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A Changing Cultural Landscape in the West

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A Changing Cultural Landscape in the West A CHANGING C ULTURAL L ANDSCAPE IN THE W EST E ND BETTS HOUSE BICENTENNIAL EXHIBIT I. In the Beginning Introduction Acknowledgments This exhibit was made possible in part by the Luther Foundation. With the celebration of the Bicentennial of the Beth Sullebarger Principal, Sullebarger Associates, Historic Betts House in 2004, came the desire to understand how it came to survive 200 years. As the oldest Preservation Consultants remaining house in Cincinnati, the Betts House is an important landmark and has a story to tell. Steven Muzik Student Intern, Community Design Why has it remained while its surroundings have radically changed? How did that process take Center, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, University of place? How did it impact this little brick house in the West End? What can this tell us about urban Cincinnati Menelaos Triantafillou neighborhoods? Associate Professor, School of Planning, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, University of Cincinnati Frank Russell This exhibit illustrates the physical and social evolution of the landscape around the house, from Director and Assistant Professor, Community Design Center, College of pre-history to country homestead to urban “superblocks.” It discusses the social evolution of the area Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, University of Cincinnati from European settlers to African Americans and the impact of transportation improvements such Eric Triantafillou as the Miami & Erie Canal, Cincinnati Union Terminal and Interstate I-75. Graphic Designer John Mitchell, Map of the British and French Dominions in North America (London, 1755), pls. 2 and 6, in Cincinnati: The Queen City, Cincinnati Historical Society, 3rd ed., 1996. City plans, urban renewal and designation of the surrounding Betts Longworth Historic District This early map shows Cincinnati’s future location on the Ohio River as “Bever Ponds.” have also had a significant impact on the area. This exhibit shows that neighborhoods are not static but ever changing, and that landscapes change, for better and worse, in response to social trends, transportation, economic forces and urban planning. Before the Founders European settlement Before Europeans settled in Cincinnati, this area and In September 1788, a party of land speculators and South-Central Ohio was inhabited by Native Americans explorers, mostly from NJ and Virginia, sailed down the who are known as the Hopewell. The Hopewell are Ohio River. Three months later, surveyor Israel Ludlow named after an earthwork complex known as “Hopewell and a small group landed on the riverfront opposite the Group,” a collection of mounds and enclosures located Licking River and established a permanent settlement northwest of Chillicothe, Ohio on a farm once owned by initially named Losantiville. Captain M. C. Hopewell. During the period from ca. 100 B.C. to A.D. 500, the Hopewell people built variously shaped mounds, com- plex enclosures and ceremonial avenues. Hopewell earth- works were found throughout the Cincinnati basin. Dr. Daniel Drake, an early chronicler, identified eleven remains erected by the Mound-builders in the Cincinnati basin. The largest of the mounds, which once stood at Third and Main Streets, was “eight feet high, with a gradual slope to a base of about one hundred and twenty feet by sixty.” Pre-settlement digital map, prepared by Steven Muzik, courtesy of the Community Design Center, University of Cincinnati. The many artifacts found in it included shells, bits of Fort Washington Garrison, in Cincinnati: The Queen City, Cincinnati Historical metal, lead ore, beads, and copper articles. There were Society, 3rd ed., 1996. also many human bones About 500 feet to the west was a large ellipse with an opening on the east about 90 feet wide guarded by two irregular mounds. Fort Washington was erected by the federal government in late 1789, and on January 2, 1790, Arthur St. Clair, There were several mounds near the Betts House, thus governor of the Northwest Territory, came to inspect the the name Mound Street, which runs south from Clark military post. He renamed the town Cincinnati, in honor Street to Court Street, but once extended all the way to of the Society of the Cincinnati. Named after Fifth Street before being cut off by the Interstate. “One Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer-soldier, the Society was mound was near the northeast corner of Seventh and an association of Revolutionary War officers, of which Mound Streets, about nine feet high in a circular shape St. Clair was a founding member. and nearly flat on top.” After Indian warfare finally ended in 1795 with the These ancient earthworks endured until development Treaty of Greenville, Cincinnati thrived on river-borne pressure mounted, and when the streets were graded in trade. Houses, stores and taverns appeared and a gener- 1841, most of them were erased from the landscape. ous public landing was laid out. Daniel Boone points to the fertile Kentucky wilderness, in 1769, James Pierce Barton, Kentucky Landscape (c. 1832) in Cincinnati: The Queen City, Cincinnati Historical Society, 3rd ed., 1996. Rendered view of the Riverfront in 1802. .
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