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The following information of Heritage Hall exhibits is courtesy of the Butler County Historical Society & Museum.
History of the Five High-Main Bridges
The Great Miami River in Butler County OH was crossed by fords and ferries before the Miami Bridge opened in December 1819. The 380-foot covered wooden bridge, built with private funds, had two vehicle lanes and two pedestrian walkways. Tolls started at three cents for a foot passenger, 12.5 cents for a horse and rider, and 25 cents for one-horse vehicles with a driver. The Miami Bridge was destroyed by a flood September 20, 1866. A suspension bridge, with a pair of stone pillars at each end, stood from 1867 until 1895. It was razed and replaced by an iron truss bridge, 440 feet long and 66 feet wide, that its builder, the Toledo Bridge Co., claimed was then the longest single span highway bridge in the world. It was one of four Hamilton bridges washed away in the March 25-26, 1913, flood. A new High-Main Street Bridge, 576 feet in length, was dedicated May 6, 1915. It was later expanded to four lanes. Preliminary work started in December 2003 on a fifth bridge, a six-lane structure in two phases. The northern third of the new bridge was built just north of the existing span. Traffic switched to that new portion the weekend of January 7-8, 2005. The bridge was completed in 2006.
Basis for Industrial Growth
The Hamilton Hydraulic, a network of canals that supplied water power to shops and mills, spurred Hamilton’s industrial growth in the 1840s and 1850s. Henry S. Earhart, a merchant and civil engineer, is credited with the idea of taking water from the Great Miami River north of Hamilton into town as a power source for nonexistent industries. The hydraulic began about four miles north of Hamilton, where a dam was built to divert water into the system. Two reservoirs stored water for the hydraulic, whose main canal continued south along North Fifth Street to present Market Street. There it took a sharp west turn to rejoin the river at the present intersection of Market Street and Monument Avenue. The first water passed through the system in January 1845. As water flowed through the canal, falling 29 feet over its course, it turned millstones in the hydraulic. The project was risky because there were no shops along its route when the hydraulic was organized in 1842. The gamble paid off. Several industries were built on the hydraulic in the 1840s. One was the Miami Paper Mill, later known as the Beckett Paper Co. The hydraulic was a principal power source for local industries through the 1870s when the stationary steam engine became affordable. The hydraulic attracted Henry Ford to Hamilton after World War I when he sought a site for a tractor factory. Ford built a plant – which soon converted to producing auto parts – at the north end of Fifth Street to take advantage of power provided by a branch of the hydraulic. A Rossville hydraulic also was built, but the West Side canal never achieved the success of the Hamilton system.
Ground was broken for the canal July 21, 1825, south of Middletown. The first leg of the 250-mile state-financed Miami Canal (later known as the Miami-Erie and Miami & Erie) was built south from Middletown. July 1, 1827, the first water flowed into the canal from a mill race north of Middletown. By August 1827, trips between Hamilton and Middletown were possible. The canal reached Cincinnati in December 1827. The first run between Cincinnati and Dayton was completed in January 1829. By 1845, the canal connected Cincinnati on the Ohio River and Toledo on Lake Erie. The canal entered Hamilton via the Hamilton Basin, a lateral canal. Construction of the basin – financed mostly by local donations – began in 1828. Traffic started March 10, 1829. The original basin began at a lock on present Erie Highway, between High Street and Maple Avenue, and ran west to about South Third Street. The basin was 148 feet wide at the water line to permit the turning of canal boats. Eventually it was lined with wharves serving shops and warehouses. It closed in June 1877. Eleven years later a railroad (the Pennsylvania, now Norfolk Southern) was built over the former waterway. The final blow for the Ohio canal system – which declined after the growth of railroads in the 1850s – was the March 1913 flood. Official abandonment came in 1929.
Hamilton 1860¨ A Virtual Venice
In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Hamilton resembled Venice, Italy, with several waterways coursing through the city of 7,223 people. Two bridges crossed the Great Miami River. Water transportation was provided by a combination of the Miami-Erie Canal and the Hamilton Basin. Water power for industry, drawn from the river, was generated by a network of two hydraulic canals, one on each side of the river.
“Founding of the Fortress” by Jack Willard
For more than 58 years, the “Founding of the Fortress” formed a colorful background for meetings of Hamilton City Council. The impressive 16 by 15-foot mural in the council chambers is the work of the late Jack Willard, who completed the painting in 1941.
“Founding of the Fortress” depicts people prominent in the building of Fort Hamilton in 1791. They include General Richard Butler, for whom the county was named; Charles Gano, a government surveyor; and Robert McClellan, an army scout. The former municipal building(1935-2000) is on land that was within the military post built by a small continent from the U. S. Army commanded by General Arthur St. Clair. The fort’s completion September 30, 1791, is regarded as Hamilton’s founding date.
The artist “delved into the history of the Northwest Territory, Hamilton in particular, so that details would be authentic,” a 1941 report said in describing Willard’s mural. “Hickory trees, one felled, are utilized for border effects,” the article said. “Even in selection of the species of trees, Willard chose authentic material – this was hardwood country.”
“Numerous details in the background were gleaned from bits of early history,” the report continued. “An encampment of peaceable Indians was located on the west side of the river, bordering a creek which followed a route roughly paralleling what is now Main Street. The lines of the fort, topography, character of equipment – all were the result of research.” Willard said he struggled with depicting a felled tree. To solve his dilemma, he went into a woods west of Hamilton, cut down a tree and studied the details.
The 28-year-old Willard received $500 for the painting that we unveiled October 1, 1941, as part of the city and county sesquicentennial celebration. He was studying at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio Mechanics Institute when he completed the painting. Later, the Hamilton High School graduate was employed at the General Machinery Corporation in Hamilton before becoming an award-winning chief artist and designer at the Formica Corporation in Cincinnati. He was the designer of 18 of the 28 patterns in the Formica Citation Series that won an industry design award in 1963.
“My biggest influence,” he told a reporter, “was Stella Weiler Taylor (a Hamilton teacher and writer). She would keep me drawing and painting,” he recalled. “Later, about the time I was to go to art school, Dad had been out of work two years,” Willard explained. “So I worked with a pick and shovel on construction to earn enough money during the summer to pay my tuition and to buy a suit of clothes.” He said “my hands would be so callused I’d have to use Vaseline to soften them so I could paint again.”
The Hamilton resident, who retired in 1978, died February 22, 1988. His obituary noted that “64 of his works are on display in various public locations and in private collections throughout the country” and in other nations. An example of the latter is a portrait of Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela. One of his most visible exhibits is a series of historical Indian murals in the lodge at Hueston Woods State park, near Oxford.
