Our feature OKI Wanna Know gives you the chance to scratch that intellectual itch that's been bothering you. This week we rise to the occasion for a slice of Cincinnati history.
Christopher Walters of Verona asked about Cincinnati's inclines, and more specifically, whether there was any attempt to save them as tourism attractions.
Inclines, or incline railroads, were essentially trains that went up and down steep hills while passengers and cargo stayed level.
"You would just pull the horse and the car onto this platform. They would close the gate. Take you up the hill. Let you off and the horse would continue," Christopher Smith says. He's a reference librarian at the Cincinnati Hamilton County Public Library.
Inclines work by having a car or a platform pulled up and down a hill by a chain. They're often referred to interchangeably with funiculars, but those are different. That involves two cars acting as counterbalances: one goes up as the other goes down.
Smith says the city had five, and called all of them inclines: the first was the Mt. Auburn Incline which opened in 1872.
"It lasted about 20 years but it was hugely successful. Two thousand were riding it a day when it first opened."
That was followed by the Price Hill Incline in 1875, the Mt. Adams and Bellevue inclines in 1876, and the Fairview Incline in 1894.
They were originally designed to move people and cargo from the basin up the hills to the growing suburbs.
"They built the inclines but then they wanted to build an attraction to keep people coming," he says. "There were people that used them every day to get to and from work, school, shopping, things like that. So they thought, 'why don't we create an entertainment venue?' "
Those venues came in form of four resorts, offering music, food, and other entertainment.
Smith says the Highland House went up at the top of Mt. Adams, Bellevue House in Clifton Heights, and the Price Hill House — which was nicknamed Buttermilk Mountain because it didn't serve alcohol, because the main investor, Rees Price, was a teetotaler.
"People thought that would be a big detriment, turned out it wasn't," Smith says. "The Bellevue House was the most beautiful. It was also considered the most fun by many. The Highland House in Mt. Adams was considered the classiest. The CSO would play there. Whereas the Bellevue House was near the university, near all these working class neighborhoods ... they were just into partying and having a good time."
At the Lookout House in Mt. Auburn, a promoter brought in three beluga whales to attract audiences. The first whale died on the way to Cincinnati, the second died shortly after arrival, and the third died soon after going on display. The first two, it was reported, were donated to the Natural History Museum to be stuffed and mounted.
The Zoology curator at the Cincinnati Museum Center, Heather Farrington, says they don't have any beluga specimens in their collection, and she hasn't found any documentation regarding their ultimate fate.
The third whale was, reportedly, after several days of decaying while on display, sent to a rendering plant. One newspaper article suggests at least one of the belugas became bologna. Newspapers at the time carried a lot of jokes about the whale exhibition.
Even with music, dancing, and whales, the resorts didn't last. Smith says bans on Sunday alcohol sales and competition finished them.
"There just became other entertainment options. Coney Island opened up. You had the Island Queen taking people," Smith says. "You had people going to entertainment venues not only in the center of the city but also in the outlying areas."
The Lookout House closed in the 1890s, and burned to the ground in 1894. The Highland House was torn down 1895. The Bellevue House burned in 1901. The Price Hill House was the longest running but also burned down in 1899.
Smith says the inclines changed as the city changed. They started as simple platforms, for pedestrians and horse drawn wagons.
When electric streetcars came along, the inclines were connected to the tracks, so passengers could have a seamless journey. Eventually, Smith says they made room for cars and buses on the platforms too.
That didn't help in the long run. More and more people got their own cars, and they needed the inclines less and less.
"Autos also played a part in getting people where they wanted to go on their own schedule," he says. "But also you had the Cincinnati Street Railway Company running lines of streetcars to compete with the inclines. They ran street cars up Auburn Avenue. They ran streetcars up Vine Street. That really was the downfall of the whole thing."
Smith says when the Main Street Incline closed in 1898, there wasn't much objection, because it was close to the Bellevue Incline and because it had a bad reputation — nine years earlier, there was a fatal accident.
"Basically the cable snapped and the car slid down the hill so fast the wheels couldn't turn anymore, they were just sliding," he says. "One person survived and six did die."
The Fairview Incline closed in 1923 with little to no fanfare.
"There were just so many more streetcar lines by then. You could easily get to Clifton Heights, Clifton, UC, the Zoo, the hospitals that were up on the hill. You could get to all those so easily anymore. You really didn't need the incline."
But when the Bellevue Incline shut down in 1926 and the Price Hill line stopped in 1943, Smith says people were upset.
The last incline led to Mt. Adams, from what is now Eggleston and Fifth Street. Smith says it closed in 1948 because the owners didn't want to pay for repairs and upkeep. He says there was an outcry when it shut down.
"That was really a good line. That took you from the center of the city, it took you to Eden Park. It took you to the Art Museum. Took you all the way out to Oakley, via those streetcar lines," he says. "So it was a very successful and loved line, and it did have spectacular views. Price Hill had closed just a couple of years earlier, in 1943. But Mount Adams, there was a love affair with the public, without a doubt."
Smith says the idea for the inclines originally came from Pittsburgh, which still has two operating today, in part for tourists.
"I've ridden a few times and each time I run into people [who say] 'oh, I ride it every day,' " he says. "They take it to work. They take it to school. It's how they get into the city."
Smith says every now and then he hears talk of reviving an incline in Cincinnati. He believes if it were to happen, the Bellevue line would be most viable.
"Because you have the perfect unobstructed path that still exists today. Still takes you into a park. Has all the same attractions that it had when it was built. And it would bring you into Over-the-Rhine. I think everyday folks would use it, but tourists would definitely use it."
Cincinnati's inclines may be gone, but they're not forgotten. A mural on Maryland Avenue recalls the Price Hill Incline. There are historical markers for both the Mt. Adams Incline, on Eggleston Avenue, and for the Bellevue Incline on Clifton Avenue. The site of the Fairview Incline has picnic tables at a scenic overlook.
Where the tracks climbed Mt. Auburn, is now the longest public stairway in Cincinnati: the Main Street steps.
The Krohn Conservatory often includes a model incline during its holiday show, and the incline is represented in the Cincinnati History Museum's Cincinnati in Motion display.
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