Hamilton

By Cheryl Bauer and Randy McNutt

Founded as Fort Hamilton in 1791, the City of Hamilton was settled by pioneers and immigrants and was forged in steel by her talented workers and craftsmen. Factory owners became wealthy and built magnificent homes along Dayton Street. Hamilton prospered and became known as the "Greatest Little Industrial City of Its Kind in the World," home to Mosler Safe Co., Ford Motor Co., Beckett Papers, and many others. Following World War II, some factories closed their doors or moved away, but Hamilton persevered and became a city powered by small business and the arts. Through vintage images, this book showcases Hamilton s success, its survival of the Flood of 1913, its blue-collar job loss, and now, its rise as the "City of Sculpture," attracting sculptors from across the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jun 15, 2005
• ISBN: 9781439615324

Cheryl Bauer

Cheryl Bauer grew up in Tully Township and attended Crestview schools. A teacher and journalist, she cowrote the Arcadia book Hamilton with her husband, Randy McNutt. She is coauthor with Rob Portman of the book Wisdom�s Paradise: The Forgotten Shakers of Union Village.

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INTRODUCTION

Since its founding as Fort Hamilton in 1791, the city of Hamilton has continued to renew itself and change focus, from frontier outpost to major Midwest industrial center to the internationally known City of Sculpture.

The Butler County seat began as an army supply depot on the Great Miami River in 1791. General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, named the wooden fort in honor of Alexander Hamilton, an American founding father and George Washington’s secretary of the treasury. It served its purpose well but saw no battles.

When General Mad Anthony Wayne’s soldiers defeated an Indian coalition at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in what is now northwest Ohio in 1794, and the subsequent Treaty of Greenville finally assured peace throughout the Ohio Country in 1795, the army abandoned Fort Hamilton. In the late 1790s, a town started growing around the site, and new residents used some of the fort’s structures for building materials. In 1803, Ohio became the 17th state and legislators formed the surrounding Butler County. Hamilton became the seat of local government, a distinction it continues to hold.

Israel Ludlow laid out the town on December 17, 1794. Initially named Fairfield, the community quickly reverted to the name of the fort. Residents were mostly former soldiers who had served there. A two-story frame house, formerly used by the fort commanding general when he was visiting, opened as a tavern operated by William McClellan. Soon, other taverns, houses, and stores popped up, and the town grew along the river and across it.

An industrial leader by the mid-1800s, Hamilton was the home of wealthy factory owners who lived in mansions on Dayton Street and in other areas. For years, their factories helped make Hamilton nearly a self-contained unit. So many different products were made in the city in those days that it lived up to its impressive nickname: the Greatest Manufacturing City of its Size in the World.

By 1875, Hamilton was home to 12,800 people, including 4,000 immigrants who brought much-needed industrial skills to Ohio. A few years later, the city would produce 250 products in 140 manufacturing plants.

When construction of the city’s most recognizable symbol, the Soldiers, Sailors, and Pioneers Monument—also known as the Memorial Building—started in 1902 along the Great Miami, Hamilton could do about anything. The building was erected and designed exclusively by Hamilton residents (except for its massive and magnificent stained glass windows, which came from Cincinnati). Rudolph Thiem, a German immigrant, sculpted the building’s Billy Yank, a 17-foot bronze Civil War soldier, and local artisans chiseled the names of Butler County veterans on the interior marble walls.

The Memorial Building represented Hamilton’s hopes for a peaceful tomorrow as well as the abilities of its diverse and growing population of immigrants and original residents. They worked in large factories and small businesses that gave Hamilton a reputation for quality craftsmanship. At Hamilton’s industrial peak in the early 1900s, thousands of residents worked in local factories, including Champion Coated Paper Co., Estate Stove Co., Niles Tool Works, Ford Motor Co., Mosler Safe Co., and Beckett Papers. Known in World Markets was the city’s motto.

Its dozens of factories survived changing markets, new fads, and Mother Nature. In March 1913, during a time of heavy rains, Hamilton faced its greatest challenge as the Great Miami flooded again. In only two days, more than 200 people died and 300 homes and buildings were destroyed. Property damage exceeded $10 million. Four buildings were swept away in the raging waters.

Yet Hamilton overcame the destruction and participated in a large-scale flood-prevention program that has restrained the Great Miami since those days.

Through the 1970s, Hamilton was pure Middle America—friendly, hospitable, open. It produced important people in sports (Cincinnati Reds pitcher Joe Nuxhall), music (composers Johnny Black and Wayne Perry), literature (William Dean Howells and Fannie Hurst), and comedy (Ray Combs). The population peaked at about 67,000 people. Today, they number more than 60,000.

Not surprisingly, Hamilton industries turned out tens of thousands of pieces of military equipment during World War II. When the Korean War ended in 1953, nearly 21,000 people worked in 125 Hamilton factories. A decade later, things had changed. Some larger industries had moved, merged, and closed. By the early 1960s, the city had lost 25 to 43 percent of its industrial jobs. Among the last to go was the internationally known Mosler Safe Co., which since the 1890s had helped to give Hamilton a reputation as The Safe Capital of America.

In 2000, the city rebounded from a long period of industry closures by receiving official state designation as the City of Sculpture and establishing a plan to