 25 feet wide, 20 feet
high, and 60 feet long. This new paint
booth features two independent 4.2 million
BTU, gas-fired Air Make-Up Units
and a “Smart Sense” control panel that
controls curing cycles with temperatures
up to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition,
Derrick’s conventional air-assist and
electrostatic wet spray painting operations
cover the coatings spectrum, from
water base primers to nuclear grade
zincs and high performance urethanes.
Past and present family owners of the
Derrick Company sincerely believe the
business would not be the success it is today
if it were not for the hard work and
dedication of the many loyal team members
who have given so much of themselves to the
Derrick Company over the decades. Many
Derrick employees have been with the
company for 25 to 35 years and several more
than 45 years. The entire Derrick team
continues to contribute their skills and
talents every day to carry on the Derrick
tradition of high quality and service to its
many valued customers.
Above: Former Derrick Company Sales
Manager Bob Cline, with an eight-footwide
diameter by sixty-foot-long tank for
heat treating at Derrick Company,
January 30, 1962.
Below: Current owners of the Derrick
Company, 2014: Gary Schmid, CEO;
Kathie Schmid, treasurer; and
Jason Schmid, president.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SARAH BETH LONG.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 3 1

FAXON
MACHINING, INC.
Left to right: Bob, Barry, Betty and
Beth Faxon.
As David K. Faxon and David K. Faxon II
were standing in the former Weicholt Arms
building in 1978, a business was born.
Although most of the equipment in the
4,500-square-foot block building in
Northside Cincinnati had been sold, there
was still one small deep hole drilling
machine, and a 3 by 5 inch index card box
full of customer names. As the two discussed
the future use of the building for automotive
repairs, they made a deal to buy the one
machine still there and the customer list.
David handed the box of index cards to his
son and said “if the automotive business gets
slow, you can drill some holes.” Within a year
Faxon Automotive and Machining was all
machining. Thirty-five years later Faxon
Machining, formerly Faxon Automotive and
Machining, is still primarily known in many
industries as a leader in the deep hole drilling
sector of machining.
The first day of business for Faxon
Automotive and Machining began January 3,
1978. David K. and Betty W. Faxon helped
their son David K. Faxon II, president, from
the very first day of business. Unfortunately
David II was killed in an accident on
August 29, 1984. The other two sons, Barry
A. and Robert T., were involved in the business
at that time, Barry assumed the role of
president at the age of twenty-one, and
Robert assumed the role of vice president at
the age of nineteen. Their sister Elizabeth A.
also joined the company around the same
time. Their father, David K., passed away on
January 5, 1987.
Faxon Machining has always been family
owned and operated, and now employs three
generations. Betty is now ninety years old,
and comes into work every day
to her job in her second
floor office. Barry, Bob, and Beth
are still president, vice president,
and secretary of the company.
Barry’s son Ryan A. now works
with the company and represents
the third generation actively
involved in the business. Even
at the age of ninety, Betty, still
plays a dominant role in the
operation of the company as she
always has.
By staying with the core
business of deep hole drilling,
and adding other machining capabilities, the
company started to grow and a 13,000-
square-foot facility nearby was rented to
support the growth. Faxon Machining built
and moved into a brand new, fully craned
35,000-square-foot modern facility on five
acres in Forest Park, Ohio, in 1994. With the
addition of several new customers and
expanded capabilities the company
continued to expand. By purchasing an
additional five acres, and breaking ground on
four more building expansions over a tenyear
period, the modern state-of-the-art
facility is currently over 165,000 square feet.
The opportunities that Faxon Machining
have experienced are mainly due to two
things. One is the dedicated and talented
staff that has committed itself to the satisfaction
of the customer and the success of the
company. The other is the wide variety of
customers and industries that Faxon
Machining serves. Over the years Faxon
Machining, with the commitment of its staff,
has developed a reputation for creativity
and capability. Many long term customers
have started out with late nights and long
weekends to achieve seemingly impossible
goals on customer needs. Some of those
customers have lasted over thirty years and
are still going strong.
In order to be trusted with the type of
work and programs for very demanding
customers, Faxon Machining has acquired
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232

and maintained several quality certifications
over the years. It has always been the
approach of the management and the staff to
put quality first and never to take short cuts
where quality is concerned. In a changing
environment, especially in the manufacturing
business, one thing is for sure; any customer
who will afford a bright future will be
adamant about the quality of the product
that you are providing. Over the years, and
from those humble beginnings, the level of
accuracy and the overall product provided
to its customers has continuously improved
significantly each year.
By leveraging the core competency of deep
hole drilling and supporting it with a whole
array of other manufacturing processes, Faxon
Machining has been able to develop many
long term customers in a variety of industries.
Faxon Machining started with what would be
called a typical “Job Shop” approach with a
core capability of drilling deep holes for its
customers. Now they play a more integral
role with their customers in several very
demanding industries. Faxon Machining
serves the general machining, aerospace,
automotive, defense, and energy industries.
In the early days of the company, many of
the parts worked on were not even close to a
finished product. Most of the parts only had
a hole drilled into it and their customers
finished the rest of the part. While that still
remains true in some circumstances, most of
the work that is provided is more
often than not a completed part.
Sometimes it is a completed assembly
or product. To accomplish this,
Faxon Machining has developed
a staff that manages an array of
both inside and outside services to
accomplish this task. This has
brought the company to a higher
level of service that it is able to
provide and manage a much more
complex program than ever before.
Faxon Machining has provided
machined parts that are used on
the floor of the ocean, in automobiles,
in theaters of combat
supporting our brave men and
women who protect our freedom,
in some current aircraft, in oil wells and
exploration, a multitude of industrial applications,
and even on Mars. Faxon Machining
manufactured parts that were used on the
Mars Lander, Curiosity. Curiosity landed
successfully on Mars in January 2013, and is
currently active in the exploration of the surface
of Mars today.
In an ever challenging environment,
Faxon Machining remembers and relies on its
humble beginnings to chart a continued path
of success and growth. Many things have
changed through the years, but some things
have never changed. This was well said when
Barry commented “We work long hours, and
never quit no matter how tough it gets.”
Although the staff and customers share an
equally important role, the ability to change
with the times and to always stay innovative
and creative will remain a key ingredient to
the continued success of Faxon Machining.
Along with the true appreciation of all of
the folks, both staff and customers, who have
played key roles in the past thirty-five years
of Faxon Machining’s history, two individuals
stand out. Without the absolute and unwavering
support of David K. and Betty W. Faxon,
(Mom and Dad) none of this story would have
been possible. Thirty-five years of business,
millions of hours of productive work, and
supporting our Nation’s business.
From all of us,
Thanks Mom and Dad…
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 3 3

KORDENBROCK TOOL & DIE CO., INC.
For the southwest Ohio region, the early to
mid-twentieth century brought about a dramatic
boom in the form of a new manufacturing
process: tool and die. In 1953, Val Kordenbrock
joined the movement by founding Kordenbrock
Tool & Die. Accompanied by his two sons,
both of whom were talented toolmakers, Val
forged a solid foundation upon which the
company could grow. Now celebrating its
sixtieth anniversary, the third-generation,
family-owned KTD continues that growth with
the ever-changing manufacturing market.
KTD’s first location was a rented facility on
the third floor of an old building at York and
Western Avenue. They were humble beginnings,
but the location had the advantage of
being behind the scoreboard at historical
Crosley Field, where the Reds played their
home games. During their breaks, the
employees were able to slip up to the building’s
fifth floor to watch the baseball games.
In the early days, Kordenbrock specialized
in making dies for such local companies as
Powell Valve, Litton, Nutone, and many others.
The addition of I-75 through Cincinnati
resulted in tremendous growth for KTD. The
company was moved from its original location
to a 19,000-square-foot building just north
of the city. The increased production space
allowed KTD to expand into production metal
stamping. With the help of its solid customer
base in both the automotive and industrial
markets, KTD continued growing until
settling into its current 30,000-square-foot
location in early 2001.
In the Cincinnati tradition of skilled tool
and die craftsmanship, Kordenbrock has
six decades of experience and an excellent
reputation for creating precision tools and
dies. Regional and Fortune 500 companies
depend on Kordenbrock because of the firm’s
responsiveness and ability to meet customers’
expectations and cost specifications. The
company is large enough to have state-of-theart
equipment such as CAD, CNC machining
systems, electrical discharge machinery
(EDM), 3D machining, progressive dies, and
stamping capacity while maintaining the
efficiency and dedication attributes of a
small business. With twenty employees and
a growing base of customers, Kordenbrock
has become more aggressive in seeking
additional ways of serving customers and is
continually growing. With an eclectic variety
of both youth and experience, Kordenbrock’s
staff has the expertise in die building,
machining, cost estimating, scheduling
and everyday shop floor management to
assure our customers of precision products
delivered on time, every time.
Our goal-driven system establishes quality
objectives and provides the methods for
ensuring that these objectives meet customer
requirements. We treat our customers as
partners, and have a clear understanding of
their needs, and how critically important it is
to maintain consistency across our range
of services. In keeping with that philosophy,
we heavily invested in a quality system and
achieved our AS9100 Aerospace Certification
in March 2013.
“The legacy left to us, by family, through
the years has been to work hard and stand
behind our work,” says current owner Mike
Kordenbrock. “There have been a lot of
changes in the business over sixty years.
When we started in the business there
weren’t any computers or digital readouts.
Today, we are technical as well as mechanical,
keeping up with the creativity imperative
to success.”
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Keeping with family tradition, KTD will
soon enter its fourth generation under the
leadership of Mike’s son, Matt. As the industry
continues to see more projects coming back
from overseas, he will seek to give KTD a
competitive advantage through process based
strategies. With a rich history and eyes on the
horizon, Kordenbrock Tool & Die welcomes
another sixty years of manufacturing excellence.
For more information about Kordenbrock
Tool & Die, check out the website at
www.kordenbrocktoolanddie.com.
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2 3 5

BHDP
ARCHITECTURE
Shillito’s Department Store at Tri-County
Shopping Center.
BHDP Architecture has thrived for more
than seventy-five years by designing environments
that deliver a great experience for
the client. By effectively blending the science
and art of architecture, BHDP has designed
some of Cincinnati’s most iconic structures,
in addition to buildings across the nation and
around the world.
BHDP’s roots go deep into Cincinnati’s
history, beginning in 1937 when Cyrus Baxter
joined Woody Garber and Cliff Woodward
in a firm called Garber & Woodward. Baxter
brought to the firm a close association with
Cincinnati Milacron. Baxter created Cyrus L.
Baxter Architects in 1946, with a lot of the
firm’s work being done for Milacron.
Baxter demonstrated an uncanny ability to
assess talent and over the next few years
he recruited Jack Hodell, Jim Donnelly, and
Jim Preston to the firm. Each had graduated
with distinction and each went on to show
an artful affinity for the practice and for
Cy’s way of doing business. In 1960 the four
architects formed the firm of Baxter, Hodell,
Donnelly, and Preston, Inc., known today as
BHDP Architecture.
Among the firm’s significant projects in
the early years were the Dixie Terminal
(Garber & Woodward), and projects for the
University of Cincinnati, Miami University,
Mariemont High School, Marion Merrell
Dow Pharmaceuticals, Kenwood Mall, and
Tri-County Mall. In 1959 the firm began a
long relationship with Federated Department
Stores, known today as Macy’s.
“The original company philosophy is still
apparent in the way we treat our clients
today,” explains the firm’s CEO Mike Habel.
“Each generation of owners has focused on
our common goals and we haven’t strayed
very far from the firm’s original mission and
vision, which is to design environments for
people that deliver great experiences.”
Habel, whose father was once a partner in
the firm, is an example of the firm’s continuity.
Patrick Donnelly, an architect, is the son
of Jim Donnelly, one of the original four partners.
BHDP is now led by a third generation
of partners, providing a heritage that reaches
far back into the company history.
In 1970, BHDP completed the first of
many projects for Procter & Gamble. Working
elbow-to-elbow with one of the world’s most
forward-thinking companies inspired the
partners to flex their imaginations, challenge
the obvious and see human needs as a
foundation on which to build.
By the time BHDP moved to its current
location at 302 West Third Street in downtown
Cincinnati in 2002, the firm was fully
formed philosophically with a portfolio of
award-winning projects. Among the notable
projects completed during that era were
the Tri-County Mall expansion; Procter &
Gamble’s Sharon Woods Labs; Cincinnati
Convention Center renovation and expansion;
the Biological Sciences Building at
Miami University; the UC Cardiovascular
Research Center; the James River Corporate
Campus (now Tata Consultancy Services);
Sycamore High School; UC Raymond Walters;
and Cincinnati State.
BHDP’s growth has been tied closely to
the growth of Cincinnati over the years, particularly
the development of the Cincinnati
Airport. The easy access to air travel enabled
BHDP to expand its reach throughout the
nation as well as globally. The firm is now
registered in fifty states and also serves clients
in Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe.
“Cincinnati has always been a special place
for BHDP and the city’s growth has added
immeasurably to the firm’s growth over the
last seventy-five years,” comments Habel.
As a proud corporate citizen of Cincinnati,
BHDP Architecture feels it has an obligation to
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give back to the community. BHDP has donated
resources—both financially and architecturally—to
the Freestore Foodbank, the American
Red Cross, the College of Mount St. Joseph, and
the Dan Beard Council-Boy Scouts of America
since 2003. The firm also participates annually
in the CANstruction competition which
directly benefits Cincinnati families in need.
Many BHDP employees contribute to such
organizations as The American Institute of
Architects, ArtsWave, the United Way, A Kid
Again, the Boy Scouts, Resource, Tender
Mercies, ACE Mentor Program, Crayons to
Computers, Habitat for Humanity, the American
Cancer Society and the Cincinnati Zoo.
In addition, BHDP contributes a scholarship
for minority students to attend the
University of Cincinnati’s College of Design,
Art, Architecture and Planning in the name
of the founding partners and a scholarship
to study sustainability in the name of past
partner Carl Monzel.
BHDP has enjoyed strong growth in recent
years. The firm hit the $3 million annual
revenue figure with forty employees in 1982;
grew to fifty employees and revenues of
$6.2 million in 1994. The firm now has
125 employees, including forty registered
architects, and posted revenue of $24 million
in 2012. Full-service satellite offices were
opened in Columbus, Ohio, in 2000 and in
Durham, North Carolina, in 2007.
More than fifty percent of BHDP’s current
business comes from corporations, including
a number of Fortune 500 firms around
the country. The firm is also active in the
fields of higher education, retail and science.
Among the firm’s current clients are such blueribbon
firms as Procter & Gamble, Fidelity
Investments, PNC, U.S. Bank, Convergys,
Battelle, Omnicare, General Electric, Macy’s,
Belk, Miami University, Ohio State University,
Claire’s, JCPenney, University of Toledo,
University of Cincinnati, and many others.
“An ability to understand what the client is
trying to achieve is what makes our projects
distinctive,” explains Habel. “We feel architecture
is for the people who live, work and
play in the structures we design. That philosophy
of ‘Design for People’ began with our
founder, Cy Baxter, and continues today.”
Above: Frost Brown Todd—
Cincinnati office.
Below: Cincinnati Milacron in the 1930s.
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2 3 7

CINCINNATI
SUB-ZERO
PRODUCTS, INC.
Above: Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Inc.,
manufacturing facilities.
Below: Environmental test chambers.
For over seventy years Cincinnati Sub-Zero
(CSZ) Products, Inc., has supplied its customers
with world-class temperature management
solutions ranging from applications that
keep premature infants warm to thermal
cycling a solar panel for reliability testing.
CSZ was founded in 1940 as a distributor
of the first practical freezer for food storage,
by Robert Jacobson, the great uncle of the
current President and CEO Steven Berke. The
family business has since evolved from a
frozen foods deep freezer distributor to a leading
supplier of patient temperature management
products sold to hospitals throughout the
world and environmental simulation chambers
used for reliability testing in over twenty-two
different manufacturing industries.
Today, CSZ operates four distinct divisions—
Industrial, Medical, Testing and Animal Health.
During World War II, CSZ began modifying
deep freezers for metalworking and expansion
assembly for form fitting of shafts, and, in 1949,
the Industrial Division was established. The
CSZ Industrial Division now provides a full
range of standard and custom-designed environmental
test chambers for various industries,
including electronics, automotive, aerospace,
defense, medical, life science, pharmaceutical,
and other industrial manufacturing industries.
These chambers have temperature range capabilities
of -300°F to +1,000°F and are utilized
for product validation and reliability testing, i.e.
temperature, humidity, altitude and vibration
that simulate real world conditions.
In seventy years of business CSZ chambers
have been used to test conditions for air-to-air
missiles, solar film for satellites cooling down
to -600°F in fifteen minutes and heating up to
+600°F in twelve minutes, stability chambers
for validation of sterile medical products, testing
space shuttle booster high alloy steel rings
and batteries for hybrid automobiles. The
most impressive chamber was sold to the U.S.
Army, it was large enough to hold a semi-truck
and was built to test mobile radar installations.
CSZ began exploring the medical
applications of temperature control in the early
1960s. In 1961, a respected local heart surgeon,
Dr. Leonard Gottesman, approached CSZ with a
need for cooling blood to profound levels
during open-heart surgery. Leonard Berke,
Steve’s father, saw a need for mechanically
refrigerated, field-serviceable Hypo-
Hyperthermia systems for patient temperature
control, and the Blanketrol ® was introduced in
1963. Today Blanketrol ® III is used to help
prevent permanent brain damage in patients
who have suffered from cardiac arrest or a
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
238

stroke. It is also used to cool babies
who are oxygen deprived during
delivery to minimize brain damage
and other complications. The
Penguin Cold Therapy ® is applied
to reduce swelling after knee
replacement and shoulder repair
surgery. “CSZ’s units can control
patient temperature before, during
and after surgery. Patient safety and
comfort is a priority, as is the
surgeon’s comfort. We have a
product that keeps surgeons cool during
intense or physically exerting surgical
procedures. The WarmAir ® product is used in
combination with FilteredFlo ® Blankets, which
are placed over/under the patient to warm presurgery,
during surgery or post-surgery. We
have the largest offering of patient temperature
regulating products of any other competitor in
our industry,” says Berke.
The benefits of its temperature management
products can also be realized in the animal
health arena. Product launch plans for a line of
veterinary warming and cooling products
were underway for 2013—a natural extension
of its current medical products.
The testing division of CSZ consists of two
A2LA Accredited test laboratories located in
Cincinnati, Ohio, and Sterling Heights,
Michigan. These labs provide contract testing
services for environmental and climate testing,
including temperature cycling, humidity,
shock, thermal shock, Halt/Hass, vibration
testing, altitude simulation, and salt spray and
corrosion testing. The laboratories provide
product qualification; overflow testing and/or
independent third-party validation testing.
In 2011, CSZ acquired Halt & Hass
Corporation, thus growing CSZ’s extensive
testing capabilities and providing customers
with a state-of-the-art tool to shorten new
product development and to decrease production
and warranty costs which can significantly
improve product reliability and improve
savings to the bottom line.
The company has expanded the facility six
times in the past twenty-eight years since
moving to Sharonville in 1985. CSZ has experienced
a cumulative sales growth of seventeen
percent and Berke attributes this success
to the company’s employee base including
some second and third generation employees.
“The opportunities for continued growth are
plentiful. While many companies in similar
industries have downsized in the past four
years, CSZ has increased its work force and
now has 350 employees and is committed to
growth and expansion. As the pace of technology
increases, so will the commitment of
CSZ to the advancement of our current product
offerings. We strive to be a ‘Best in Class’
manufacturing company.” said Berke.
Above: Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Inc.
test laboratory.
Below: Hypo-Hyperthermia Systems.
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2 3 9

O’ROURKE
WRECKING
COMPANY
Clockwise, starting from the top:
Mike O’Rourke and field crew working on
the demolition of the Stearns and Foster
Warehouse, Lockland, Ohio, 2013. From
left to right, Jack Meyer, George Stewart,
Mike O’Rourke, Jerry Bill, Morgan Bill
and Cody Schwier.
Mike O’Rourke with his father,
Patrick O’Rourke after the University of
Cincinnati, Sander Hall implosion, 1991.
“Son of Beast” roller coaster at King’s Island
demolition, Cincinnati, Ohio.
For more than fifty years, O’Rourke
Wrecking Company has provided turnkey
demolition and site recovery services to
commercial, industrial, institutional, and
governmental clients throughout the nation.
O’Rourke is consistently ranked as one of the
nation’s Top 15 specialty demolition firms.
O’Rourke’s projects have ranged from
dismantlement of the 218 foot high “Son of
Beast” roller coaster at King’s Island, to
the implosion of the sixteen story Baldwin
Tower at Grant Hospital in Columbus, to the
two-year phased demolition of the former
Cincinnati Reds Cinergy Field, an intricate
project that allowed construction of the new
Great American Ballpark.
A family-owned and -operated business
based in Cincinnati, the Patrick H. O’Rourke
Excavating Company was founded in 1962
by Patrick H. O’Rourke, an enterprising businessman
who built the company from
scratch. Patrick began by hauling topsoil in
his pickup truck to job sites throughout
the Cincinnati area, earning a reputation for
reliability and superior service. He purchased
his first dozer at age twenty and began
spreading topsoil, digging foundations, and
grading sites. This experience laid the
foundation for O’Rourke Wrecking Company.
In the mid-1960s, urban renewal was
beginning and Cincinnati’s skyline was changing.
This provided new opportunities for
Patrick. One-by-one and piece-by-piece, he
began tearing down houses in the path of new
development. A self-taught man, he learned
on the job and was soon able to demolish
larger structures and reached a point where
no job was too complex for him to tackle.
In addition to projects in the Cincinnati
area, Patrick handled the demolition of
Mountaineer Stadium in Morgantown, West
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
240

Virginia, the Commonwealth Building in
Louisville, Kentucky, Union Station and the
World Bank in Washington, D.C., Old Main
Hospital at the University of Michigan, and
many others. The little company that Patrick
started from scratch was now a profitable
firm with a growing reputation.
Patrick loved all aspects of construction—
not just demolition—and was responsible for
building many of the homes, marinas, airport
hangars, and clubhouses in the Cincinnati area.
Unfortunately, Patrick left this life much
too early in 1994 at the age of only fifty-two.
At the age of twenty-six, Patrick’s son,
Mike, became president of the firm. Although
Mike was young, his father had exposed him
to the construction industry before he could
walk. His on-site experience began at age
twelve when he started working as a laborer.
By high school, Mike was operating heavy
equipment and, during his college years, he
worked as a demolition project estimator
overseeing such projects as the implosion of
the thirty-story Sander Hall Dormitory for
the University of Cincinnati and the demolition
of Provident Bank’s Wiggins Building.
Mike graduated with a business degree
from the University of Cincinnati in 1990, while
working full-time for his father. After graduation,
Mike officially joined the company full-time.
After Patrick’s untimely death, some of the
company’s competitors thought Mike was too
young and would not last long in the tough
job of running a major demolition firm.
However, with the support of a strong team of
dedicated professionals, Mike has led the
company to even greater success by providing
the complete spectrum of demolition and
decommissioning services and operating a
recycling center and C&D landfill.
Mike’s wife, Michele, has also been a major
contributor to the firm’s success. Michele left
her job as a pharmaceutical sales rep when
Mike took over the challenging job of running
the company. What was intended to be a
temporary position has now lasted nearly
twenty years. Like Mike, Michele has filled
about every job there is in the office.
“Whatever It Takes” is their shared motto, and
that includes everything from invoicing to
sending out bids and negotiating contracts.
Mike gained controlling interest of the
company in 1998 and changed the company
name from O’Rourke Construction Company
to O’Rourke Wrecking Company to better
reflect the firm’s core business. Under Mike’s
direction, O’Rourke has performed numerous
demolition projects nationwide. Among these
projects are the Cincinnati Reds Cinergy Field
implosion, the Kansas City Royals Kauffman
Stadium selective demolition, and the Cloister
Hotel Resort demolition in Sea Island, Georgia,
as well as demolition projects for General
Electric, Procter & Gamble, Duke Energy,
DuPont, Eli Lilly, and many others.
In 2003, O’Rourke acquired a construction/
demolition landfill/recycling yard to better
manage the firm’s waste streams and help
maximize all the resources from the company’s
many demolition sites.
O’Rourke Wrecking Company now has
100 employees, a modern fleet of heavy
construction equipment and a 25,000-
square-foot office/shop facility. O’Rourke is
highly respected throughout the construction
industry for its knowledge and expertise.
O’Rourke Wrecking and its employees are
very involved in a variety of community activities
and charities, and the Patrick H. O’Rourke
Scholarship Fund provides assistance each
year to a person in the construction industry
interested in continuing their education.
After more than fifty years, O’Rourke
Wrecking Company still operates on the cornerstones
of honest service and integrity.
Patrick O’Rourke believed in these principles
and Mike O’Rourke continues to instill a belief
that a company is judged by the quality of its
service and the dedication of its employees.
These are the values that have kept O’Rourke
clients satisfied for decades.
Above: Demolition for the Dayton Aviation
Heritage National Historic Park expansion,
Dayton, Ohio—first office and factory of
the Wright Brothers.
Below: Former DOW Headquarters in
Charleston, West Virginia, for the
University of Charleston.
Bottom: Implosion of Cinergy Field/
Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati, 2002.
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2 4 1

Top: William J. Kramer, Sr.
Above: Paul Kramer, Sr.
MAGNA
MACHINE
COMPANY
Magna Machine Company of Cincinnati is
a one-stop shop for all contract
manufacturing needs. The company
specializes in custom and large-component
machining, houses a comprehensive range of
machine tools and provides the expertise to
provide customers with a successful project
outcome. Magna Machine can produce an
array of finished pieces from intricate, singlepart
components to exceptionally large, fullytested
mechanical assemblies.
Magna Machine was established in 1947
when William J. Kramer, Sr., with the
financial backing of Harold Poe, purchased
the assets of Stevenson Machine Company.
The name was changed to Magna in 1952 and
Kramer purchased Poe’s interest in the
business in 1955.
In its early days, the company made
significant strides by doing repair and
maintenance work for such Cincinnati paper
mills as Fox Paper, Diamond International,
Rock Tenn, Inland Container, Mead and
others. Chemical processors including Sun
Chemical, Hilton Davis, Monsanto and others
contributed to the growth.
Paul L. Kramer took over as President of the
company after the death of William Kramer in
1965. At the time, the company consisted of
about 50 machinists, welders, assemblers and
staff. The company performed about 80
percent of its services as a full-service repair
and maintenance facility, operating from a
30,000-square-foot. facility in Reading, Ohio.
Ed Linesch as manufacturing manager and
Ralph Rogers as sales manager helped lead the
company during this period.
In 1985, Magna moved to its current
location on Southland Road in Forest Park.
That same year, the company purchased the
assets of Triumph Manufacturing and began
manufacturing bakery equipment. The new
name for Triumph became Magna Mixer Co.
and today the company builds all the mixers
for the popular Krispy Kreme donuts.
In 1987, Paul Kramer hired Terry Grein as
vice president of sales and engineering.
Around this same time, Paul’s son, Paul Scott
Kramer, completed his education and began
his full-time career with the company as
operations manager. Scott Kramer became
president of Magna Machine in 2002.
From 1990 until now, Magna has
transitioned from a repair and maintenance
facility to a full-service job and contracting
machine shop that can take a project from
concept to a fully functional assembly.
Two main contributors to this transition
were Proctor & Gamble and RJ Reynolds.
Magna helped develop machinery to make
Pringles potato chips, White Cloud and
Charmin bathroom tissue, and Ivory soap for
P&G. Magna manufactured equipment for RJ
Reynolds that makes filters for cigarettes.
In 1996, Magna manufactured its first
roller coaster trains for Togo International.
These were installed on the track at New York
New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and
marked Magna’s start in helping produce
amusement rides. In 2003, the company built
50 vehicles for a ride at Disney Hong Kong
Since moving to its current location, Magna
has expanded its facilities a number of times to
house additional large-scale machines,
including 20 overhead cranes with a lifting
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
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capability of 160,000 pounds. The most recent
addition is a “super bay” which was purposebuilt
to house a handful of very large multitasking
machines. This bay features two 40-ton
canes that provide 160,000 pounds of lifting
capacity when combined with a spreader.
Since 2012, Magna has embraced technology
that has taken it to the highest levels of
tooling, software, 5-axis and multi-processing
machining. The firm is highly diversified, with
no more than 15 percent of the business coming
from any one industry or customer.
In its 67 years of operation, Magna has grown
from 14 employees and relatively few machines
to 130 employees and more than 100 pieces of
equipment housed in a 125,000-square-foot
facility. Annual revenues now total $25 million.
Magna Machine contributes to several local
charities and events related to employee’s lives,
including sponsorships of sporting teams. Most
recently, Magna was the main financial sponsor
of an active U.S. Army holiday luncheon. In
thanks, the Army platoon presented Scott
Kramer with a plaque and flag.
One of the major Magna charity events honors
the memory of the late company President
Paul Kramer. The annual PK Memorial Golf
Tournament, instituted in 2013, raises funds
for Melanoma Know More. Funds raised in this
event enable Melanoma Know More to fulfill its
mission of reducing the impact of melanoma
through awareness, education, support of medical
research and assistance to those affected by
melanoma. The tournament has raised more
than $10,000 for the cause to date.
Looking to the future, Magna Machine
Company will continue to seek out a large
welding/fabricating business to complement the
growth the company has seen in large part from
manufacturing. Plans are to expand to a $40
million business with 150 employees within the
next five years. Meanwhile, the company will
continue to embrace new technologies and
seek to add to its large-part manufacturing
capabilities over the next generation.
Scott Kramer.
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2 4 3

THE
CINCINNATI AIR
CONDITIONING
CO.
It was tough trying to start a new
business during the Great Depression of the
1930s, especially for a new-fangled product
known as “air conditioning.” But Arthur
Radtke refused to give up, and after an initial
effort at starting a company failed, he and
a partner, William Hinsch, founded The
Cincinnati Air Conditioning Co. in 1938 as a
Carrier distributor.
Air conditioning was limited primarily to
theaters in its early days and the technology
used required sophisticated engineering. For
this reason, Robert Howard—a University of
Cincinnati graduate engineer—was the first
employee hired. Until his retirement, Howard
was known as the most knowledgeable air
conditioning engineer in the region.
Cincinnati Air Conditioning added additional
engineers, including Ivan Walters and
Henry Moore, and the company concentrated
on “high-tech” engineered air conditioning
systems. This capability helped the company
survive the war years by constructing numerous
food locker plants throughout the
Tri-State area. The company also provided a
thermometer calibration system for the
Wright Aeronautical airplane engine plant in
Evendale (now the GE jet engine plant).
Following the war, the company became
involved in the air conditioning of many
existing and new office buildings, including
the old Union Central Building (now
PNC) and Swifton Center, Cincinnati’s first
shopping mall.
Carl Radtke joined the company after
graduating from U.C. Engineering College in
1951. William retired in 1954, leaving control
of Cincinnati Air Conditioning to Arthur.
By mutual agreement, the company gave
up its Carrier distributorship in 1962 in
order to concentrate on its engineered
installed systems. To this day, however,
Cincinnati Air Conditioning continues to be
one of the largest Carrier dealers in the area.
As the oldest air conditioning company
in the Greater Cincinnati area, Cincinnati
Air Conditioning grew rapidly, organizing
a large dealer network for residential and
small commercial sales and providing
engineered air conditioning and heating
systems for many of the leading companies in
the area.
In addition, engineer Ivan Walters designed
and began building a line of oil coolant
systems for the machine tool industry that
was trademarked under the name Kool Oil.
The product is still in use in many parts of
the world and remains an important part
of the company’s complement of unique
engineered products.
A third generation of the Radtke family
joined the company in 1975 when Mark
Radtke followed in the footsteps of his
father and grandfather after graduation from
the University of Cincinnati. In 1982, David
Radtke, a son of Carl and Mark’s younger
brother, joined the company. Mark took over
as CEO upon his father’s retirement in 1996,
becoming the third generation of the family
to control the company.
Now located at 2080 Northwest Drive,
Cincinnati Air Conditioning Co. employs
sixty-five people and serves customers in
five states. Annual revenue is approximately
$12 million. For additional information,
please visit www.cincinnatiair.com.
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For nearly a century, CBT Company has
provided its customers with exceptional
service and quality products in the fields of
automation, pneumatics, electrical supplies,
belting, conveyor components, client services,
and mechanical power transmission equipment.
Founded by Albert Stagnaro in 1921 CBT
was known originally as Cincinnati Belting.
Stagnaro recognized an opportunity to
serve the industrialized Cincinnati area with
made-to-order, custom belting products to
drive customers’ production processes. As
technologies evolved, Cincinnati Belting
branched out and added power transmission
products to its portfolio.
The Stagnaro family operated the company
until 1955 then sold it to accounting executive
Sylvia Hausfeld. She moved the operation
from Main Street to the corner of Second and
Elm Streets.
James E. Stahl, Jr., a sales representative
for a mixing equipment company, purchased
the company in 1975. Stahl realized that
the components required to build mixing
machinery were needed in virtually every
other manufacturing process and that
Cincinnati Belting could supply those
needs. Starting with four employees and a
few product lines, Stahl began building the
business one customer and product at a time.
In 1989, having outgrown its facility on Pete
Rose Way, CBT moved to a 54,000-square-foot
facility at 737 West Sixth Street and also
opened a sales and warehouse facility to serve
customers in the Dayton market. At the turn of
the twenty-first century, CBT built a new stateof-the-art
facility in Springboro, Ohio, and
then added a 60,000-square-foot facility adjacent
to the Queensgate headquarters.
By the 1990s, factory and machine designs
evolved toward electrical and automation
products and away from mechanical power
transmission products. CBT foresaw this
shift and strategically focused on offering
more of these products and partnered with
its largest supplier Rockwell Automation to
accommodate the changing needs. The
relationship grew dramatically in 2004 after
CBT was awarded the sole authorized distributor
role for Rockwell Automation products
in the Cincinnati area. CBT’s area of exclusive
distributor rights for Rockwell Automation
doubled in size in 2012 as CBT acquired three
locations of Rexel in the North Cincinnati and
Dayton marketplace.
Besides offering an ever changing array of
products, CBT realizes the key to its success
lies with having intelligent, highly skilled
people who share the company’s values. CBT
invests heavily in training and educating its
employees as well as searching outside the
company for people who fit the CBT culture.
As a result, CBT proudly employs 155 dedicated
employees who serve more than 2,800
customers and represent 2,000 manufacturers.
With this combination of products and employees,
CBT’s annual sales have grown from
$400,000 in 1975 to $126 million by 2012.
Stahl and his management team have
created a Vision 2020 plan to assure the company’s
future success. This plan emphasizes
CBT Company’s core fundamental values
of outworking competitors and providing
unparalleled attention to each customer.
CBT COMPANY
Above: Cincinnati Belting’s former location
at the corner of Second and Elm Streets,
August 1957. Cincinnati Belting later
became the CBT Company.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 4 5

CINCINNATI
PRECISION
INSTRUMENTS,
INC.
Clockwise, starting from the top, left:
Charlie Plymire in U.S. Army, 1956.
CPI calibration lab.
CEO Charlie Plymire and
President Steve Plymire.
The founders, Charlie Plymire and
Donna Behymer.
Cincinnati Precision Instruments (CPI)
was founded in 1962 with little more than
knowledge gained from military training and
a willingness to work for a dream.
CPI was born when Charles Plymire and
Donna Behymer realized that the optical
instrumentation company they worked for
was about to go out of business. Charlie and
Donna offered to buy some of the equipment
from the failing company so they could
start their own business. Neither Charlie nor
Donna had much money, but they pulled
together $1,000 between them and started the
business from a four-car garage in Reading,
Ohio. Originally, the company repaired optical
instrumentation for construction companies.
Charlie’s son, Steve Plymire, explains that
although the business was highly technical,
his father’s training consisted mostly of onthe-job
training received while in the Army.
“He was pretty much self-taught, but has
a problem-solving, technical mind,” Steve
notes. “But the factor that made the business
successful was the absolute tenacity Charlie
brought to the business. He just worked harder
than anybody else was willing to work.”
CPI’s first year was a struggle because few
construction projects were available during
the winter months. To counter this seasonal
slow-down, Charlie called on local manufacturers
to see if he could repair their measuring
tools. This aggressive move, born of necessity,
gave birth to CPI’s metrology business.
A key member of the organization from
the early days is Dan Bollmer, who started
repairing instruments while still a high
school student. Dan has the same work
ethic and talents as Charlie, and they worked
well together and shared the workload.
Dan is still with the company and serves
as vice president of optical instrumentation.
From 1962 to 1989, CPI was primarily an
instrumentation repair company for the local
manufacturing and construction industries.
The company grew to income of about
$1 million per year but when competitors
started eating away at his business, Charlie
persuaded his son to join the business and
sell to end users.
Steve had a business degree from Miami
University and was working in Chicago when
asked to join the family firm. He was not sure
this was what he wanted to do, but agreed to a
three-year commitment. The mix of Charlie’s
technical mind and Steve’s strength in sales and
marketing clicked, and Steve became president
and minority owner in 1999, buying out
Donna’s share of the business.
Under Steve’s leadership,
CPI has become a full sales
and service distributor and has
helped build the company
into one of the top commercial
calibration labs in the country.
CPI currently employs thirty
people and primarily serves a
three state region from their
current facility at 253 Circle
Freeway Drive in Cincinnati.
The customer base includes
Fortune 500 companies as well
as small family businesses. CPI
projects close to $8 million in
revenue for 2013.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
246

Wm. Kramer & Son, Inc., a five-generation
family owned firm, has provided Cincinnatiarea
customers with quality roofing and sheet
metal products at competitive prices for more
than a century.
William Kramer, a residential roofing and
sheet metal technician, started the business
in 1907 with a ladder and a wheelbarrow and
worked out of his Price Hill home on Sunset
Avenue. William took care of his neighbor’s
needs for various slate, tile, tin and canvas
roofs common to the area and soon became
a well-respected tinner and member of the
Price Hill business community.
William died suddenly in 1941 and his
son, Alfred “Jack” Kramer, took over the
family business, guiding it through the
material and manpower shortages of World
War II. The company’s work began to change
following the war, with more flat roofing and
commercial work. The shop was expanded
and moved to Glenway Avenue in 1949.
Alfred, along with his sons Robert and
Kenneth, continued the firm’s growth through
its incorporation in 1970. The third generation
brothers ran the company together until
Robert’s death in 1977. Robert’s son, Stephen,
then became the first fourth-generation
family member to become an officer in the
company. Years before Kenneth’s retirement in
1996, Stephen’s brothers, Bruce and Doug,
along with his cousin, Kevin, had joined
the company as fourth generation company
officers. Erik Kramer, B.B.A. and Jeff Kramer,
representing the fifth generation, are in the
process of training for future ownership.
Wm. Kramer & Son, Inc., has been located
at 9171 Harrison Pike in Cleves, Ohio,
since 1984. The most recent office addition
was completed in 2002.
Now one of Ohio’s leading commercial
roofing and architectural sheet metal
installers, Wm. Kramer & Son, Inc., specializes
primarily in commercial re-roof and
repair work, roof management, maintenance
and new construction, as well as expanded
architectural sheet metal capabilities, using
state-of-the-art equipment and union
mechanics dedicated to quality. The company
has also installed many energy saving and
environmentally friendly green roof systems.
Wm. Kramer & Son, Inc., services customers
in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and has
developed many long-term relationships
during its 106 years in business. The company
was the recipient of the University of
Cincinnati Goering Center’s Family Business of
the Year Award in 2007, the year the company
celebrated its hundreth anniversary.
The company employs an average of
seventy-five people and many have been with
the company more than twenty years. Wm.
Kramer & Son, Inc. is a union contractor
and many employees are long-time members
of Composition Roofers Local 42 and Sheet
Metal Local 24.
The long-term goals of Wm. Kramer &
Son, Inc., are to learn from its history,
continue servicing new and long-standing
customers to the best of its abilities, and grow
with future opportunities while maintaining
a family business atmosphere.
WM. KRAMER &
SON, INC.
Over 100 Years of Roofing Excellence
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 4 7

THE JOHNSON
ELECTRIC SUPPLY
COMPANY
Above: Our first location at 244 East Fifth
Street, Cincinnati, c. 1916.
Below: Front row (left to right): Nancy
Baker, Doug Johnson, Bob Johnson and
Anne White. Back row: Mark Baker,
Asa Smith, Dan White and Bob White.
After more than a century in business,
The Johnson Electric Supply Company has
earned a sterling reputation for the quality
of its products and the services it provides
its customers.
The company was organized in 1907 as
The Johnson-Kennedy Electric Company by
Claude Johnson, Sr., and John M. Kennedy, Jr.
The company was first located on East
Fifth Street in downtown Cincinnati and its
principal business was the distribution
of electrical supplies to the industrial,
commercial, contractor and utility markets.
According to Claude Johnson, Jr., “Dad
was great at picking out the right kind of
employees. The first was Victor Sinclair, who
had worked with him previously building
a power line.” According to company lore,
Sinclair showed up on the company’s first day
of operation, drove a nail in the wall, hung
up his hat, and proclaimed; “Now I work
here, too.” Sinclair worked for the company
until his death more than fifty years later.
Claude, Sr., bought out Kennedy and
became the sole owner in 1912. During the
next few years, industries in Cincinnati began
to change over to electrical energy from
gas, coal and waterpower, and The Johnson
Electric Supply Company began to grow.
The company expanded its product line
to include residential and electric appliances
as they came on the market. To handle the
expansion, the company moved to a larger
location at 331 Main Street in 1928.
The company experienced growth in all
markets during the boom years that followed
World War II. The electric appliance portion
of the business reached a substantial volume
in the 1940s, a trend that continued through
the 1970s.
Claude, Sr., passed away suddenly in
1946 and his thirty-one year old son,
Claude, Jr., aided by a very knowledgeable
and loyal employee base, took over
the company.
Looking for room to expand, the company
relocated to 321 Sycamore Street in 1951.
When the property next door became
available, Johnson Electric opened the first
indoor drive-thru pick-up service in the
electrical distributor business.
The influx of national retail chains
brought change to the distribution market
in the 1960s, but Johnson Electric adapted
by selling primarily to the industrial, commercial
and contractor markets.
The company moved to its current
location at 1841 Riverside Drive in 1982.
Claude, Jr.’s son, Douglas, was named
president in 1989, becoming the third
generation of the family to run the company.
Also on staff are two of Doug’s sisters, one
brother, three brothersin-law,
and one nephew.
The Johnson Electric
Company takes great
pride in its reputation
as a flexible, customerdriven
organization with
family values. The firm’s
thirty-six employees
share a combined 771
years with the company,
a remarkable statement
of loyalty and experience.
Just ask Ed Mohr,
who first came to work
for the company in 1942,
and continues to be
active in the organization
today at the ripe old age
of eighty-six.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
248

R. E. KRAMIG
& CO.
KRAMIG
INSULATION
R. E. Kramig & Co. was organized in 1896
as a partnership between R. E. Kramig, Sr.,
and John T. Gartner. The office was located on
Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati and the
business concentrated on selling and installing
insulation and fireproofing for pipes, boilers,
roofing, housings and all types of surfaces.
The company enjoyed slow, but steady,
growth and was incorporated in Ohio in 1934,
listing both R. E. Kramig Senior and Junior as
partners. When more space was needed for
the growing company, the business moved to a
larger building at 222 East Fourteenth Street.
Among the projects completed by Kramig
during this era were the insulation of piping
and air ductwork in the Carew Tower and
the Union Terminal, as well as the same type
work for various office and manufacturing
plants in the greater Cincinnati area.
Robert Kramig, Jr., succeeded his father as
president in 1947 and held the position until
his untimely death in 1956. R. E. Kramig III
and his brother, John N. Kramig, then assumed
leadership of the organization and helped it
grow even larger. The operation was moved to
larger accommodations at 323 South Wayne
Avenue in Lockland, its present location.
Bob and John remained in charge until
1990, at which time control was turned
over to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan
(ESOP), which had been established two
years prior. George J. Kulesza became the
first non-Kramig family member to be
president (and trustee of the ESOP), with
H. H. “Fritz” Horne as vice-president and
co-trustee. Following George’s death in 2004,
Fritz became president, with Dennis Lambert
as vice president and co-trustee, and George’s
son, Andrew Kulesza, as treasurer. This
management team remains in place today.
Over the years, the Kramig Company
developed a strong relationship with the
Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company and
helped complete the insulation work on most
of the power generating plants constructed
in this region during the second half of the
twentieth century. The experience gained
from this work benefits the company’s customers
to this day, as hot, high, tough projects
with short schedules continue to be regularly
completed safely, correctly, and on time.
The company serves a wide range of clients
and its mechanical division insulates piping,
ductwork and equipment for schools, hospitals,
office buildings and manufacturing plants
for the utility, chemical, brewery, distillery, and
automotive industries. Many customers asked
for help with asbestos or lead paint removal,
and the environmental division acquired the
necessary expertise and equipment to properly
complete that work. The architectural
division sells and installs building insulation,
fire proofing, and Hufcor line of movable
walls. The material division sells all types of
insulation to customers across the region.
Throughout its history, R. E. Kramig & Co.,
Inc., has provided high quality insulation service
and innovative and cost effective solutions to
customer’s problems, along with consistent,
dependable performance. The employee owners
are committed to maintaining and enhancing
the reputation and tradition which they have
inherited, and to serving their customers
throughout the Tri-State region.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 4 9

AES
CONTROLS,
INC.
AES Controls, Inc., of Cincinnati provides
the skills and knowledge to help manufacturers
get the maximum results from today’s
highly automated manufacturing processes.
Whether it is mixing hundreds of gallons of
spaghetti sauce in a single batch or molding
plastic containers for shampoo, AES Controls
provides innovative and cost-effective solutions
for its customers.
“What makes AES distinctive is our total
project approach,” explains operations manager
Vince Salerno, the father of the company
founder. “We help our clients understand the
options they have for getting their projects
done to meet their business objectives and
budgets. We’re not just looking at single
projects; rather we want to build a long-term
relationship with our clients.”
This customer-centered approach has
helped AES build strategic relationships
with such international companies as
Allen-Bradley/Rockwell Automation, Siemens,
Invensys/Wonderware, and Cognex.
The company was founded in 1988 by Rick
Salerno to fill an increasing need for industrial
automation specialists. In the early years, AES
Controls concentrated primarily on design and
instrumentation but, in 1999, the company
shifted its focus to controls.
Today, AES is a systems integrator that
provides engineering, design, integration,
and programming of new automation and
controls systems. In addition, the firm provides
trouble-shooting and upgrading of
hardware, software, and programming of
existing controls systems.
The industrial automation categories for
which AES engineers program/configure
include programmable logic controllers (PLC),
human machine interface (HMI), supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA), recipe
management, and historical data collection.
These services are used in such manufacturing
applications as batch processing, continuous
processing, extrusion, press control, material
handling, paper converting, web handling
(paper and film), coating and printing, vision
inspection, barcode, and RFID.
Industries included among the company’s
customer base are automotive, chemical, food
and beverage, pharmaceutical, plastics and
rubber, pulp and paper, and steel.
AES was one of the first U.S. companies
to participate in joint ventures to provide
engineering to the former Soviet Union and
was one of the first companies in Ohio to
wire transfer currency in the form of rubles
from Moscow to Columbus. AES has worked
with Cincinnati’s International Sister City
projects and has had partnerships in Russia,
Pakistan, Germany and China.
AES estimates that its automation improvement
projects have had a favorable impact on
the working environments and safety of more
than a quarter million production people.
AES, which began with only two employees,
now has more than twenty employees
and annual sales of $7 million. AES is a major
contributor to “A Kid Again” Foundation,
supporting various youth athletic leagues in
cooperation with the Cincinnati Bengals
and Cincinnati Reds. AES also supports other
charities, including the FreeStore FoodBank,
Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and local Springdale
community activities.
AES Controls, Inc., is headquartered at 155
Tri-Country Parkway in Cincinnati and located
on the Internet at www.aescontrols.com.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
250

DUBOIS
CHEMICALS
Since it began as the DuBois Soap Company
in Cincinnati in 1920, DuBois has been
a leader in providing innovative chemical
solutions to the manufacturing industry.
The company was founded by T. V. DuBois,
an aggressive entrepreneur who built a
global specialty cleaning chemical company
that would grow to be traded on the New
York Stock Exchange in 1960.
The company’s success attracted the attention
of investor Peter Grace, who acquired
the company in 1964 and made it part of
Chemed Corporation. When a new tower was
built on Cincinnati’s Fountain Square in the
late 1960s, DuBois became its primary occupant
and the building now known as the
Fifth Third Tower was known as the DuBois
Tower for twenty years. Chemed went public
in 1982, with DuBois as its largest operation.
The company’s continued success made it
an attractive acquisition target, and the ownership
has changed hands several times since.
DuBois has belonged at various times to the
Molson Brewing Company, Unilever, and the
JohnsonDiversey Company, based in Racine,
Wisconsin. The various parent companies
had a number of different business holdings
and focuses, but the DuBois brand name
endured through all the ownership changes.
Under JohnsonDiversey, DuBois was given
the opportunity to concentrate its strategy
and focus, and position itself to succeed as a
stand-alone industrial specialty company. In
September 2008, JohnsonDiversey reached an
agreement to sell DuBois Chemicals to the
Riverside Company, a private equity firm
based in New York and Cleveland. Riverside
was committed to making the sort of strategic
investments that would enable DuBois to
reach its goal of becoming the preeminent
player in the industrial chemical market.
Over the next four and a half years the
Riverside investors were as good as their
word, providing the assistance and resources
necessary for DuBois to significantly grow its
business and expand its capabilities. In fact,
by late 2012, DuBois had grown to the point
where they had reached the upper size limit
of Riverside’s investment range. The DuBois
Leadership Team headed up by Jeff Welsh
found another exceptional partner to assume
Riverside’s interest, and in December 2012
announced the Aurora Capital Group as its
new majority stockholder. Aurora, based in
Los Angeles, is ideally positioned to provide
the resources necessary for DuBois to continue
its strategy of expansion and development.
Over the years, DuBois had developed a
broad product line which, at one point, included
more than five thousand products for many
different industries and in various applications.
In recent years, DuBois has concentrated its
focus on sectors and applications in which it
has the greatest potential to excel. These
include applications in the manufacturing,
transportation and pulp and paper industries.
Its product lines include metalworking fluids,
surface finishing and cleaning, maintenance
cleaning, water and wastewater management,
felt cleaning, paper machine applications,
transportation cleaning, lubricants, and food
processing facility cleaning and sanitizing.
DuBois has always been environmentally
conscious and the company’s future goal is to
meet the needs of our customers and exceed
their expectations by providing innovative
cleaning and process solutions that create
Lean, Clean, and Green partners. Growing
sales and profitability will always be essential
goals for DuBois, but they are now part of a
new overall company mission of providing
sustainable solutions that will ensure the long
term future of our customers, our company
and our planet.
DuBois Chemicals will always strive to sustain
the entrepreneurial spirit and intestinal
fortitude that is the legacy of company
founder, T. V. DuBois.
Top: In 2008, DuBois moved its
headquarters to the Sharonville facility that
had housed its plant and laboratories
since 1968.
Above: T. V. DuBois, the aggressive
entrepreneur who founded the DuBois Soap
Company in 1920.
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2 5 1

WM. POWELL
COMPANY
POWELL VALVES
Right: The opening of the Electrical Show,
Grand Central Palace, New York City,
1922. Thomas A. Edison is seen turning
the Powell Valve on an engine connected to
the second generator ever built, made in a
New York machine shop, and used to
provide current for the first incandescent
lamps introduced to the city at that time.
Below: President/Chairman/CEO D. R.
“Randy” Cowart and his son, Executive Vice
President D. B. “Brandy” Cowart.
Few twenty-first century companies can
boast of producing spurs and sword belts for
cavalrymen during the Civil War. Even more
amazingly, descendants of the family that
founded the Wm. Powell Company in 1846
still operate the firm today.
Although the company name has remained
the same for nearly 168 years, the company
has changed in hundreds of ways to remain a
leader in the valve industry. Generally known
by its products—Powell Valves—the company
has worked on the historic Manhattan Project,
projects on U.S. nuclear submarines, Titan
and Atlas rockets, U.S. nuclear power plants,
chemical and petroleum plants, pulp and
paper mills, even on cryogenic applications.
Powell’s base is with industrial users in the
petrochemical, industrial gas, pulp and paper,
chemical and mechanical construction
industries. Powell has formed business
partnerships with customers and valve
distributors in all fifty states, based on quality,
dependability, and competitively priced
products. The company is also expanding
globally and recently opened a new 500,000-
square-foot manufacturing plant in China.
The company was founded by William
Powell, who was born in England but settled
in the Cincinnati area in 1836. In 1846,
Powell opened the first brass foundry west of
the Alleghenies on Fifth Street.
Family members have operated the company
throughout its long history. D. R. “Randy”
Cowart became executive vice president in
1986 and assumed the presidency in 1991.
Powell Valves has flourished under Cowart’s
leadership, with double-digit growth in
productivity, expanded production and
distribution facilities and the addition of
licenses throughout the world.
Cowart’s son, Brandy Cowart, started with
the company as a warehouse employee,
moved into sales, and now serves as executive
vice president. Brandy is responsible for both
domestic and global sales, as well as product
expansion and making the company’s systems
totally customer friendly.
Powell Valves has actually produced valves
and materials to help the nation fight five wars,
beginning with the Civil War when it converted
to military production and turned out sword
belts, fittings and other products for the
Cavalry. Powell has received both the
Army-Navy “E” Award and the Maritime
Commission’s “M” Award five times for Powell’s
high standards of quality and production
efficiency. Only four percent of companies
engaged in war production receive such honors.
The Wm. Powell Company/Powell Valves
has operated in only three locations during
its long existence. The plant moved from its
original location on West Fifth Street to a
larger facility on Plum Street in 1882; then to
its current location at 2503 Spring Grove
Avenue in 1893. That plant—high-tech for its
time—had intercompany telephone service
with self-generated incandescent lighting and
factory heating.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
252

After several decades in the hardwood
lumber industry, Charles F. Shiels opened
his own firm, Charles F. Shiels and Company,
in September 1891. As one of about ninety
“hardwood houses” in Cincinnati at the time,
specialization—or niche marketing—was his
key to success. Shiels focused on marketing
high grade domestic and imported hardwoods
and White Pine and, to this day, the
company takes pride in offering “The Finest
From the Forests.”
At the turn of the twentieth century, only
lumber from quality sawmills met the requirements
of wagon and coach builders, cabinet
and millwork shops, foundry and pattern
shops, and steel mills. Many of these manufacturers
required exceptionally wide, long, and
clear lumber. Manufacturers of industrial fans,
pumps and blowers; pianos and other musical
instruments; machine tool, pinch roll, paper
and oil mill machines; hall clocks; screens for
food processing; aviation and aerospace parts;
skiffs and boats; farm equipment; and a myriad
of other products have used Shiels Lumber
in their fabrication process since 1891.
Charles was joined by his brother, Joseph,
around 1893, and he worked for the company
until his untimely death in 1925. Charles’ son,
Alfred, learned the trade under his father’s
tutelage but left to start his own company
about 1930. Charles’ son, Paul V., became a
principal in the early 1930s and took ownership
when Charles died in 1945. Another
son, Richard H., purchased the company in
1950 when Paul died. Richard died suddenly
in 1968 and his wife, Marjorie DuBrul Shiels,
assumed ownership and led the company
profitably until her retirement in 1988.
The company was originally located on
Gest Street in the city’s West End, but the
Queensgate Urban Renewal Project required
a move to the company’s current location at
1301 West Eighth Street in 1962. The current
offices were built following a major fire in 1980.
Marc F. “Buck” Shiels was working for the
firm in 1968 when Richard passed away.
Another son, Daniel R., worked for the company
from 1970 to 2010. Now the sole owner,
Buck directs the company’s operations and is
committed to a strong future in Cincinnati
and the wholesale lumber business.
Charles F. Shiels and Company has adapted
to the many changes in the industry, as
well as shifts in the economic climate over
the years. To satisfy the demand for high
quality forest products, dry kilns were built
and began operation in 1985. A custom
molding facility was started in 1996, relocated
to the West End location in 2005, and
upgraded in 2009, adding a profile library in
2011. The firm has expanded its service area
to include all of Ohio and Indiana, with parts
of Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania
as regular routes. Shiels’ truck fleet provides
options for delivery of lumber and moldings
to all areas in the eastern half of the country.
For more information on Charles F. Shiels
and Company, visit www.shielslumber.com.
CHARLES F. SHIELS
AND COMPANY
Above: Wagon load of dry, clear poplar
36-45 inches wide, Tennessee stock,
October 14, 1898.
Bottom, left: Shiels Lumber truck fleet
provides delivery of lumber and moldings to
all areas in the eastern half of the country.
Bottom, right: Aluminum dry kilns are
loaded for in-house drying. This process
allows for a high quality, uniform, and
stress relieved product.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 5 3

SIBCY CLINE
REALTORS ®
Right: Robin Sibcy Sheakley, with her
parents, Rob and Pam Sibcy.
Below: Home with a Sibcy Cline for sale
sign in front.
Sibcy Cline Realtors ® , your source for all
home buying and selling needs, is the largest
independent real estate broker headquartered
in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is ranked among the
top fifty independent brokers in the nation.
A locally owned and operated family company
since 1930, Sibcy Cline is run today by
the founder’s grandson, Robert N. Sibcy. With
one office and fifteen sales associates under
his direction, the Sibcy Company acquired
the Robert A. Cline Company in
1980, and with 250 agents, the modern
Sibcy Cline Realtors was born.
Today, Sibcy Cline has 23 office
locations and more than 1,200 real
estate agents and 200 employees
serving Greater Cincinnati and
Dayton, Ohio; Northern Kentucky;
and Southeastern Indiana.
Much of Sibcy Cline’s success is
attributed to the support and loyalty
of its sales agents and employees.
The company has a reputation
for long-standing
tenure with both its sales
force and support staff.
These professionals have
been instrumental in continuing
the upward growth
of the company.
Sibcy Cline has a strong
commitment to supporting the
community and each year its agents
and employees generously donate
to the United Way and ArtsWave.
These organizations enrich the lives
of those who live in the Cincinnati
area. The company is also proud of
all of the volunteer efforts of its sales
force and employees. Thousands of
hours are spent supporting area
charities and the company honors
one person each year for outstanding
community service.
Sibcy Cline is focused on real
estate marketing innovation. In
1983, it became the first area real
estate company to provide mortgage
services. A Sunday television show on
Channel 12, Sibcy Cline Home Videos, showcased
the firm’s listings for ten years.
With the emergence of the World Wide
Web, Sibcy Cline began posting its listings on
the Internet in 1995. At the time, Sibcy Cline
was one of only two real estate websites
nationally—and the only one locally—that
featured photos of homes on the Internet.
Sibcy Cline has continued to add features to
the site to make it one of the most user-friendly
sources of information. The website now
boasts full-screen images of their listings.
Sibcy Cline was also quick to respond as
cell phones evolved into smart phones and
offered its first version of a mobile website
in 2005. In 2011, QR codes were added to
for sale signs.
The company’s website is a major homesearch
resource for the region and is the
most viewed real estate website in the area.
Visit www.sibcycline.com and see what Sibcy
Cline has to offer.
The company is now operated by the third
and fourth generation of the Sibcy family.
Rob and Pam Sibcy currently manage the
firm and their daughter, Robin Sheakley, is
president of Sibcy Cline Relocation Services.
Above all else, Sibcy Cline Realtors is a
service-oriented company, offering convenience
and service for all real estate needs,
whether buying, selling, financing, or maintaining
a home.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
254

Flour mills once dotted the Ohio countryside,
grinding farmer’s abundant crops of
grain into thousands of sacks of flour and
meal. With the exception of a few “museum
pieces,” few of the old mills have survived
into the twenty-first century. However,
H. Nagel & Son’s Brighton Mills operation
still mills pastry flour from Ohio soft red
winter wheat in much the same manner as a
century ago.
Brighton Mills was founded in 1857 by
Henry Nagel, who emigrated from Germany
at the age of nineteen and moved almost
immediately to Cincinnati. Henry worked
on Ohio and Mississippi River steamboats
until 1853, when he established the first
flour mill in Cincinnati operated by steam.
That operation was located at Sycamore and
Webster Streets.
Henry turned to farming for a few years
but returned to milling in 1857 when
he founded Brighton Flour Mills at 2168
McClean Avenue. The enterprise prospered
from the beginning and has been in continuous
existence ever since.
Henry Nagel died in 1902 and was succeeded
by his son, Edward, who successfully
operated the firm for many years.
The mill once stood about a mile south
of its current location, but was forced to
move in 1960 because of construction of
I-75 and is now located at 2641 Spring
Grove Avenue with offices at 2428 Central
Parkway. In 1973, Brighton Mills expanded
by purchasing Loy’s Mill in Pyrmont. Much
of the old machinery has been rebuilt,
but Brighton Mills still echoes the days of
line shafts, spinning belts, and roller mills
from the mechanical days of milling.
Now operated by the fifth generation of
the Nagel family, the mill was run until
recently by William Nagel. Nagel, a graduate
of Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
worked seventeen years in the auto industry
in Detroit before returning home to run the
family business.
William retired in 2012 and the current
president is his son, Edward “Ted” Nagel,
who earned his BS in milling science
and management (1989) at Kansas
State University.
Still a growing business after 156 years,
Brighton Mills recorded $30 million in
revenue in 2012 and employs 35 people.
Looking to the future, Brighton Mills plans
to continue its growth by consolidating
operations and offering a mix of flours
for commercial users of batters and
breading, plus special blends for restaurants.
Among the company customers are such
well-known brands as Nestle, Famous Recipe,
and Perkins.
H. NAGEL &SON CO.
BRIGHTON MILLS
Fountain Square at night.
PHOTOGRAPH © DAVE IVORY.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R C I N C I N N A T I
2 5 5

PRIDE CAST
METALS,
INC.
Pride Cast Metals deep roots in the history
of Cincinnati manufacturing go back more
than a century.
The original foundry—Ohio Pattern
Works—was established in 1892. In the
early days, the foundry concentrated on
providing equipment for the emerging
petroleum industry. OPW developed new
foundry techniques, which offered brass
and aluminum capabilities that helped the
company grow and remain economically
strong even through the Great Depression
years of the 1930s.
The company was sold and
renamed several times during
the period from 1930 to 1983.
In 1930 the company changed
its name to the Ohio Pattern
Works and Foundry Company
in order to promote its foundry
expertise, as well as its pattern
making capabilities. In 1948
the company was sold and
renamed OPW Corporation. The
company was then purchased
by Dover Corporation in 1961.
Pride Cast Metals was organized in
1983 when a group of employees led by
Thomas Hamm pooled their talents and
resources and purchased the foundry from
the Dover Corporation. The new owners
named the company Pride Cast Metals as
an enduring statement of the pride and
confidence the individual foundry craftsmen
and artisans have in the quality of
their work.
“The key to our success has been the
supervisors and long-time employees who
stayed with us and helped build the company
into a full-service, turn-key operation,” comments
Tom Hamm. “The purchase turned out
to be a win-win situation for the employees
who remained with the company, as well as
the selling group—OPW Dover.”
Today, Pride Cast is a value-added, total
quality supplier capable of producing high
quality and economical turn-key castings
from start to finish. From casting sand analysis
and chemical analysis through quality
control and testing of the complete machined
and assembled castings, Pride Cast offers its
customers services that extend far beyond the
scope of a typical foundry.
A significant milestone for Pride Cast came
in 2001 when the company purchased the
aluminum and brass Kamloks division
from OPW/Dover Resources. Pride Cast had
been manufacturing the Kamlok couplers for
OPW since the early 1970s and, in 1999,
began handling all warehouse responsibilities
for the aluminum, brass, and stainless steel
Kamlok and Autolok products line.
Tom is still active in the company but
his son, Gregory Allen Hamm, along with
the assistance of his wife Debra and Kenneth
Bechtol, Jr., are now in charge of the company’s
day-to-day operation.
Pride Cast, located at 2737 Colerain Avenue
in Cincinnati and at www.pridecastmetals.com,
currently employs about 120 people.
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
256

SPONSORS
A. J. Rahn Greenhouses, Inc. ....................................................................................................................................................................208
AES Controls, Inc. ....................................................................................................................................................................................250
Bartlett & Co. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................210
BHDP Architecture....................................................................................................................................................................................236
Cadre Computer Resources.......................................................................................................................................................................209
Castellini Group of Companies.................................................................................................................................................................190
CBT Company ..........................................................................................................................................................................................245
Charles F. Shiels and Company.................................................................................................................................................................253
Cincom Systems, Inc. ...............................................................................................................................................................................182
The Cincinnati Air Conditioning Co.........................................................................................................................................................244
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center..........................................................................................................................................219
Cincinnati Financial Corporation..............................................................................................................................................................204
Cincinnati Mine Machinery Company ......................................................................................................................................................226
Cincinnati Precision Instruments, Inc. ......................................................................................................................................................246
Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Inc............................................................................................................................................................238
The Cincinnatian Hotel.............................................................................................................................................................................200
Cintas Corporation ...................................................................................................................................................................................194
Crowne Plaza Cincinnati Blue Ash............................................................................................................................................................192
Derrick Company, Inc...............................................................................................................................................................................230
DuBois Chemicals.....................................................................................................................................................................................251
Faxon Machining, Inc...............................................................................................................................................................................232
Fenton Rigging & Contracting, Inc...........................................................................................................................................................222
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation ..........................................................................................................................................................217
H. Nagel & Son Co. (Brighton Mills)........................................................................................................................................................255
Habegger Corporation ..............................................................................................................................................................................186
Heidelberg Distributing Company ............................................................................................................................................................202
J. D. Cloud & Co......................................................................................................................................................................................205
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati................................................................................................................................................................218
The Johnson Electric Supply Company ....................................................................................................................................................248
Kordenbrock Tool & Die Co., Inc.............................................................................................................................................................234
Life Enriching Communities/Twin Towers and Twin Lakes Senior Living Communities............................................................................214
Magna Machine Company ........................................................................................................................................................................242
The Mariemont Inn...................................................................................................................................................................................196
Martin Franchises Inc. ..............................................................................................................................................................................206
O’Rourke Wrecking Company ..................................................................................................................................................................240
Ohio National Financial Services ..............................................................................................................................................................198
Pride Cast Metals, Inc. ..............................................................................................................................................................................256
R. E. Kramig & Co./Kramig Insulation .....................................................................................................................................................249
Ransohoff..................................................................................................................................................................................................203
Reliable Castings Corporation...................................................................................................................................................................228
Ruthman Companies/Gusher Pumps ........................................................................................................................................................224
Sibcy Cline Realtors ® ................................................................................................................................................................................254
S P O N S O R S
2 5 7

University of Cincinnati............................................................................................................................................................................216
Western & Southern Financial Group.......................................................................................................................................................188
Wm. Kramer & Son, Inc...........................................................................................................................................................................247
Wm. Powell Company/Powell Valves........................................................................................................................................................252
Wood Herron & Evans LLP ......................................................................................................................................................................207
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
258

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
D A N I E L
H U R L E Y
Hurley is a graduate of Xavier University with post graduate work at the College of William and Mary. Since leaving the Historical
Society, Hurley has worked as a freelance history consultant, columnist, television producer/reporter, Assistant Vice President for History
and Research at Cincinnati Museum Center, and is currently Director, Leadership Cincinnati, Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.
P A U L A . T E N K O T T E , P H . D .
Dr. Tenkotte received his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Cincinnati and currently teaches history at Northern
Kentucky University. He is the co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky and the co-author of A Home of Our Own: The Suburb of
Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, 1910-2010, and To Be Catholic and American in Northern, Central, and Appalachian Kentucky:The Diocese of Covington.
He has contributed to World History Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, and The Kentucky Encyclopedia, among other publications.
He has also appeared in programming about local history issues on WLWT-TV and WKRC-TV.
A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S
2 5 9

For more information about the following publications or about publishing your own book,
please call HPNbooks at 800-749-9790 or visit www.hpnbooks.com.
Albemarle & Charlottesville:
An Illustrated History of the First 150 Years
Black Gold: The Story of Texas Oil & Gas
Care By the Sea: A History of
Medicine in Nueces County
Carter County, Oklahoma: Then and Now
Coastal Visions: Images of Galveston County
Dallas County: A 21st Century Mosaic
King Cotton to Space Capital:
The Huntsville-Madison County Story
Garland: A Contemporary History
Historic Abilene: An Illustrated History
Historic Alamance County:
An Illustrated History
Historic Albany: City & County
Historic Albuquerque: An Illustrated History
Historic Alexandria: An Illustrated History
Historic Amarillo: An Illustrated History
Historic Anchorage: An Illustrated History
Historic Austin: An Illustrated History
Historic Baldwin County:
A Bicentennial History
Historic Baton Rouge: An Illustrated History
Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History
Historic Beaumont: An Illustrated History
Historic Bexar County: An Illustrated History
Historic Birmingham: An Illustrated History
Historic Brazoria County: An Illustrated History
Historic Brownsville: An Illustrated History
Historic Charlotte:
An Illustrated History of Charlotte and
Mecklenburg County
Historic Chautauqua County:
An Illustrated History
Historic Cheyenne: A History of the Magic City
Historic Clayton County: An Illustrated History
Historic Comal County: An Illustrated History
Historic Corpus Christi: An Illustrated History
Historic DeKalb County: An Illustrated History
Historic Denton County: An Illustrated History
Historic Edmond: An Illustrated History
Historic El Paso: An Illustrated History
Historic Erie County: An Illustrated History
Historic Fayette County: An Illustrated History
Historic Fairbanks: An Illustrated History
Historic Gainesville & Hall County: An
Illustrated History
Historic Gregg County: An Illustrated History
Historic Hampton Roads: Where America Began
Historic Hancock County:
An Illustrated History
Historic Henry County: An Illustrated History
Historic Hood County: An Illustrated History
Historic Houston: An Illustrated History
Historic Hunt County: An Illustrated History
Historic Illinois: An Illustrated History
Historic Katy: An Illustrated History
Historic Kern County:
An Illustrated History of Bakersfield
and Kern County
Historic Lafayette:
An Illustrated History of Lafayette &
Lafayette Parish
Historic Laredo:
An Illustrated History of Laredo &
Webb County
Historic Lee County:
The Story of Fort Myers & Lee County
Historic Louisiana: An Illustrated History
Historic Mansfield: A Bicentennial History
Historic Midland: An Illustrated History
Historic Mobile:
An Illustrated History of the Mobile Bay Region
Historic Montgomery County:
An Illustrated History of
Montgomery County, Texas
Historic Ocala: The Story of Ocala &
Marion County
Historic Oklahoma: An Illustrated History
Historic Oklahoma County:
An Illustrated History
Historic Omaha:
An Illustrated History of Omaha and
Douglas County
Historic Orange County: An Illustrated History
Historic Osceola County: An Illustrated History
Historic Ouachita Parish: An Illustrated History
Historic Paris and Lamar County:
An Illustrated History
Historic Pasadena: An Illustrated History
Historic Passaic County: An Illustrated History
Historic Pennsylvania An Illustrated History
Historic Philadelphia: An Illustrated History
Historic Prescott:
An Illustrated History of Prescott &
Yavapai County
Historic Richardson: An Illustrated History
Historic Rio Grande Valley:
An Illustrated History
Historic Rogers County: An Illustrated History
Historic San Marcos: An Illustrated History
Historic Santa Barbara: An Illustrated History
Historic Scottsdale: A Life from the Land
Historic Shawnee: A History of Shawnee &
Pottawatomie County
Historic Shelby County: An Illustrated History
Historic Shreveport-Bossier: An Illustrated
History of Shreveport & Bossier City
Historic South Carolina: An Illustrated History
Historic Smith County: An Illustrated History
Historic St. Louis: 250 Years Exploring
New Frontiers
Historic Temple: An Illustrated History
Historic Texarkana: An Illustrated History
Historic Texas: An Illustrated History
Historic Victoria: An Illustrated History
Historic Tulsa: An Illustrated History
Historic Wake County: An Illustrated History
Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History
Historic Williamson County:
An Illustrated History
Historic Wilmington & The Lower Cape Fear:
An Illustrated History
Historic York County: An Illustrated History
Iron, Wood & Water:
An Illustrated History of Lake Oswego
Jefferson Parish:
Rich Heritage, Promising Future
Louisiana: The Energy State
Making San Antonio:
The Story of San Antonio Manufacturing
Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods:
A History of Community
Mile Marker 103: The History of
Edmond, Oklahoma
More Than a River: Decatur-Morgan County
The New Frontier:
A Contemporary History of Fort Worth &
Tarrant County
Old Orange County Courthouse:
A Centennial History
Plano: An Illustrated Chronicle
Prospects to Prosperity
Rich With Opportunity: Images of Beaumont
and Jefferson County
Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century
San Antonio, City Exceptional
The San Gabriel Valley: A 21st Century Portrait
Southwest Louisiana: A Treasure Revealed
The Spirit of Collin County
Valley Places, Valley Faces
Water, Rails & Oil: Historic Mid & South
Jefferson County
C I N C I N N A T I - T h e Q u e e n C i t y
260