If you've ever wondered about the ghostly handrails along Columbia Parkway, or why so many local homes have basement toilets, we've answered those questions in our special feature, OKI Wanna Know. We look for the answers when you don't know who to ask. This week, WVXU's Bill Rinehart visits a marker in a garden.
Lea Shull of Clifton Heights says she was in the Hauck Botanical Garden and noticed a plaque attached to a retaining wall.
"It caught my attention because it says it's a 'non historical marker, and on this spot, February 29, 1776, absolutely nothing happened.' I really got to wondering about it and was trying to figure out whose sense of humor that might have been," she says. "Was it Cornelius Hauck? I don't know!"
Hauck Botanical Garden sits near the intersection of Reading and Taft, a little oasis of nature at two of Uptown's busiest streets. Julie Dennewitz says the neighborhood didn't always look like it does today.
"The landscape was completely different through here. It also was a very industrial part of the city with the train yards and all that," she says. "The creek had all these slaughterhouses on it. This was just kind of a yucky part of town."
Dennewitz is the horticulturalist at the Civic Garden Center. That's a non-profit organization that is focused on gardening, conservation and environmental stewardship.
The Hauck Botanical Garden came from a movement called City Beautiful.
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"It's a movement from the late 1800s, early 1900s of people who were interested in investing in civic spaces, in architecture, in public works, to kind of bring some of this grandeur of European cities, like the boulevards of Paris," Dennewitz says. "They wanted to see that happening here in cities in America."
Cornelius Hauck was part of that movement. His grandfather was one of Cincinnati's beer barons, and one of the owners of the Cincinnati Reds: John Hauck. (His home on Dayton Street in the West End is currently the home of Cincinnati Preservation.)
Dennewitz says Cornelius really didn't need to work. But he wasn't a playboy.
"As far as I know he was a philanthropist. He was on the Cincinnati Park Board for 18 years. He was in close communication with a lot of botanists and horticulturalists of the time."
In 1924, Cornelius Hauck bought a piece of land which we now call the Hauck Botanical Garden. Dennewitz says he built his home there, and started turning the land into a private garden.
"He was very dedicated to the idea of public improvement, to creating green spaces in urban environments," Dennewitz says. "At the time the city was very polluted, very industrial."
Hauck gave two acres of his land to the Civic Garden Center and gave the rest to Cincinnati Parks upon his death.
Which brings us to the plaque. Dennewitz says yes, Cornelius placed it there, near his home.
"As far as I know he was just kind of a silly guy," she says. "He had a sense of humor. He was a member of the historic society, and a lover of history, but he was also kind of goofy, and I think that's reflected."
Dennewitz says Hauck and his friends used to call his place Sooty Acres, because of the dust and pollution from nearby factories. She says you can find other examples of his sense of humor in his writings.
"It's a little bit dry for modern tastes. But he often referred to his estate as a 'little patch of grass on the knoll' which is sort of an odd saying but you see that repeated a lot," she says. "He had this quip about modern Americans so used to industrial life are going to be more familiar with the cloverleaf of the Interstate instead of the clover plant. So he was funny in that kind of way."
If you search the term on the plaque, you'll find an identical marker near the Stonewall Jackson House in Lexington, Va. And on page 287 of his book, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, President Dwight Eisenhower wrote that his Gettysburg neighbor, George Allen, had one at his home.
Other plaques, with other dates are out there, too.
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But if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, take note that February 29 was a leap day. Those have been around since the Roman Empire and the creation of the Julian calendar. In 1751, England's Parliament adopted a plan to switch to the Gregorian calendar.
The change would affect the British colonies in North America, including Virginia, which claimed what is now Ohio.
In short, it changed the start of the year to January 1, and 11 days were gone, just like that. Britons, including the colonists, would have gone to bed Wednesday, September 2, and awoken on Thursday, September 14.
So, one might make the argument that February 29 wasn't a leap day, because it wasn't actually February 29.
But that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Cornelius Hauck died in 1967. Today, the Hauck Botanical Garden is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., 365 days a year. And since it's a city park, there's no admission fee.
