Cincinnati, Ohio

Visited May 17 - 23, 2022

By Marty 

It was a light travel day of 120 miles from Louisville to Cincinnati. We stopped on our way out of town for a very satisfying breakfast at Waffle House (we love the pecan waffles and share an order of bacon and hash browns - scattered.)  We're going to miss the Waffle House when we get back to California! Alas, it's probably for the best that Waffle House is not out west...yet...

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Circa 458 BC

Cincinnati was named in 1790 by Territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair, a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, an order of Revolutionary War officers whose first President was George Washington.

For more context on the naming of Cincinnati, Ohio read this from Culture Trip:

Cincinnati got its name from the 5th-century BC Roman soldier and hero, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. After leading the republic’s army to victory over invaders, he refused rewards, returning to a farm where he lived out the remainder of his days instead. For many people, and especially Revolutionary War-era Patriots, Cincinnatus embodied self-sacrifice, patriotic loyalty, integrity, and civic virtue. In particular, his history represented for new Americans the promise of democracy and the possibility of overcoming tyranny.

 

Maybe Roman pigs can fly?

John A. Roebling Bridge

This may remind you of another prominent bridge, one that crosses the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. John Roebling built this Cincinnati bridge in 1866 and followed up with the Brooklyn Bridge almost 30 years later! Sadly, Roebling died from an injury suffered early in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and completion of the bridge was overseen by his son Washington Roebling.

John Roebling invented wire rope made out of metal (the twisted wire strands that form the suspension bridge cables). John A. Roebling's Sons Inc manufactured the wire rope for most of the major US suspension bridges built before 1950, including the Golden Gate Bridge!

For more on Roebling and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge check this out:

Roebling and the Brooklyn Bridge - Library of Congress

 

 

The Roebling bridge crosses the Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky.  A series of 18 murals are painted on the floodwall at the foot of the bridge in Covington. The murals depict the history of Covington, Northern Kentucky, and the Roebling Bridge in the time period ranging from 8000 BC to 2008 AD.

If you want to see all 18 murals, and the story behind each one, check out this link:

Covington Riverfront Floodwall Mural Tour

Downtown Cincinnati from the Roebling bridge

We visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Opened in 2004, the museum explores the history of the Underground Railroad.

The American Sign Museum resides in Cincinnati (who knew there was such a museum anywhere!) and was quite interesting and visually stimulating!

Have you seen a Golden "Arch" McDonald's sign before?  In the early days there was only one arch. We actually saw a single arch sign at an active McDonalds in Montrose, CO. The world-wide-web tells me there are only seven of these signs still around.

 

This sign was relocated from Huntsville, AL. The owner of the McDonald's there was expanding the restaurant and needed to relocate the sign. The current Huntsville building code does not allow a sign of this size and by relocating it the sign would lose it's grandfather protection.  The sign museum spent $30,000 for the removal, transportation, restoration, and installation of the sign here in the museum. 

Findlay Market, Ohio's oldest continuously operated public market, has operated in this building since 1855. Findlay Market is the only surviving municipal market house of the nine public markets operating in Cincinnati in the 19th and early 20th century.

Borrowing a phrase from Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, the three photos below show "...a few of my favorite things..."

You gotta love this merchant's attitude!

Findlay Market is located in the charming Over the Rhine, locally known as OTR, neighborhood.

Marty makes a friend!

The Over the Rhine neighborhood was settled by German immigrants (you could'a quessed that, right?)

The neighborhood was named Over the Rhine because many of the German working class residents had to cross the Miami and Erie Canal (a canal linking the Great Lakes to the Ohio River) that ran through the center of the city to get to the downtown area for work.

 

In fact 25% of Cincinnati residents today claim German heritage. Cincinnati has the fourth highest concentration of German heritage citizens among large US cities after Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and St. Louis. Cincinnati has the largest Oktoberfest celebration in the US, attracting nearly 500,000 visitors every year. Only the world's largest Oktoberfest, in Munich, is bigger than Cincinnati's!

Murals seem to have become quite the thing in recent years. We see them in all of the cities that we visit and many of the murals appear to have been painted in recent years. Cincinnati, to our eyes, has more murals than any city of it's size that we have visited. The five shown here were all in the OTR neighborhood within a couple of blocks of Findlay Market.

My favorite.  It speaks to my inner boy. The squirrel pilot is shooting acorns and the bomber pilot dog is dropping dog bones.

This one is amazing! The metallic appearance and the distorted reflections really make this unique.

There has to be a brewery in a German neighborhood, right?  We found it!

The tap handles remind me of a Crayola 64 pack.  Right?

The Cincinnati Museum Center is a multi museum complex housed in Union Terminal, a historic Art Deco train station and National Historic Landmark. The Center houses four museums and an Omnimax Theater.

Opening in 1933 Union Terminal was one of the last great American train stations built. In addition to housing the museums it still operates as the Amtrak train terminal (albeit for only one train per day...)

The terminal lobby is the largest half dome in the western hemisphere.

 

Renovation of Union Terminal was completed in 2018. The mosaic tile murals flanking the lobby were restored by Italian craftsmen using Q-tips!

We only toured the Cincinnati History Museum. The coolest exhibit was this 1/64 scale replica of the city complete with the nation's largest S-scale train model. As you walk behind the downtown Cincy model there are more models of other parts of town.

 

In the Public Landing exhibit you can walk through the Queen of the West and "step onto a bustling riverside street and market..."

$3.50 per week seemed like a good deal to me, except for the "two people per bed" part...

I guess it depends on who the other person is?

 

 

We learned that Cincinnati's nickname in the mid 1800's was "Porkopolis".  At that time Cincinnati produced more pork than any other city in the world. From 1857 through 1860 the local pork industry processed and packed an average of 424,450 hogs per year. 

You may know that Proctor and Gamble is headquartered in Cincinnati. You likely did not know that the 1837 founding and success of P&G can be tied directly to the Cincinnati pork industry. Lard is a byproduct of pork processing and was the main component for making soap!  By the 1850's P&G was producing 1,000 pounds of soap per day!

 A stern selfie, in keeping with the spirit of the era

 

We took this photo by placing my phone on top of the wooden podium where the camera lens was reflected to a mirror opposite us and then back to the podium and backdrop.

The Reds have a beautiful ballpark along the riverfront. They happened to be in town so we took in a game vs the Cubs.

Peter Rose's claim to fame includes having invented the head first slide when stealing a base. Unfortunately he also had a gambling problem which has kept him out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

These baseballs, each about 6-8 feet in diameter and suspended above the Reds souvenir store, represent the five World Championships won by the Reds.

The Roebling Bridge, Ohio River and Covington, KY