Tag Archives: Ohio

African American History along the Cincinnati Riverfront

Posted on by
Reply

I took this Harriet Beecher Stowe House walking tour last Saturday with the idea that it would be the subject of last Sunday’s blog post but it was not. I told myself there wasn’t enough time to create a post for Sunday morning, which was certainly one reason, but another reason was that I felt slightly disappointed in the tour. I should not have. The problem was my expectations were off. For no good reason, I had thought we would visit spots where historic things happened but with just a little more thought I realized how ridiculous that was—the Cincinnati riverfront of 2024 bares little resemblance to the riverfront of the past. The tour took us to places where historic things are commemorated. I enjoyed the tour as it happened and now appreciate it with the passage of a little time.

We met tour guide Zinnia Stewart by the statue of John Roebling near the south end of the bridge that bears his name. Other than a meeting point, the statue plays no role in the tour. Neither does the bridge as anything other than a walkway across the river. I chose the particular opening photo that I did because it mimics the photo that has appeared at the front of this blog since the beginning. Its purpose is to show the river of the tour’s title. Dredging, dams, and other feats of engineering have made the Ohio River consistently navigable for large barges which is something it was not in the days when it separated the free North from the slaveholding South.

The tour began by heading east along the river to a statue representing James Bradley. We were supplied with small wireless (Bluetooth I assume) listening devices so that we could easily hear Stewart as we walked. Bradley was abducted from Africa and worked as a slave until he was able to buy his own freedom in 1833. He then moved to Cincinnati and was the only former slave participating in the pivotal Lane Debates of 1834.

We then headed west past the Roebling Bridge to the string of Robert Dafford murals on the riverfront and stopped at The Flight of the Garner Family. In 1856, Margaret Garner escaped from slavery by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her husband and children. They were captured in Cincinnati and Margaret killed her daughter to save her from a life of slavery. She was prevented from killing herself and her other children as planned. Toni Morrison’s Beloved was inspired by these events.

It was now time to cross the river ourselves. I had taken that opening picture of the River Queen during our visit to the murals and now caught it from the middle of the Roebling Bridge after it turned and headed back. We stopped twice while crossing as Stewart shared stories and photos of people and places along both sides of the river.

On the Ohio side, I spent more time at the Black Brigade Monument than I have ever spent before, and as a result, I know I need to spend a lot more time here in the future. I simply did not realize the many facets of this monument that it seems I’ve only glanced at before. One bit of information that made the whole tour worthwhile is that William Mallory, who was instrumental in getting the monument constructed, was the model for the face of Black Brigade member Marshall P.H. Jones. I thought I knew the story of the Black Brigade but, just like the memorial, there is a lot more for me to learn.

Our last stop was at this statue of politician Marian Spencer. Spencer left her mark on the area in many ways but she is probably best remembered for her efforts to desegregate Coney Island Amusement Park.

British Transportation Museum

Posted on by
Reply

I am about to start a string of canned posts during some travel and wanted to put that off a little by making one more “current” post. Remnants of Hurricane Helene have caused many outdoor activities to be canceled or at least made them uninviting. Visiting a new-to-me museum in Dayton was just the sort of indoor activity I was looking for. The British Transportation Museum was founded in 1998 but I first learned of it less than a year ago. Apparently, it was an “appointment only” operation until fairly recently when regular hours, 10:00 to 4:00, were established for Saturdays and Mondays.

The museum is home to sixty-some British cars, a number of bicycles, and a couple of motorcycles and boats. It is an all-volunteer operation, and a round-table discussion was in progress among several of those volunteers when I entered. A fellow named Dave broke away from the group, gave me a brief overview of the museum, then provided a personal guided tour of the whole place.

We started with some small “family” cars that were the heart of the British car industry for many years. The yellow car is a 1961 Morris Minor Sedan. The red one is a 1964 Mini Cooper. About 1.6 million Minors were built between 1948 and 1970. Nearly 5.5 million Minis were built between 1959 and 2000.

I have included the red 1951 MG-TD out of sequence relative to the tour. It and its MG-TC predecessor introduced the sports car concept to the United States. The Lotus Elan was a major influence on the design of the Mazda Miata. A 1972 model is shown here. The Sunbeam Alpine has been repainted to match the one James Bond drove in Doctor No.

This 1979 Triumph Spitfire has just a few thousand miles on the odometer. It was won as a prize in Las Vegas and spent most of its life in a garage.

Following a visit to the museum, members of the British Embassy enquired about supplying cars for an event in Washington, DC. The museum was unable to meet the request but this beautiful 1959 MG-A did make an appearance. The photo propped against the windshield shows dignitaries admiring the car at the ambassador’s home.

Of course, not all British autos were two-seat sports cars or tiny sedans. Several Rolls Royce limousines and big Jaguar saloons are on display and not even all MGs were as small as we Americans tend to think. I believe Dave said the light-colored 1939 MG WA was the largest MG ever built. The darker-colored 1950 MG YA isn’t much smaller.

As mentioned, the museum’s collection includes bicycles, motorcycles, and boats. At present, there are no experts on any of these vehicles involved so no organized displays exist excepting this boat. Donald Healey was quite the collaborator in building cars. Think Austin-Healey, Nash-Healey, and Jensen-Healey. At one point he made boats and collaborated there as well. This time it was with Stirling Moss. That sign is readable here.

There are many more cars on display than I’ve shown here and Dave supplied much more information than I’ve relayed (or remembered). This place is definitely worth a visit.

Entertrainment Farewell?

Posted on by
Reply

On Wednesday, I visited the “World’s Largest Indoor Train Display” for only the second time. My first visit to  Entertrainment Junction was in January 2009 when it was in the news for having recently opened. News articles about the attraction were also behind this week’s visit but this time the stories were about an impending closing rather than a recent opening. As a fan of old roads and the stuff beside them, I am somewhat accustomed to restaurants, motels, and the like facing survival issues when the owner retires. I can even see some similarities between this news and the news in 2020 that Roadside America in Pennsylvania was closing permanently. But Roadside America had operated for eighty-five years before closing. Current plans are for Entertrainment Junction to shut down in January after just sixteen years. 

The model train layout at the Junction was huge when it opened and I don’t know that it has grown much in size since then. It has grown in details such as buildings, people, and other “decorations”.

Familiar names and scenes stand beside tracks occupied by trains that match the represented period. Details, sometimes a little quirky, are everywhere. Examples are the fellow escaping from the jail with the Fox Theater in the background and the shake shop in the full frontal view of the Fox.

Model railroading occupies the bulk of the space but there are plenty of displays devoted to the full-size variety too. The “American Railroad Museum” contains lots of interactive and stationary displays and there is a small theater with railroad videos playing non-stop.

You can also catch some video entertainment at the drive-in where excerpts from Flash Gorden movies and others are playing. There is also a video of the entire model train layout taken by a camera riding one of the trains.

I think the biggest addition that I noticed compared to my 2009 visit was a set of balcony-like structures providing overhead views of some of the train layouts. One of the raised levels contained a model representing Cincinnati’s Coney Island. This was the amusement park on the banks of the Ohio River that was replaced by Kings Island north of the city.

The miniature Coney Island is nice but the main purpose of the upper levels is to provide views like this. From here I could see the kids swimming from the bridge at the left of the middle picture and the fenced-in area just out of frame. The overhead view of the roundhouse offers a great opportunity to show how things have been filled in since 2009 and here is a ground-level look at that turntable in action.

The picture of the step was taken on one of the upper levels but it is just an example of raised platforms that exist just about everywhere there is something to see to help younger and shorter visitors see it. The subway station is an example of something that younger and shorter people can actually see better than us oversized folks.

A “behind the scenes” tour was offered in 2009 and I was treated to a look under some of the tracks and behind some of the magic by owner Don Oeters. There doesn’t appear to be anything like that offered now but there is a big window that provides a view of the railroad’s control center. It is Don’s desire to retire and the lack of a ready buyer that has the Junction scheduled for closure early next year. It is hard for me to imagine this fantastic handbuilt world being abandoned but as things stand that may be what happens. $6.5 million could change that. 

Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival

Posted on by
Reply

Although I had heard of lantern displays, I had never attended one so Thursday’s experience was a completely new one for me. Apparently, the event is also something new for the Columbus Zoo but they had more than a month’s experience with it before I got there. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival opened on August 1 and will run through September 29.

It opens at 7:00 while the sun is still shining and remains open until 10:00 long after the sun has set. I initially thought that was much more time than was reasonably required but realized that the lanterns essentially fill the entire zoo. And it’s a really big zoo.

I probably saw less than a third of the lanterns in full sunlight. 

Then I revisited some of those and took in the remainder as things got darker.

In between my light and dark walks, I took in one of the two shows that are offered. These photos are from the Martial Arts show. The other show, which I did not see, is Shadow Puppets.

Of course, darkness and lanterns really do go together.

Many lanterns represent living creatures and some are close enough to scale to be considered lifesize. That is decidedly not the case with this group.

When I searched for this event, I called it a Chinese Lantern Festival and many of the lanterns displayed in Columbus match some shown on a website with that name. The Columbus event, however, mostly, but not entirely, avoids the word Chinese. Perhaps that is because the zoo and the lanterns are organized to represent all the different areas of the globe. Of course, that means there is a section that does represent China.

Admission includes unlimited rides which was wasted on me although I did briefly consider taking a few laps on the historic carousel. And there are bunches of lanterns not pictured here. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival is open tonight and there are two more weeks of Thursday through Sunday operation.

Cars Galore

Posted on by
Reply

I attended the Pap’s Rod Shop Labor Day Bash on Monday but I still don’t know much about it. At least not much about its organizers or venue although both are obviously quite interesting. The venue was the Evans Family Ranch which appears to be a thriving operation offering a variety of products and services. The results of a search for Paps Rod Shop are not so clear cut. Most hits point to a Facebook group or to announcements of or reports on the bash. One of the administrators of the 6K+ member Paps Rods n Kustoms Facebook group claims Pap’s Rod Shop as a workplace. Following that clue led to this video report about that administrator and a not quite public shop near Springfield, Ohio. Good stuff, for sure.

The word “rod” in the title, made me think of cars like these, and pre-1940s coupes and roadsters stuffed with modern V8s were certainly well-represented at the bash.

Of course, there are also some later-model vehicles with upgraded (to say the least) power plants on display. 

There was a time when engine upgrades were not required to make a car a hotrod. In those days, Mopars with toilet-bowl-sized carburetors and supercharged Studebakers came straight from the factory.

Posters for the bash spoke of more than 600 cars on display and I’m guessing that could be right. Among them were some decidedly non-rod and non-hot vehicles. That group is represented here by this personal memory jogger. My very first car was a 4-door 2-tone 1953 Chevy. Mine was a top-of-the-line Bel Air and green instead of blue and it had a 3-speed stick rather than a 2-speed Powerglide. I also believe mine had more rust but other aspects of this example, such as the engine compartment you could pretty much climb into, look very familiar.

Dulcimers Galore

Posted on by
Reply

A couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even know that a dulcimer museum existed let alone that it was within a dozen miles of my home. On the last Sunday of August, I visited the American Folk Music School/The National Dulcimer Museum and learned that the museum has been in operation for about two years and that the school it shares space with has been there for about five years.

US-42 (a.k.a., Reading Road) splits into separate north and southbound sections in Sharonville, OH, where the museum is located. The windows in the opening photo face the northbound lanes. The entrance and a parking lot are at the rear of the building. When I entered, Vickey Sasser, the knowledgeable and energetic lady behind the operation, had just started a museum tour with a group of people who knew much more about dulcimers than I did. Some were wearing shirts with the logos of assorted area dulcimer clubs and Vickie knew several by name.

There are, of course, factory-made dulcimers but most of the more interesting ones, which means most of those in the museum, are made by individuals. The wide variations in design, materials, and craftsmanship are part of what makes them interesting.

Some well-known builders or performers have multiple instruments in the museum. By far the largest collection of this sort is associated with performer Kevin Roth. That’s Vickey Sasser in the third picture holding a dulcimer that, if I understood her correctly, Kevin had made specifically for a single performance of the national anthem at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

The museum is preparing a space for a collection of instruments from performer Bing Futch. Bing has performed and conducted workshops at the museum in the past and will be doing both again next June. Available right now is his video of a recent visit to the museum in which he and Vickie provide a much better overview than my few photos and uninformed commentary.

Although the bulk of the instruments displayed at the museum are mountain dulcimers, there are others including hammer dulcimers, autoharps, and flutes. Here Vickey is holding a hurdy-gurdy that I believe was made specifically for the museum. I have seen a few hurdy-gurdys in the past so already had some of my early misconceptions corrected but this one is small and simple and even opens for an up-close view of the internal workings. I think I finally understand how these things work.

Being open just two hours a month is clearly not a lot. Plus, due to another commitment, Vickey will not be opening the museum for its “last Sunday” showing in September. On the other hand, she is often on-site giving lessons and such so, if the scheduled monthly window can’t be made to work for you, there’s a pretty good chance it could be arranged for her to let you in that back door at some other time.

Flower Power Tower

Posted on by
Reply

With departure on a fair-sized road trip planned for Friday, there wasn’t much time for blog-feeding adventure this week, and I anticipated using a canned post. Then I remembered seeing some photos of an interesting but unfamiliar tower recently. It is inside Cox Arboretum MetroPark which is close enough that I do drive by it on occasion. I have visited the park in the past but that was before the tower was built and it isn’t visible from the street. I decided to stop by, grab a few pictures, and put off turning to canned posts for another week.

There is much more to the park than the tower and I certainly could not ignore the other attractions in real life. But I can in making a short blog post. I paused for a while on one of the benches at the base then climbed the tower’s 81 steps admiring some of the cool construction on the way up.

There are, as advertised, some great views from the top. And a chance to look over more eye-catching construction on the way down.

I snapped a picture of one of those flower-filled pots beside the benches while topside and pictures of some of its components back at ground level. Many more flowers are waiting to be photographed and there are plenty of trails to follow while seeking them out. 

Goetta Again

Posted on by
2

GoettaFest is that eight-day festival that is spread over two four-day weekends with a gap in the middle. Two years ago I made it to the first day of the first weekend. This year I made it — just barely — to the first day of the second weekend. I knew of the festival’s opening last week but had other things to do. When I did get around to thinking about this week’s itinerary, the predicted weather did not seem a very good match for outdoor activities. Several days of rain were predicted with possibly severe thunderstorms arriving just about the time of the festival’s opening. But, as opening time approached, those storms and even the rain were still marking time in Indiana. I decided to give it a try.

The Ferris wheel is new this year and “The World’s Only Goetta Vending Machine” might be too. I did not try it and now regret not studying it closer so I could describe it here. I believe this is the world’s only Goetta festival so one Goetta vending machine might be enough.

I have previously explained that the Cincinnati area has a near monopoly on Goetta and that Glier’s Meats has a near monopoly on Goetta in the Cincinnati area. The festival is officially the Glier’s GoettaFest. Next to the vending machine, there is a tent filled with Giier and Goetta information. The tent is a Goettafest fixture and I’m sure that the “Goetta Guy” has been here before but this was our first meeting. The “Goetta Guy” is Dan Glier, President of Glier’s Meats since 1977 and the second generation to run the company. Dan’s a very friendly fellow who is there to answer questions or just chat and that’s what we did. I was well aware that Glier’s Meats is located sort of across the street from Anchor Grill where I’ve consumed a fair amount of Gliers Goetta. Today Dan pointed out that the two began in the same year (1946) and have always been neighbors.

Here are a couple of other things that I had not seen previously but which may very well have been here before. I didn’t see anyone riding the mechanical bull while I was there but it was early and the bourbon bar was pretty much idle too. I suspect the two work well together.

Full-time music was happening on both of the festival’s stages with the Billy Brown Band opening on the west end and Red Hot Riot opening on the east stage. They would be followed by Vinyl Countdown and the Kevin McCoy Band.

Of course, there were plenty of food booths offering a variety of creative Goetta-based treats.

I opted for a Goetta Bun Link which, despite the word new on the sign and the fact that I’d never had one, were introduced in 2000. It was quite good and I even have a pseudo-drone shot for the truly curious.

I had every intention of riding that Ferris wheel and, now that I was fed, I turned my attention to it. There was no line but as I was about to approach the ticket booth, I felt the first drops of rain and noticed the breeze had picked up a little. I thought it over only briefly before heading for the car. I was inside the garage before the rain became steady and inside a nearby bar with a $2 PBR before it really cut loose. There was water running in the street when I left but the rain had slowed to a light drizzle.

I am disappointed that I missed my chance to ride the big Ferris wheel on Thursday but just seeing it reminded me of a time when giant “dueling” Ferris wheels were proposed for both sides of the Ohio River. It was just a few years ago that Newport, KY, had plans to build a 230-foot tall wheel on the flood wall near where GoettaFest’s 90-foot wheel was placed. At the same time, Cincinnati had plans to build a 180-foot wheel near the north end of the Roebling Bridge. In a sort of trial run, a 150-foot tall (137-foot diameter) wheel did operate at that point temporarily and I did get to ride that one. Read about it here.

A House Twice Storied

Posted on by
2

I have heard it said that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written in this house. It was not. Until recently, I had not heard that it was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book. It was.

Although the book was not written here, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, did live in the house at one time and the house has long borne her name. It has just reopened after an extensive restoration that recognizes its importance both as the Beecher family home and as a tavern and boarding house a century later.

There was a ribbon cutting for the restored Harriet Beecher Stowe House last Friday with special events continuing through the weekend. I missed the “Housewarming Weekend” but did reserve a ticket for the first regularly scheduled tour on Thursday. The site is closed Monday through Wednesday. I arrived early enough to look over the many informative panels placed around the grounds. Note the National Register of Historic Places plaque with both of the building’s claims to fame listed, beside the new entrance ramp.

Executive Director Christina Hartlieb was our guide, and, despite it being the first “regularly scheduled” tour following the reopening, it was pretty obvious that this was not her first time as conductor. I’m guessing that the “Housewarming Weekend” had given her and other guides ample experience. It is also the case that much of the information provided is about the house’s residents and unchanged by the restoration.

The house was built by Lane Seminary in 1833 as a home for its new president, Lyman Beecher.  The Seminary is a most interesting part of history in its own right. Particularly the slavery-related debates of 1834 and a related mass exodus of students that has been called the “first major academic freedom incident in America”. The tour began in the parlor where 25-year-old Harriet Elisabeth Beecher became Mrs. Calvin Stowe in 1836. The original part of the house has been restored to its 1840 appearance. A strip of original wallpaper once covered by a temporary wall has been saved and copied. In the kitchen, the original beehive oven and its surroundings have been retained.

Even though Harriet lived in Cincinnati for less than twenty years, it was here, with slavery in operation just across the river and fallout from it everywhere she looked, that the memories that became Uncle Tom’s Cabin were formed. In an upstairs hallway, beside a section of original brick wall intentionally left exposed, there is a photo of the Hartford, CT, statue of Stowe’s meeting with Lincoln. There is no recording and no proof that Lincoln actually said, “So you’re the little lady who started this big war”, but I like to think he did.

The Monfort family lived in the house from 1865 to 1930 and in 1908 they built a large addition. The addition’s exterior is currently painted white to distinguish it from the original building’s yellow. This was their formal dining room. During the 1930s and ’40s, it served as the Edgemont Tavern with a listing in The Negro Motorist Green Book. During that same period, the obviously updated second floor served as a boarding house. As a long-term residence rather than an overnight stop for tourists, only the tavern portion appeared in The Green Book. By coincidence, a traveling Green Book exhibit recently opened at the nearby National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and was the subject of a previous blog post.

So, no, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not written here but its author did live here, and a lot of other pretty darned important stuff also happened here. The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is back and ready to let you peek at 1840 and a little 1940 too.

Wassup, Big Boy?

Posted on by
Reply

Frisch’s Big Boy restaurants have been in the news quite a bit recently. In fact, when I sat down to write this article yesterday, a pointer to this photo essay was waiting in my email. It seems likely that the essay, like this article and my Friday outing, was inspired by not particularly cheerful reports such as this one from a few weeks ago. It was that article and other news of restaurant closings that prompted me to finally check out the museum that opened in 2018 inside Frisch’s Mainliner.

The Mainliner, Cincinnati’s first year-round drive-in, opened in 1942 and was named for an airplane. Several sources, including the Mainliner’s own signage, identify that airplane as a tri-motor but I think not. The plane that those sources are almost certainly referring to is the Ford Trimotor which was produced from 1922 to 1933. Boeing’s DC-3, which United Air Lines actually called the Mainliner when launched in 1937, would have been the most well-known passenger plane when the restaurant opened. The plane on the iconic Mainliner sign certainly looks a lot more like a DC-3 than a Ford Trimotor, and, despite the nose being a little extra pointy, I’m not aware of it ever having more than two propellers. At present it has none. I do, however, have a short video of the sign “at speed” from a few years ago. I’m sure there are more and better videos online.

The Mainliner was remodeled when the museum went in and has the latest generation of the Big Boy statue standing by the door. There are pictures here and here of previous generations on display a few miles away at the American Sign Museum. A cool mural greets customers right inside that door.

I sat at the counter and placed my order before walking over to the museum area. Only then did I realize that it contained what appeared to be some quite usable classic seating areas. There were people at one of the museum tables when I left.

In addition to the throwback seating, there are several signs and cabinets filled with artifacts in the museum. Among the artifacts was a reminder that once upon a time people might look for something to help them “dial the right number every time”.

I was probably still using a dial telephone the last time I had a Big Boy but it seemed the right thing to order today. Has corporate ownership brought a decline in quality that others say they see? Maybe, but maybe not. The sandwich was pretty much as I remember it although my memories aren’t very recent. I sensed the same slight understaffing that I feel in just about every restaurant I visit these days. No more. No less.

As I wrote this, it occurred to me that Frisch’s has been in my life longer than any chain restaurant. Although it’s no longer there, a Frisch’s restaurant sat at the edge of the seat of my home county. It was the place where, maybe once a year, the band bus would stop on the way home from an away game. When my friends and I began driving, it marked one end of our Saturday night cruising route. An A&W rootbeer stand marked the other. When I got my first co-op job in college, a Frisch’s was just about the only place within walking distance for lunch. The one at right is within walking distance of my current home and I stopped there on my Saturday afternoon walk. Rather than a Big Boy statue, this door is guarded by one of the Mr. Redlegs sculptures that were placed around the area as part of the Cincinnati Reds 150th Anniversary Celebration in 2019. Inside, a localized (Mason hosts the Cincinnati Open ATP Tournament) mural hangs on the wall. A big reason that I had not had a Big Boy in so long was not that I never patronize Frisch’s but that when I do I almost always have a fish sandwich. On Saturday I reverted to form.

I’m certainly no fan of corporations taking over privately held businesses. Maybe it was a decline in quality or some accountant’s idea of improved efficiency that led to those closures. Personally though, I’m more concerned about those missing props on the Mainliner sign.