USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The suburbs of Cincinnati : sketches, historical and descriptive > Part 15
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Morrow is thirty-six miles from the city. It is a place of about fifteen hundred inhabitants, surrounded by a picturesque country, and the home of several prominent citizens of Cincinnati, as well as some of the highest officials that have been connected with the Little Miami road.
Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Lafayette Railroad.
On the Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Lafayette railroad are a number of places that have come into public notice since the people have turned their faces to the country. Sedamsville, now in the Twenty-first ward, is three and one-half miles from the Plum street depot, and has long been the
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home of a number of Cincinnatians, who have here built comfortable resi- dences.
Riverside is a beautiful locality, extending some distance along the Ohio river, and divided into three stations-Riverside, Southside, and Anderson's Ferry. The first-named is four miles from the city, and the entire village, now incorporated, is two and a half miles in length. It has many beautiful places. The bottoms, in the main, are favorable for improvement, and the hillsides afford situations upon which many Cincinnatians have already erected tasteful residences. It has also a handsome stone Protestant Episco- pal church, that has just been finished.
Trautman's, eight miles from the Cincinnati depot, is a small village.
Delhi, nearly eleven miles from the city, is a suburb of considerable importance. It is immediately on the river ; has two or three churches, a Masonic hall, and a number of tasteful residences. An effort has been made recently to change the name to Minneola, but it has met with serious opposition.
Fifteen miles from the city is North Bend, the old home of General William Henry Harrison, once President of the United States. The old house yet stands; and on a beautiful elevation the ashes of the aged hero repose, with little to mark the place save a crumbling brick tomb that disgraces the nation. In this locality the land has been sold in lots, generally to citizens of Cincinnati.
After passing through a tunnel fifteen hundred feet in length, Cleves is reached, sixteen miles from the city. This village is improving rapidly. The later dwellings are of an excellent character. They have a Presbyterian and a Methodist church, and a good public school.
Valley Junction is nearly eighteen miles from the city. Here is the junction of the Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Lafayette with the Whitewater Valley railroad, and a place now of no suburban attractions, but one that is to soon have an improved water power.
Hunt's Grove, nearly twenty miles from the city, is the great pic-nic ground of this railroad.
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Suburbs of Cincinnati.
Harrison, twenty-five miles out (Valley Division), is a town of manufac- turing importance, and has a considerable nucleus for a Cincinnati popu- lation.
Lawrenceburg, the last place on the line of the road that can be consid- ered an outpost of Cincinnati, is the home of a number of Cincinnati busi- ness men, and in common with all towns within a reasonable radius, will each year attract greater attention.
Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad.
Since the completion of the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad from Love- land to the city, the locality through which it passes has attracted much attention from suburban seekers.
The first place, going eastwardly, after the departure of the road from the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton railroad, is Ludlow Grove, nine miles from the depot in the city, a subdivision made in 1869 upon which have been erected a few good dwellings and a school building.
Avondale Station, eleven miles from the Cincinnati depot, is at the cross- ing of the Reading or Lebanon turnpike. Here is the St. Aloysius Orphan Asylum, but there is yet no suburban improvement nearer than the well- known village of this name, some distance to the southward.
One mile farther out is Norwood, on the Montgomery pike. Formerly this was called Sharpsburg. In 1869 a valuable addition was laid out in large lots, and the avenues graded north of the old village. Since then the name of the postoffice has been changed to Norwood.
Oakley, one mile east of Norwood, on the Madisonville turnpike, is about three years old, and is already a suburb of considerable importance. There have been subdivisions on both sides of the railroad, and about fifty good residences erected.
Madisonville, prior to the completion of the railroad in 1866, was by no means a thrifty town, though a picturesque and attractive locality. Since then property has very much increased in value ; new houses have been
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erected, and a complete change has come over the place. It is fifteen miles from the city by rail, and is also on the Madisonville turnpike.
Madeira, eighteen miles from Cincinnati, has grown up since the comple- tion of the railroad. The lands are high and beautiful, and the place more of a country neighborhood than a village.
Montgomery station is twenty-one miles from the city and one mile and a half east of the old village of the same name. The country is handsome, and several houses have recently been erected.
Three miles east is Symmes, formerly Polktown, a station on the Little Miami river, with as yet few improvements of a suburban character.
Twenty-six miles from the depot in Cincinnati is Loveland, the last sta- tion on the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad that can be called a suburban place. This has been spoken of under the head of the Little Miami rail- road, upon which it is also located.
On all the roads named, commutation tickets are sold at reduced rates, and every facility is afforded suburban residents by the respective railroads that the present population along the lines will justify.
Ohio and Mississippi Railroad.
This road thus far has not given any special encouragement to the devel- opment of suburban places, being content with its through travel. Law- renceburg and Aurora, both pleasant cities in Indiana, the former twenty- four miles from the city, and the latter twenty-eight miles, are on this road, and besides being places of considerable local importance, are also beginning to attract the attention of Cincinnatians who are seeking homes elsewhere. Between them and Cincinnati, trains on this road stop regularly only at Delhi, so that the suburban improvements derive little advantage from the proximity of the road.
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Suburbs of Cincinnati.
Other Suburbs.
But the railroads do not furnish all the suburban places. Several of the turnpike roads are already supplied with suburban homes for miles beyond the limits of the city.
Camp Washington, midway between Cincinnati and Cumminsville, derives its name from the camp of that name established here as a place of rendezvous for volunteers during the Mexican war. It is immediately on the street railway to Cumminsville, and is a suburb that not only possesses some expensive and tasteful residences, but is rapidly improving.
Clifton Hights is a term applied to the beautifully-rolling lands that inter- vene between the famous suburb of Clifton and Cincinnati. Besides the surpassing natural beauty of the locality, there are some good dwellings erected here, and it requires no prophet to foresee a great future for the place. To the south-east, in the vicinity of McMillan street and Ohio avenue, the highlands have been designated Elmont, from the beautiful elms that once grew on these highlands. The place is now within the city limits, and each year is becoming more thickly populated.
The village of Pendleton, long known as a suburb in the east, but now within the corporate limits of Cincinnati, and St. Bernard, on the northern verge of Clifton, along the Carthage turnpike, are both to be enumerated in the surroundings of the Queen City. Sharonville, on the Lebanon turnpike; Mount Pleasant (Mount Healthy postoffice), on the Cincinnati and Hamilton turnpike; Springdale, on the Carthage, Spring- field and Hamilton turnpike, with a convenient railroad connection at Glendale ; Pleasant Ridge, on the Montgomery turnpike; Newtown, east of the city, and California, on the Ohio above the mouth of the Little Miami, are villages dependent upon local trade for their support, but they are intimately connected with the city, and, indeed, may without impro- priety be called her outposts.
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Conclusion.
The highlands west of Millcreek, from College Hill to the Ohio river, are almost a continuous suburb. Mount Airy, west of and adjacent to College Hill, is a locality noted for its altitude and picturesque surroundings. It lies both in Green and Millcreek townships, has a number of good resi- dences, a successful school, and is an incorporated village.
Farther south, along the Harrison pike, is Fairmount, a well-known suburb, in which considerable improvement has been made during the past three years. All the indications point to this locality as being one that is to become a valuable part of Cincinnati.
Adjoining Cheviot, on the east, is Westwood, embracing about four sec- tions of land in the south-eastern part of Green township. It was incorpo- rated in 1868. It already has a considerable population, and is rapidly improving. A macadamized road, called Central avenue, is being con- structed from this village to Cumminsville.
Cheviot, though less suburban than its neighbor, is not without Cincin- nati representatives.
South of Fairmount, on the highlands west of the city, is a locality more sparsely settled than in some other directions from the city, but it is one of surpassing beauty, and has for many years been the homes of some of Cin- cinnati's most substantial citizens. Here are the villages of Mount Har- rison and St. Peter's. Barrsville, Forbusville, and Spring Garden are vil- lages adjacent to the Lick Run turnpike-the latter, too, on the Cin- cinnati, Hamilton and Dayton railroad.
Perhaps, of all the surroundings of Cincinnati, no place has more native attractions than the highlands on the Warsaw turnpike, immediately west of the city. The residences here are not numerous, but some of them are among the best in the vicinity of Cincinnati. On the south side of the road Mrs. S. S. Boyle has recently finished a residence that, for value, stateli- ness, and completeness, hardly has its superior in our suburbs. North of the Warsaw road, on the hill, immediately overlooking the city, William Howard Neff has a tasteful residence of blue limestone, erected since the war, in the midst of a native forest. Near this place of rare attractions
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Suburbs of Cincinnati.
Peter Rudolph Neff has just finished a large and expensive residence of blue limestone, heavily finished with freestone trimmings. The tasteful dwelling, combined with a location that overlooks the city and its suburbs, the river and distant hills, makes a home of rare attractions.
But this catalogue must be concluded. It has been a source of regret to the author that the limits of this volume and the circumstances of the case have demanded so cursory a view of many of these localities, and the omission of scores of private improvements which might almost challenge comparison with the best. In whichever direction the beholder turns, he sees suburban places. The city is surrounded with hills that are already blossoming like the rose. Beautiful cottages, stately residences, and princely mansions, are springing up as by magic. Villages are multiplying along the great thor- oughfares. Tasteful suburban homes are each year, in increased numbers, skirting the waters of the Ohio or peering through the foliage that fringes the summits of the surrounding highlands.
In all directions the city is moving on to conquest, the flower of her pop- ulation deployed as skirmishers, who steadily advance upon a country that little thinks or knows what powers of expansion and absorption belong to the cities of this country, and especially what a great future is in store for the beautiful surroundings of the Queen City.
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