It's hey, forty here, fifty five KRCD talk station. I mentioned going to the break. We have choices, a couple of choices. Now for the twenty six Welcome back to the fifty five carrec Morning Show. Calumnist and Library and at the Cincinnian Inquired George jeff Ces, author of a multitude of books we've talked about before. George has been on the program. I'm talking about Lost Cincinnati, Hidden History of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Dana Now, and Cincinnati An Illustrated Timeline.
He's also written on other topics including the Disneylands, Tomorrowland, the Bengals, San Francisco forty nine ers. He is a resident of White Oak, Cincinnati. Guy he is, although he's not originally from here, but he's doing an empower You seminar. You can find more information to register and empower you America dot org, a seminar on Cincinnati history. Jeff, welcome back to the Morning Show. It's good having you back on.
Oh thanks for having me.
Real quick here. Being a librarian of the city is sin Sinna Enquiry. They have their own library there obviously.
Well, yeah, we kind of did you know? We have all the clip and the photos and things for you know, references for the reporters and the copy letters and stuff over the years. But when we move buildings about two years ago now, we donated our photofiles to the public library, and the public libraries digitizing them all. Now they're going to be access to the Public's great, a good way of the community kind of have better access.
Oh that's great. Remember having to use microfish back when I was a little kid.
Yes, yes, like everything digitized now. Yeah, I can do so much research just from sitting at home in my pajamas. So you know, I can't argue with that.
Nothing wrong with working from home. Along these lines, well, Jeff, you're going to do a seminar empower you America. Now, is this going to be live at the two twenty five North and Boulevard with log in access from home or is this only log in?
Yeah? To be really honest, I'm not sure. I'm I just show up to talk, Okay, Well, but I would assume it's going to be as the normal access to normal.
I just answered my own question. Because the link is on my blog page fifty five KC dot com. You can register to attend in persin or register to attend virtually, so I guess you'll be appearing at two twenty five North on Boulevard, oh Since A how far back in time do you go? I had a historian friend, we called him Bob from Oakley. He wrote books on the early Cincinnati area history, early Ohio history. I mean he went way way way back, like five thousand years ago
with the earliest dwellers in our area. How far back are you going to start this presentation, Jeff.
I'm going to talk really more about kind of the early European settlers to come in kind of during the seventeen sixties seventeen seventies, just because it's more of a freme of reference. You know, I don't really I'm not a scholar on you know, ancient cultures, and a lot of that stuff is still you know, we're finding new things out every day, So I'm kind of focusing on kind of like early America and how Cincinnati was being found at the same time America is starting, and all
the same forces that are going on. So you have those early frontier settlers like Daniel Boone. You know that sometimes is surprising to realize that Daniel Boone was a real person. And he really did stuff around here. He wasn't just a legend. And you know kind of the connections to your American history of that kind of the Revolutionary War.
Period, do you talk about how it was that people ended up settling here in Cincinnati as opposed to I don't know, Ironton or any other town along the Ohio River. I mean, I understand the river connection makes perfect sense considering that's how trade was conducted. But why Cincinnati, why this particular spot on the map.
Well, they had three settlements all around within a month of each other, that were founded in seventeen eighty eight and eighty nine. There was Columbia, there was Cincinnati, and there was North Bend, and those were kind of the major ones, all starting right there six seventeen eighty eight.
That's also you know, the first election and everything. You know, the country is just starting and within a couple of years, this whole Ohio Indiana kind of area is called the Northwest Territory, and a lot of this was the American Territory, and so there's a lot of tension and stuff. So they had to build a fort, and for a couple of different reasons, Cincinnati was the best location to locate the fort, and that was Fort Washington, and we still use that name for the freeway across can you know
for us down freeway access. And so that having Fort Washington meant that it was also the center of the new county, Hamilton County, and so all of the political things, the legal things, the courthouses, everything like that becomes Cincinnati becomes the center. And so then as that grows, especially compared to the other settlements around, you're drawn to it
because it's got more established. So you've had more and more people, and when you're going out there, most people want to be near other people, except Daniel Boone, who would get tired of people and go and set something else.
That's true. That's true. What just said, hold you over, and I do, because what are you asking? How the erie erie canal helps solidify Cincinnati. Also a couple of other things about this, like Sims Purchase. I live in Simms Township, so my township has the name from Sims and the Sims Purchase More with Jeff c Ay fifty
five kerr CE Talk Station. Happy Monday to you. Brian Thomas here with Jeff C. Stilling A presentation Thursday empower you America dot orgs where you sign up where you want to sign up and log in from home or alternatively show up at the power you some in our studios two twenty five Northland Boulevard, FKA fram USA's building Jeff Erie Canal that used to be where Central Parkway is now.
Right correct, Yeah, is the Miami and Erie Canal at connected Lake Erie to the Ohio River. And the basic idea actually came from George Washington. If you wanted the inland waterway system to connect the Great Lakes to the rivers. And what that really does is for did is you know you have all the goods and services going from the north, you know, New York and all that that can reach the Great Lakes through the Ohio River to the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. So Cincinnati became
a key part of that whole connection. But that's surely only good until you have railroads that kind of replace all of that and do something.
It's it's an.
Engineering like a couple of decades. Yeah, it just it just is mind blow some remnants.
Yeah, oh I know, and yeah, and all the locks that had to be built, and I just I imagine the tremendous labor and expense it was to build it, and like you point out, it wasn't that far. You fast forward and we don't need it anymore. We got the rail system. So it's just I don't know, when you look how long and how big it is, I mean I just kind of draw parallels. It's like it's like building the Panama Canal and maybe even more difficult. I don't know did that.
I mean, it was quite lengthy. I mean, there's a whole system of it. And luckily, you know, it was helped build Cincinnati at the time, and so that's kind of helped build build up what we had in the different industries and here, so you know it's had its use and you know since any benefited from it. And as you mentioned, as our Central Parkway is today. So if you kind of trace it down the fact, if you drive down Central Parkway, there's a couple of murals
that show what the canal boats look like. So check those out.
Not necessarily checking an egg thing, but was was the canal response before I have a connection with us becoming porkopolis or will we pork opolists back in those days before the Canal.
It's a little bit of both because the canals helped be able to transport the you know, pork barrels and things around to different places. And what ends up ending the pork opolis, of course, is again the railroads, is because you could actually take you know, pigs and livestock out into the Great Plains and you didn't need to be so close to the slaughterhouses and stuff. That's where Chicago kind of gotten that from it. So it was, yeah, it was kind of hand in hand at that time,
all right. Well, also about the eighteen forties and fifties, I wanted.
To ask you because I live in Simms Township, the Sims Purchase. You'll be speaking about that on Thursday.
Oh, absolutely, Yeah. So the Sims purchase was John Cleves Simms. He had been a veteran of the Revolutionary War and they were offered the opportunity to purchase land and he had heard about this area out you know where we all are now, and he had the money and everything, and he bought about three hundred thousand acres and is everything between the two Miami rivers. It's mostly Hamilton, Butler and Warren County. And then he was resell it to people.
So he sold it to the plots of land that made Cincinnati, and he settled himself in the North Bend and so that's where the name comes up. Interestingly enough, his daughter married William Henry Harrison, so he was father in law. And so that's why William here Harrison ended up in North Bend, just because that's where the family was.
Well there you go. Leave to Jeff to explain where all these little puzzle pieces fit in Jesse and I know that we have a very close connection with the underground railroad. We were, like you know, we were the line between slavery and freedom, and we have a lot of deep connection with the underground railroad. I presume that's something else you'ld be speaking about on Thursday.
Yeah, I'll touch a bit on it because that's a little bit more of the later period. But it's definitely a big setup of like you said that you had the free territories, but concerning the free states and the southern states that had slavery, and the Ohio River was kind of that border. And that's why we have so many underground railroad conductors these column like Lehigh Coffin and John Rankin and John Parker in this area. That's why
we have the Freedom Center here. They located at the Museum in Cincinnati, maybe because of Cincinnati's role in the underground railroad. Indeed, that's another big part of since out of History all right.
In terms of format, it begins at seven pm on Thursday again two twenty five northn Boulevard. If you want to show up live or just log in before that, just make sure you register to empower your America dot org. Is there going to be any opportunity for Q and A? Are you just going to be doing the presentation? I'm trying to set the stage for people's expectations.
I'm I was sure how the system works, and so I generally let people ask throughout and then if there's time at the end as well. So, yeah, if you have questions, you can always email me or or you know, I'd be happy to help in any way. We'll see how the system works.
Historian Jeff c is on the Morning Show today and he'lle you empower You seven pm on Thursday. Empower your America dot Org to log in. Jeff, It's been a real pleasure to having you on the program. I hope you have a wonderful presentation on Thursday.