Along the Ohio River: Cincinnati to Louisville
By Robert Schrage and Donald Clare
()
About this ebook
The Ohio River is not only a river of scenery and beauty, but also one of opportunity. It is a river of journey and exploration; a river of dreams, both personal and private; a river of commerce and enterprise. It is also a river of floods and destruction. Along the Ohio River: Cincinnati to Louisville journeys down this dynamic river. The postcard images show many riverfront scenes, from the cities along the way to excursion steamboats, river scenery, and the river at work.
Robert Schrage
Robert Schrage is active in local history circles. He has served on numerous local historical boards and is a frequent speaker on local and regional history. In 2015, Schrage received the William Conrad Preservation Excellence Award for Lifetime Achievement in preservation of local history. His previous works include The Hidden History of Kentucky Political Scandals, Lost Northern Kentucky, Legendary Locals of Covington, Eyewitness to History: A Personal Journal (winner of honorable mentions at the New York, Amsterdam and Florida Book Festivals) and more.
Read more from Robert Schrage
Hidden History of Kentucky Political Scandals Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lost Northern Kentucky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBoone County Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory Lover's Guide to Cincinnati, A Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegendary Locals of Covington Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Along the Ohio River
Related ebooks
Canastota and Chittenango: Two Historic Canal Towns Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5New Albany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ohio River - A Course of Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHot Springs, Arkansas in Vintage Postcards Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sterling Township: 1875-1968 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Short History of Richmond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJourney to the Western Islands of Scotland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRepublic (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrigin And Fall of the Alamo, March 6, 1836: Texas History Tales, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth of Cincinnati Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoctor Syn: A Smuggler Tale of Romney Marsh Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lost Freedmen's Town of Hamburg, South Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea Hawk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unforgettable Texans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLouisville's Fern Creek Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Missouri Outlaws Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichael Kohlhaas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Cover the Waterfront: Stories from the San Diego Shore Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Carnival of Death Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Men Who Built Louisville Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Want to Show You More: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Southlake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Man in Antibes: Getting to Know Graham Greene Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Texicans: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edisto and Edisto Revisited Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Indian Chief of the West; Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFairy Tales of Slav Peasants and Herdsmen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBridge in the Jungle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Along the Ohio River
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Along the Ohio River - Robert Schrage
again.
INTRODUCTION
So, what is it about the Ohio River? There seems to be a fascination and a reverence all throughout history connected to this 981-mile artery through our country’s midsection. The Native Americans called it by several different names depending on the different dialects. The Iroquois called it Oyo,
which the French translated as the beautiful river
and named it La Belle Riviere. Thomas Jefferson declared it the most beautiful river on earth.
And Zadoc Kramer, in his famous early-1800s river navigation guide, deemed it the most beautiful river in the universe.
And generation after generation of Americans have admired and enjoyed this same beauty, so much so that its history and heritage have been recorded and preserved in many forms. But one of the most unlikely or unusual media of recorded Ohio River history is the postal card, today’s postcard.
Deltiology is the study and collecting of postcards. Originally a product of the United States Postal Service, the postal card was a convenient, self-contained, and less-costly means of conveying a note or message to someone, somewhere. In the 1890s, these cards reserved the back side for the address only. Only the front could be used for the message. Right after 1900, private concerns began to produce and publish postcards with pictures on the front. Still the message had to be on the front also. That is why some of the images in this book have writing on the front picture. Later in the first decade of the 20th century, the postal service came up with the divided-back postcard, on which the right side was reserved for the address and the left side was available for the written message. Postcards now featured a full-picture front, and the subject matter was endless. Regional landscapes and architecture were very popular.
We, the authors of this book, have chosen to portray a specific section of the beautiful Ohio River, from Cincinnati to Louisville, using privately published picture postcards of river and river community scenes as our medium source. Cincinnati has a very strong German settlement heritage. The German lithographers and printers were eons ahead in the technological aspect of publishing postcards in the early 1900s. Consequently there were a lot of these river scenes published in Cincinnati by German companies. Kraemer Art Company is one such publisher and is well represented as a publisher of many of the postcard images featured in the book.
The Ohio River is not just a river of scenery and beauty. It is also a river of opportunity. It is a river of journey and exploration. It is a river of dreams, personal and private as well as public and regionally based. It is a river of commerce and enterprise. It is a river of peaceful relaxation and recreation. And just about the time travelers or residents become one with the river, endearing all its positive qualities, the river can turn. Ravenous floods and destructive crushing ice have many times taken lives, businesses, homes, dreams, and the very opportunities that lured folks there in the first place. And remember, the Ohio always returns for the things it left behind the previous time.
Some people say the river is fickle, that it will lure you and tease you with peace and tranquility and a sense of security. Then about the time you feel safe and satisfied, it will snatch it all away in one ravenous display of dominance. Consider this: maybe it is man who has been the fickle one, and the river is not fooled by his insincerity. After all, over the years, man has used, exploited, and taken from the river. He has depended on the Ohio for travel and mobility, for food and subsistence, for profit and livelihood, and for rest and relaxation. Then in return, he turns his back on it and builds concrete walls to keep it away and out of sight. He diverts his own personal waste and that of his fellow townsmen directly into the river’s very soul. He poisons it with his industrial toxins and then complains when his drinking water tastes like chlorine. And he litters its banks and tributaries with his unwanted solid refuse, because he knows that the river will eventually deal with it. Perhaps it’s not vengeance after all. Perhaps this self-catharsis is really self-healing and self-mitigating. When the fish come back to the river, the people do, too. And another generation of river appreciation takes hold. Time will only tell, but despite the repetitious trends of history, there is hope and promise.
There is a new generation of Ohio River consumer, a new environmentally correct commerce and industrial mind set, a new generation of pleasure boater and outdoorsman, a new page of solid waste ethics and opportunities, cleaner burning coal, and more benign gaseous and liquid discharges.
This renewed interest and appreciation of the Ohio River is well underway, and it is showing itself in the form of contemporary postcards. Big city riverfront scenes, excursion steamboats and modern diesel party boats, river scenery, river architecture, scenery of the working river, Tall Stacks™, and river recreation and history are just a few examples of the subject matter available now. These postcard views of contemporary Ohio River scenes are virtually everywhere along the 981-mile length of our national history and heritage.
More times than not, the images that really appeal to the senses and project that warm pleasurable sensation of a better time or good old days long past are in fact images of places and objects no longer in existence. The only reminder of that particular scene or object is the card in hand. Unfortunately the historic resources along the Ohio River are disappearing at an exponential rate, sometimes faster than it takes to advance the film in the camera. The medium of postcard documentation of Ohio River history is a very real and viable record of the fragile and dynamic Ohio River history and a tool for its continued, documented preservation.
The hand-colored photographic images so artfully produced by the Kraemer Art Company of Germany and Cincinnati are a thing of the past as far as contemporary production is concerned. But they are still available to collectors and to Ohio River historians. Sometimes an extra few dollars will produce a priceless image of a long-lost scene or object that is crucial to the recorded history of the river for the sake of posterity and documentation. Today’s images