Some Dixie Highway for Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Denny

The daily rate and a two-night minimum put the kibosh on preliminary thoughts of spending Thanksgiving night at a nearby state park lodge and other things got in the way of even making a reservation for the buffet there. Even so, I went to bed on Wednesday thinking that I would call about a last minute spot in the morning. By morning, however, I was ready to acknowledge that I would rather be driving than eating and set off to cruise some bits of the Dixie Highway that I had not been on for some time. In downtown Cincinnati, I was quickly reminded of the Thanksgiving Day Race that blocks several streets including the Roebling Bridge on which the Dixie Highway entered Kentucky from Ohio. I climbed onto the interstate and picked up the old auto trail on the other side of the river.

One reason the Dixie Highway makes for a good day trip south is that two alignments exist between Cincinnati and Lexington. The original path was pretty much straight south through Dry Ridge and Corinth. At some point, a path through Falmouth and Paris was proposed and recognized as an alternative by the Dixie Highway Association. Plans were to eventually pick one or the other but the Numbered US Highways came along and the DHA disbanded before a selection was made which leaves both alignments as somewhat official.

My pathway south was on the original alignment past the old gas station in Dry Ridge, the tin tepee (with recliner) near Williamsburg, and remnants of Fisher’s Camp near Corinth.

Lexington’s Main Street, which carried the Dixie Highway, is now one way northbound so I briefly left my southbound route to photograph the camel-topped Zero Mile Marker at Main and Limestone. While there, I slipped across the street to photograph just a few of the many painted ponies (actually thoroughbred racehorses) that decorate the city. I also snapped a picture at Thoroughbred Park before leaving town.

I had originally planned to pick up the other alignment in Lexington and head home but it was still fairly early and I decided to drive on to a place I had been interested in for a while. The first picture is of the modern bridge that currently carries I-75 and US-25 over the Kentucky River. The second picture shows the 1871 bridge that carried the Richmond-Lexington Turnpike, the Dixie Highway, and US-25 across the river. The third picture was taken from Clays Ferry Overlook on the south side of the river. Jay and Ashley Webb purchased this about a year ago and the Webbs have removed hundreds of truckloads of trash and cleared away trees to make it a real overlook again. Check out their Facebook page here. I did not prepare very well for my visit and I know there’s a lot of history here that I don’t yet know. I do know that the stone wall was built by the WPA in the early 1930s. This section of the road was relocated shortly before that but after it had become US-25. I believe that this is where the Richmond-Lexington turnpike and the Dixie Highway would have run.

I’d driven to Clays Ferry because of the big cleanup and because it wasn’t much more than a dozen miles from Lexington and I drove on to Richmond because it was only a dozen or so miles farther. In Richmond, I was definitely tempted to drive the dozen or so more miles to Berea but managed to stop myself. I took the expressway back to Lexington and the southern end of that Falmouth alignment. The slightly off-route moves I’d made earlier had not actually been necessary, I now discovered. Not only did my northbound route take me right by Thoroughbred Park, the route to Falmouth begins at Main and Limestone and the Zero Mile Marker.

The Dixie Highway, as I’m sure almost everyone knows, passes right through Paris. At its southern edge, Central Kentucky Classic Cars pulled me in to drool over a 1968 Camaro, lower my sights slightly to consider a ’55 Chevy sedan, then eventually move on with the free digital photos that were a better fit for my budget. Every Paris deserves an Eiffel Tower and this Paris finally got one in the summer of 2021. At 20 feet tall, it is considerably shorter than the original in France (1024 feet), and the replica just up the road from me in Kings Island (314 feet), but it’s still pretty cool. Incidentally, the Edward Shinner Building in the background was declared the “Tallest 3-story Building in the World” by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! which explains why its top got clipped in the photo.

Much of this Dixie Highway alignment has been taken over by US-27 but a few miles south of Cynthiana it moves to the west side on Mark Road then cuts back across the US route, slips through a narrow underpass, crosses a narrow bridge, and heads straight (but not quite level) into the Kentucky countryside on Old Lair Road.

Sunset occurred almost simultaneously with my reaching Punkyville so things were starting to dim when I took this driveby shot. When I first drove this alternate alignment in 2015, I stopped and explored Punkyville and I’ve done that a time or two since but not today.

Despite increasing darkness, I stayed with the Dixie Highway through Falmouth and Independence but encountered a road closure about three miles north of the latter town. By then, even though it was not yet 5:30, full-on darkness had arrived and I abandoned the DH for a more direct route home. I grabbed a shot of the last electric overhead sign I passed so I could share ODOT’s Thanksgiving greeting.

Fall Fun Drive

Posted on October 18, 2020 by Denny

With Wednesday predicted to be clear, dry, and warm, it seemed like a good day to check out some of the area’s foliage which has become increasingly colorful in recent days. The fact that both rain and temperatures were predicted to fall on Thursday made it seem even better. Although trees were not at peak color on Wednesday, rain did appear on Thursday and did knock a lot of leaves to the ground, so I think I made an OK choice. Temperatures that allowed dropping the top around noon made it more than OK since that really has not been the case since.

As I often do, I targeted the area north of the Ohio River where wiggly tree-lined roads connect small towns like Mount Orab, Georgetown, and Ripley. Within the area, my driving wasn’t very targeted at all.

Here and there manmade structures caught my eye. Barns filled with drying tobacco were once quite common in this area, but not anymore. The weathered house looked to be abandoned but it also looked like it enjoyed watching that tree grow from a sapling to towering over its roof.

Actually, my camera recorded considerable evidence of human activity even when I was half trying to avoid it.

My driving wasn’t 100% aimless. For whatever reason, I remembered a couple of previously visited items in the area and made a point of reaching them again. The first is the North Pole Road Covered Bridge that I first visited in 2005 as part of the Five Bridges Road day trip. Fifteen years ago the bridge was somewhat hidden by trees but the road passed right through it.

Not so today. The trees have been replaced by a new bridge and the covered bridge restricted to pedestrian traffic only. The concrete bridge does provide a convenient platform for photographing the newly exposed wooden bridge in its entirety.

I’m not sure when I made my first visit to the Red Oak Presbyterian Church Cemetery but I do know why it was on my mind Wednesday. Rosa Riles, whose likeness appeared on Aunt Jemima packaging from sometime in the 1930s until 1948, is buried there and Aunt Jemima has been in the news recently. The reason is parent company PepsiCo’s decision to change the name and packaging as part of what they are calling a “journey toward racial equality”. A Wikipedia article explains that dozens of women played the character over the years and lists nine of them. Riles is identified as the third to appear on product packages.

Beside the Dixie Highway

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Denny

A recent Facebook post reminded me of some roadside markers I’ve been meaning to check out since 2012, and another post made me newly aware of some totally unrelated markers in the same general area. That area also happens to contain a restaurant that’s been on my to-do list for over a year. In these days of dissolved and dissolving travel plans, this trio of minor roadside attractions was sufficient justification for a correspondingly minor road trip. Although not one of the three has any real connection to the Dixie Highway, it once ran by all of them.

The restaurant came first. I first learned of the Fantasy Diner and Ice Cream Parlor from a January 2019 Ronny Salerno blog post. The name comes from its home in what was once the gift shop for the Fantasy Farm Amusement Park. Ronny’s post not only does a much better job than this one in documenting the restaurant but also provides some park history. There are a couple of reasons that I wish I had refreshed my self on Ronny’s post before I left home. One is that I’d have been shocked to find that the great looking wooden counter he photographed has been largely sacrificed for an ice cream cooler and would have at least asked about it. The second is that I might have changed the timing of my arrival in order to try the fried chicken he called “fantastic”. But I was there for breakfast and quite enjoyed my French toast with a view.

Following breakfast, I continued north on the former Dixie Highway to Middletown and made a stop at a marker I’d first noticed eight years ago. The marker is from 1920 when it was erected as part of a Road of Remembrance project. The Road of Remembrance was a proposal to plant a tree for every American soldier who had served in the Great War. A matching marker can be seen almost directly across the road in the second picture and up close in the third. The plaques on both markers look like this. These currently stand near Truth Tabernacle on OH-4, but originally marked the south end of Middletown’s Road of Remembrance a short distance away.

Another pair of markers once stood at the north end of the long rows of trees. Both are shown in the opening photo standing in front of the local American Legion Post. Identical plaques, bearing the names of twenty-four local boys killed in the war, are mounted on the front of both markers. The names of more than a thousand who served in the war are on six plaques mounted on the other sides of the pillars.

References to the Middletown Road of Remembrance often mention a thousand trees lining a mile of roadway. Both seem to have been considerably exceeded. The markers that now stand at the Legion, originally stood at 14th and Main. The southern markers originally stood about a mile and a half away at Oxford and Main. Plans to construct arches over the road where the markers stood were mentioned, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that ever happened. Middletown’s Road of Remembrance was dedicated on Labor Day, September 6, 1920, and there are possibly legitimate claims that this was the nation’s first Road of Remembrance to be completed. The ad image is from American Forestry, Volume 26.

The day’s third set of targets was on a later Dixie Highway alignment which I turned south on when I reached the split near Franklin. This photo is not of an active target, but when you are looking for things on the DH and not in the least related to it, this marker certainly qualifies. I’ve previously stopped and photographed this salute to the Poland China hog, and I did it again.

The real goal of my drive on the later DH alignment was a couple of Great Miami Turnpike mile markers. The turnpike was constructed in 1840 so the markers have been waiting quite a while. I learned of them only recently through a Dixie Highway Facebook group post by road fan Karl Howat. I’d already located and taken a drive-by photo of the southernmost of the two and thought I knew enough to find the other one as I drove south. I was wrong. I visually scoured the roadside as I drove but came up empty. I eventually reached the marker I had already located and parked nearby to take some less blurry photos. According to the markings, C(incinnati) is 17 miles away and D(ayton) is 33 miles away. The current name of this path that has had many is Cincinnati-Dayton Road.

I headed back north in search of the other marker and found it with a fortuitous and pretty much accidental glance to the right. Karl had posted photos of both markers and I could see that both were made to be placed on the west side of the road. Northbound travelers would see the distance to Dayton and those headed south would see the distance to Cincinnati. It appears that this marker switched sides at some point in its past. But that’s not the most interesting thing about it. Perhaps understandably, when I first saw the marker, my mind registered D 26 and C 24. But I quickly realized that the 4 my mind saw was reversed and that it must really be the number 1 with some accidental scratches beside it. That, however, would mean this stone claimed that Dayton and Cincinnati were 47 miles apart rather than the 50 indicated on the other marker. I next tried to mentally convert that 6 to an 8 to make the distance a closer match at 49 miles. That didn’t work and I became pretty certain that the numeral was a 6. A one mile difference between the two stones seems possible if not likely. A three mile difference seems very unlikely and I’ve become convinced that the carver goofed and carved the 4 in backward. Form your own opinion from this composite or go check out the original at N39° 25.809′ W84° 21.947′. The other marker is at N39° 20.126′ W84° 24.144′.

For the second consecutive week, here’s a diner tacked on to the tail of the primary subject. K’s Hamburger Shop isn’t exactly on the Dixie Highway but it’s less than two blocks away and that’s close enough for Mike Curtis to include it as a POI on his Dixie Highway Map. Plus there are some unverified rumors that a temporary DH alignment ran right past the location (even though it wasn’t K’s yet). DH or not, they celebrated their 85th anniversary Friday and I was there. They were totally closed for eleven days due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then open for carryout only. Three weeks ago, with the addition of some fancy plexiglass dividers, dining in became an option. Says Marcia, the owner, “My parents kept this place going through the depression and we’ll keep it going through this pandemic.”

Booths are separated by fixed panels and the panel separating counter customers and staff is fixed, but the panels between individual counter positions are hinged so that couples can chat and sneak fries from each other. Panels and everything else are sanitized frequently, of course. The only not-yet-cleaned spot in the counter picture is where I just finished this. Among the many articles written about K’s over 85 years is an American Road Diner Days installment from an unknown (both then and now) writer. Winter 2007 if you’re a curious collector of old magazines.

A Darke Drive

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Denny

A sixteen-mile long driving tour some fifty miles from home is what passes for a road trip when cabin fever and a coronavirus collide. Several years ago, the Arcanum Wayne Trail Historical Society folks put together a self-guided driving tour of the nearby area. That area is the southern part of the county where I was raised so the tour naturally interested me. As I recall, when the tour was first announced, there was some sort of museum event associated with the launch. I couldn’t make it but copied the tour description to my phone and plotted the route on my GPS. My intent was to combine driving the tour with a visit to the museum, but it never became a high priority and, with the museum open just one day a month, it never happened. The COVID-19 pandemic has eliminated even that single day of museum operation while elevating my need for some sort of outing. Road trips planned for April, May, and June have evaporated, those envisioned for July are all but gone, and August doesn’t look any better.

The tour passes one street south of the museum but I stopped by for a picture. The other pictured building is just up the block and some may remember it from this 2017 post. Sadly, the restaurant that was housed in the building and which triggered the post has closed. I’ve since seen a couple more Battle Ax Plus signs, but this was the first.

Arcanum’s Main Street runs north and south. I’m guessing that George Street, where the museum sits, was the original main east-west street since the first street north of it and the first street south of it are called, respectively, North Street and South Street. The tour begins at the intersection of Main and South and heads west, toward the water tower, on South Street. Arcanum isn’t a large town (population 2129 in 2010) so it doesn’t take long to reach open countryside.

South Street quickly becomes Arcanum-Hollansburg Road and intersects State Route 503 in just a few miles. At the corner, a church that was once part of a settlement named Beech Grove has been converted to a home. The tour turns south here, but I headed a short distance north to pause at the cemetery. Someone keeps the cemetery mowed but there is little evidence of any other sort of maintenance. A neighbor’s tractor display helps make the stop worthwhile.

I returned to the tour route and followed it to another cemetery. This is Ithaca Cemetery just north of the town by that name. Going backwards in time, we have veterans of the Civil War, Mexican War, and War od 1812. There are quite a few Civil War veterans buried here including one with a modern military plaque. That sort of plaque is common but I don’t recall ever seeing one for a Civil War vet. Sure is easier to read than weathered stone.

The tour description identifies four burials of significance here but I only managed to locate two. The first is Arcanum’s founder, William Gunder, who is buried next to his wife Nancy. The other is Revolutionary War veteran William Ashley although calling it a burial isn’t really accurate. Ashley was buried on a family farm nearby and when a new owner refused public access to the site, the marker was relocated here. Presumedly, Ashley himself was not moved. The other markers in the picture are for Revolutionary War veterans Ezekiel Farmer and William Walker. These are fairly recent additions and are not mentioned in the tour description. My guess is that these are also markers only.

The tour makes two passes through Ithaca. The directions discuss the impressive three-story I.O.O.F. building on the second pass but I paused for this photo when I entered from the north. The two passes actually overlap only at this intersection. This small crop of Corvairs, which look overly ripe and may have missed their harvest date, is at Ithaca’s western edge.

This is Darke-Preble County Line Road and, since I’m on the south side driving east, I may actually be in Preble County taking these pictures. The trees and bridge mark Miller’s Fork which is, according to the tour directions, “the speculated location of the first settlement of white people in southern Darke County.” The second picture is of the intersection with OH-503 which once contained a toll house, a one-room school, and the aforementioned Ashley farm. The tour directions do not indicate where the farm was in relation to the intersection so the location of William Ashley’s remains may or may not be in the picture.

The tour heads north on OH-503 but turns off of it on the second pass through Ithaca. It then returns to its starting point on Arcanum-Ithaca Road which becomes Main Street at the city limits. It was great to get out and drive some back roads even if it was for less than two hours including graveyard loitering. It helped with road trip withdrawal for the very short term, but overall it may have aggravated it by reminding me of what I’m missing.

A Lesser Count of Counties

Posted on September 1, 2019 by Denny

I was about to queue up a Trip Peek for today’s post when it occurred to me that a follow on to last week’s post on Hugh Donovan completing visits to all 3134 U.S. counties might be better. I had actually thought I might include something about my own county counting when I began writing about Hugh’s counting in An Awesome Travel Accomplishment but, in the end, I didn’t. The truth is that neither the counts nor the counting are all that similar. There are, you see, quite a few differences between a man on a mission and a guy just wandering into places.

For one, I am not an Extra Miler Club member. That’s not because I don’t think it is a good organization or because I don’t respect its goals. It’s because I do not see visiting every U.S. county as realistic for me personally. It might have been feasible if I’d started when I was 30 or 40 or, like Hugh’s grandson, 15, but not now. That doesn’t mean I don’t track the counties I visit. The map above is mine from Mob‑Rule.com (a.k.a., Why do you think they call them counties?) which anyone can use to track their travels free. There are 1731 counties marked on the map. That’s just over 55% of the total. Hugh’s count was a bit less than that when I first learned of his quest back in April, but that didn’t last long. My “live” map, which also contains numeric counts by state, is here.

For another, I’ve never made a trip or plotted a route specifically to accumulate counties. On the other hand, if I see that an unvisited county is just a few miles away, I’ll quite happily make a jog or even drive straight there and back for the score. Again, that doesn’t mean a lack of respect for folks who plan their travels primarily or exclusively to reach different counties. After all, I’m a guy who will turn around to drive a missed bit of old alignment that looks exactly like the road I was already on.

If we weren’t all crazy, we would go insane.
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,
Jimmy Buffet, 1977

French Toast and Battle Ax Plug

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Denny

Carl Graham Fisher, the primary mover and shaker behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and both the Lincoln and Dixie Highways, had lots of stories. One in particular is popular among road fans and was originally told by Fisher to partially explain his interest in improving roads and their marking. I’ve heard and read multiple versions of the story and am totally unequipped to distinguish embellishments from additional accurate details. So here’s a version of the story which I believe to be true at its core and possibly in some of the details, too.

Fisher and some friends had taken a day trip from Indianapolis and were returning in the dark and rain. They came to a point where three roads joined together but none of them could remember which they used earlier in the day. After some inconclusive discussion, they noticed a sign which they thought might indicate which road led back home. It was mounted high on a pole and unreadable in the dark and wet. It was somehow determined that Fisher would climb the pole to read the sign. Some say he climbed the pole once and had to return to the ground for matches. Some say that the first few matches sputtered or were doused by the rain. Some say that it was his very last match that provided a glimpse of the sign’s message. All versions agree on what that message was. Hoping for the name of a town or other landmark, all he saw was “Chew Battle Ax Plug”.

Prior to Tuesday, that funny and revealing story supplied 100% of my knowledge of Battle Ax Plug. On Tuesday I was on my way to Greenville, Ohio, and had left home with enough time in the schedule to try out a new restaurant on the way. I jogged off of my normal path to reach the town of Arcanum. It is a small town in the county I grew up in but I don’t remember much about it and doubt I ever knew all that much. I’d heard good things about the restaurant’s food but knew almost nothing about it beyond that. It was quite a happy surprise to see the big Battle Ax sign that heads this article on the side of the building housing the restaurant. I’ve since learned a little more about the brand.

Battle Ax Plug was the very definition of a “loss leader”. Between 1895 and 1898, US tobacco companies were embroiled in the “Plug Wars”. Another aptly named combatant was the Scalp Knife brand from Liggett and Meyers. The American Tobacco Company lost about a million dollars a year with their Battle Ax brand but emerged from the wars with approximately 90% market share. The fading slogan on the sign’s ax head is “A GREAT BIG PIECE FOR 10 CTS.” Those were, back in the day, fighting words.

The building behind the sign has its own story and it’s a great one. Built by John Smith in 1851, it housed the family store until 1985. At its closing it was the longest operating family owned business in Ohio. It began as a typical general store offering an assortment of dry goods but eventually meat, produce, and other grocery items were added as were men’s and women’s clothing.

Yes, I certainly got distracted but I did eventually make it to breakfast. One of the places where I’d heard good things about Old Arcana was Ohio Magazine which named their French Toast the best in the state. The magazine quotes co-owner Leslie Handshoe-Suter calling the toast “decadent” and it certainly is. The full name is Bourbon Praline French Toast. Following the meal — and some really good coffee — I chatted with chef and co-owner Jeff Besecker about the menu, the business, and the building. Jeff pointed out the building’s owner, Angie, sitting at one on the tables and I also chatted with her and a table mate who had worked in the store that once filled the entire building. Angie operates Smith’s Merchants which shares the building with the restaurant.

When I first saw the round windows in the Smith Building, they made me think of the round openings I had seen in electric train power stations. When I later learned that the electric powered Dayton & Union interurban once occupied the gravel path in the left half of this picture I’d have almost certainly grasped the power station theory even tighter if I didn’t already know that it wasn’t at all possible. Before I even spoke with Jeff, I’d learned from my waitress that the windows were original from the 1850s and from Jeff and Angie I learned that the building was in constant use as a store during the interurban’s coming and going in the early twentieth century. Headquarters for the Arcanum Historical Society is just out of frame to the left of that last picture. It’s open on some Saturday mornings so I think I’ll come back, learn some more about this town I grew up near, and try another item from that inviting breakfast menu.

A Full Day of PT
(Public Transportation)

Posted on October 23, 2016 by Denny

On Tuesday, I climbed aboard a Cincinnati city bus for probably the first time, other than some event specific shuttles, since 1970. Prior to taking a job in South Lebanon near the end of 1970, I worked downtown and often rode the bus from Pleasant Ridge and, before that, Clifton. I don’t believe bus service extended much beyond Pleasant Ridge in 1970. Probably Kenwood. Possibly Montgomery. Now buses run all the way to Kings Island, just a couple miles short of that South Lebanon job, but they don’t run often. Their purpose is to connect people with jobs so there is a flurry at the start of the work day and another at the end. Little in between and even less on weekends. I’ve long thought of heading downtown on a bus but the sparse schedule put me off. Boarding a bus in the morning essentially means being gone for the rest of the day. That’s not really a problem, of course. It happens often. Committing to it in advance and knowing that there will be no car a shortish walk away is somewhat different, however.

I decided to go for the first run of the day. The route starts about a block from my home and, as can be seen in the up top photo, the bus arrived and I was on board — alone — a little before the 6:07 departure. There are two other pickup points, both a little to the north, before the bus hits the southbound expressway for downtown. Four passengers were added at the first one and sixteen at the second. The second was at Kings Island where I tryed to take a picture of the distant sign in the dark. Once on I-71, everyone, except the driver and a lady knitting, had their eyes on their phone or an e-reader.

Total ride time was almost exactly one hour and I arrived downtown just a few minutes past 7:00. I spent a little time on Fountain Square which is in minor disarray as the skating rink is put in place for the winter. The moon, just two days past full, plays the part of a halo for the fountain. It has been drained of water but still looks good and will look even better before the day ends.

I boarded the day’s second form of public transport next to Fountain Square. When I rode the Cincinnati Bell Connector during its inaugural weekend, it was always full. Today, it carried just one passenger when I boarded at Fountain Square. It was a handicapped lady and I got to watch her drive her electric scooter directly from the car to the platform when she exited a few stops before I did. Pretty slick.

I had thought to have breakfast at the recently reopened (after a fire) Tucker’s but discovered that they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I substituted the even older (1936 vs. 1946) Dunlap Cafe. It’s just a block away from the northernmost streetcar stop at Rhinegeist Brewery. Besides good and cheap eats, the Dunlap has an impressive beer can collection that includes several from Olde Frothingslosh. In the past, I hadn’t paid much attention to the little park across the street but the benches caught my eye today. I’m guessing that nearby residents are responsible for the tiles.

I will be traveling on November 8 so, for the second time in my life, I won’t be physically going to the polls on election day. I figured out which streetcar stop was closest to the Board of Elections location and set off on the next train to drop off my absentee ballot. A small-world moment occurred along the way. At an intermediate stop, friend, blogger (Queen City Discovery), and author (Fading Ads of Cincinnati) Ronny Salerno stepped aboard and we got to chat until he stepped off one stop before mine. At the ballot drop box, a lady in front of me posed for a selfie with her ballot in hand and the box as background then offered to take my picture dropping the envelope. I thanked her for the offer but opted for just a shot of my hand and ballot.

There is also something of a coincidence involved here. After dropping off my ballot, I walked back toward the center of town with no real destination in mind. I reached this park, Cincinnati’s oldest, by chance and the coincidence is that I recently read a blog post about the man who donated it to the city. Until a few years ago, I sort of assumed this was Garfield Park because of the statue of our twentieth president. It’s real name is Piatt Park. I’m sure that reading Cincinnati’s Richest Man Died In Debtor’s Prison a week or so ago has a lot to do with my taking and posting these pictures. A statue of our ninth president, William Henry Harrison, stands at the other end of the park. Combined, the two presidents honored here served less than eight months. Harrison 32 days, Garfield 200 days.

Fire on the fountain. Apparently if you need to clean something big and bronze, a torch and a brush is the way to go. The workmen told me that the 145 year old Tyler Davidson Fountain (a.k.a. The Genius of Water) gets this treatment twice each year. Good ventilation, I suspect, is also important.

On impulse, I ducked into the Carew Tower and rode the elevator to the observation deck for a different view of the torch & brush guys. When I was last here, in November of 2014, the ice rink was in place and in use. Today workers were still assembling it. 84.51° is both the name and longitude of the marketing company that ~~was spun off from~~ became a subsidiary of (see first comment below) grocery giant Kroger last year. The third picture is of the mid-demolition Pogue’s Garage which, by coincidence, I recently read about in an article whose author, by coincidence, I ran into earlier in the day.

Visiting the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center was something I’d tentatively planned to do and walking down to it from the Carew Tower worked into my day quite nicely. One reason for wanting to visit today was the center’s participation in the current Foto Focus Cincinnati. I very much enjoyed the Foto Focus exhibits but took no pictures of them. The river beyond the center’s Eternal Flame was once the boundary between slavery and freedom. Construction of the suspension bridge that crosses it was interrupted by the Civil War. The third pictures shows one of the displays reminding visitors that forms of slavery still exist in the world today.

The day’s third flavor of mass transit picked me up just outside the Freedom Center. Operated by the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky, the Southbank Shuttle connects Newport and Covington, Kentucky, with Cincinnati’s riverfront. I rode it to near the Beer Sellar on Newport’s Riverboat Row but found it not yet open. I ended up sipping a beer on Hooters’ deck.

There are several new Cincinnati restaurants I’ve yet to try and today it was The Eagle‘s turn. The Southbank Shuttle took me to Fountain Square and the Cincinnati Bell Connector took be to within a couple blocks of The Eagle. It’s a place known for its fried chicken and it did not disappoint. It was accompanied by “spicy hot honey” that reminded me of how, just a few blocks away, The Genius of Water was being cleaned. I’m an admitted wimp and I know that what I thought fiery others would think just right or even mild but it was not for me. Properly warned, I sampled the honey with small drizzles on a couple of bites then put it aside and enjoyed the chicken and the spicy — but not spicy hot — cheese grits.

Had I walked directly to to the streetcar station after eating, I could have boarded almost immediately. Instead, I watched a train stop and continue as I strolled through Washington Park. I strolled on and caught the next one after only a few minutes. Time to the next car is normally displayed at each station but that wasn’t the case at this particular station at this particular time. The wait was around ten minutes. At my three previous boardings, displayed times had been 8, 6, and 12 minutes. The first ride of the day was the only time I entered a nearly empty car. The others were maybe a third to half full. I snapped the photo, showing that my ride home was four minutes away, about a dozen minutes after I arrived at the stop near Fountain Square. The ride back to a block from my home would cost $4.25. I’d used a free ride pass (received when I signed up for Cincy EZRide) for the ride into town. EZRide supports the purchase and use of Metro Bus and Cincinnati Bell Connector tickets from both Apple and Android smart phones. I purchased and activated my $2 all day Connector pass with it although I was never called on to show the pass. Each Southbank Shuttle ride costs $1. Even without an introductory free ride I can go from my home near Kings Island to the northern bits of Over the Rhine to Riverboat Row on the south side of the Ohio River and back home again for $12.50 ($4.25+$2+$1+$1+$4.25). The last route 71 bus leaves the Fountain Square area at 5:30 so it won’t work for a normal time dinner or an evening event but it’s a very sensible way to spend a day in the big city.

Wild and Wonderful Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Denny

This year’s Christmas Escape Run will cross just one state boundary. The relatively short trip will take me only as far as Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.

The journal for the trip is here. This will be the only blog entry related to the trip and will serve to hold any and all comments.

A Tale of Two “Cities”

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Denny

I live a little over eight miles from Cozaddale, Ohio, and have driven through it numerous times. The most recent was June 9 when I took the first picture at right. I live a little over eight hundred miles from Cozad, Nebraska, and have driven through it exactly twice. The most recent was Friday when I took the second picture at right. As you might suspect from the names, there is more to connect these two towns than my visits. Both were named for, or more accurately by, the same man.

John Jackson Cozad was born in 1830 near Allensville, Ohio, but he didn’t stick around long. He ran away at the age of twelve and before long found his way onto riverboats plying the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. He also found his way into a successful career as a faro dealer. I’ve found no indication that his success came from anything other than a carefully developed ability to read the faces of opponents, but I did find a claim that this ability led to him being barred from riverboats and other gambling operations.

Although he never completely gave up cards, Cozad moved into real estate speculation/development around 1870. He laid out an eight street village on land he owned along the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad and formed a building association. Things began well enough and a few buildings were completed in this place he called Cozaddale before some “trouble” (of which I’ve found no details) brought about the end of the association and Cozad’s development of his first town.

Horace Greeley may or may not have said “go west, young man” a few years earlier but John J Cozad probably didn’t need any such encouragement anyway. Nebraska had become a state in 1867 and, apparently while still postmaster of Cozaddale, Cozad went to look it over in 1872. The way railroad section boss John Cusack tells the story, he was checking track on a handcar headed west when he spotted Cozad, in top hat and tails, walking east. The Ohioan had been on a westbound train when he spotted a 100th meridian sign and left the train at the next stop. Inspired by the sign, Cozad developed an almost instant vision for a town that he described to Cusack. After hitching a ride on the handcar, Cozad returned to Ohio, bought 40,000 acres of Nebraska, then came back with about thirty others to build a namesake town at the 100th meridian.

Cozad, the town, grew and Cozad, the man, became a “hay tycoon”. As a big time farmer in cattle country, Cozad, the man, had his share of conflicts with ranchers. One such conflict was with an Alfred Pearson. Some reports say Pearson pulled a knife and some reports say Cozad thought Pearson reached for a knife. All reports say that Cozad pulled a gun and fired. Pearson died of his wounds a couple of months later and Cozad the man left Cozad the town almost immediately. Teresa Cozad, John’s wife, stayed around long enough to dispose of the family’s holdings then, with their two sons, she too vamoosed.

To most people, the Cozad clan seemed to have simply disappeared then, in the 1950s, a descendant revealed some of the missing bits of the story. Using the name Richard Henry Lee, John Cozad opened a place called Lee’s Pier on the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Son Johnny posed as a brother-in-law using the name Frank Southern and son Robert posed as a nephew or foster son named Robert Henry. Perhaps not surprisingly, Richard Lee managed to stir up things in Atlantic City, too. In a conflict with the city over selling his property, Lee/Cozad built a barricade across the boardwalk that earned his place the name “Fort Lee”. He eventually lost but it took the state legislature to beat him.

John J Cozad by Robert Henri John A. Cozad, a.k.a. Frank Southern, eventually went back to his real first name and became, as Dr. John Southern, a well respected physician in Philadelphia. Robert Henry Cozad retained a slightly modified version of his Atlantic City alias and went on to great fame as an artist. His childhood home in the second town his dad founded is now the Robert Henri Museum. At left is a portrait that Robert Henri painted of his father, John J. Cozad, in 1903.

This is obviously one of those pre-written pieces but, unlike most of the My Gear and My Wheels sorts of things, this one is tied ever so slightly to real-time. I suppose it was sometime after I drove through Cozad, Nebraska, in 2009 that I discovered the connection between there and Cozaddale, Ohio. When I realized that I would be passing through Cozad again this year, I thought it might be cute to get a picture of the Cozaddale limits sign and do something with it in my journal entry when I again reached Cozad. I did a couple of searches hoping to find something interesting to say and the wild stories just kept tumbling out of the internet. It was soon apparent that it would take much more than a journal panel to do the John Cozad story anything near justice. Knowing I would be using several canned entries during the Lincoln Highway drive, I decided that this, with a single new picture, would be one of them. It was primarily constructed with information from here, here (via WayBackMachine), and here. Those three sources don’t agree on everything and there are other, slightly different, versions out there, too. That certainly doesn’t surprise me. I’ve a feeling that John J himself couldn’t get his life story completely right even if he was trying to be entirely honest and I also have a feeling that being entirely honest wouldn’t come easy to him.

Lincoln Highway Association
Centennial Tour

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Denny

On June 30, two groups of cars will converge on Kearney, Nebraska, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Lincoln Highway Association on July 1. I will be part of the one coming from the east. The launch from Times Square is still two days away on Saturday but I left home Wednesday in order to make it in time. The groups will follow, as close as practical, the original Lincoln Highway route and, if all goes well, I will continue west on the route following the celebration and conference in Kearney.