City of Springdale History On-Line

On Tuesday, November 3, 1959 Springdale went to the polls for the most important local election in its history. At the end of the day residents had voted 514 to 385 to become a village. Springdale, of course, had been incorporated in the nineteenth century. Then came the long years of decline and the loss of population to the point where it no longer qualified for official village status. The community seemed to relish its smallness. In the forties a brave little sign announced "Springdale, Unincorporated" to travelers on Springfield Pike.

The years after World War II brought many important changes to Springdale. Veterans returned looking to establish a normal family life, which by now meant a bungalow in the suburbs away from the bustle, crime, disorder and racial heterogeneity of the city. New houses were built in areas surrounding old Springdale. New business ventures began to make small changes in the village. In January 1948 a grocery store opened at the corner of Kemper and Springfield Pike, and later that year, the Chicken Dinner Shoppe began operations. Al Kattleman, who had done local hauling before the war, incorporated his firm as a long-distance trucking company. Gradually, the idea of incorporating the village gained supporters.

As the village adjusted to a changing post-war society, small-town, community-oriented activities still prevailed. Local merchants sponsored the Springdale Veteran's Ball Club, a fast-pitch softball team which was managed by Roger Schoenberger and created as much interest in Springdale as the Cincinnati Reds. For the 1948 season the team played on a new ball field located on the property owned by Springdale Dry Cleaners, just north of the village on Rt. 4. That year the men of Springdale defeated the Glendale Grocery Club, in the first round of the Glendale Fast Pitch Softball League.

Little girls attended Brownies at the Springdale Presbyterian Church, and girls from Hartwell, Lockland and other valley towns always enjoyed it when the district girl scout meetings were held in Springdale's still rural atmosphere. The hayrides were always the favorite entertainment at those events. In 1946 Reverend Noble of the Presbyterian church and Jack Flaherty worked together to organize a boy scout troop.

Not all activities were as much fun. The piano teacher, Mary Bishop Ritchie, "presented her students in a piano recital." The small notice in the January 4, 1945 edition of The Valley Shopper represented months of practice for little girls, some of whom would have preferred less genteel activities. The women of Springdale had their church activities, and, after it was organized on February 6, 1953, the Springdale Garden Club.

For older children, especially teens, Springdale did not offer much in the way of activities. Marian and Gus Heismann sometimes held a party for teenage classes at the Hayloft, their famous square dancing establishment at Rt. 4 and just south of I-275. On the whole, however, teenagers found little to do in Springdale except hang out at Harry Bachman's store, or congregate in front of the Miller's Antique Shoppe located in the old Anthony Hilts, Jr., house. Apparently the program of sporting events for the young people begun in the 1940s had ended. Youngsters complained they had to leave the school grounds by 5:30 p.m. This idleness concerned parents and adults in the village. For one thing, with so many new families moving to Springdale, they no longer knew all the children by sight. In 1952 the teenagers organized a volunteer drive in an effort to raise funds for a recreation center. The usual bake sales and car washes were insufficient for such a large undertaking and the project fizzled.

The idea that the traditional community activities were not large enough to assimilate the newcomers made incorporation more attractive. Many felt that a village government could, and should, provide parks and a recreation center for the community. At the very least it could provide the protection of a police force. In the meantime the building boom continued.

Continued growth created new challenges. Gas and sewer lines were not yet available in the village, so residents began petitioning to get them installed. The Men's Civic Club took the lead in the lobbying effort in August 1945 when it sent a representative to discuss gas service with the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company. If all the residents shared the cost of installation he learned it would be relatively inexpensive. At the same time, the community lobbied for a traffic light at Kemper and Springfield Pike. Clearly, Springdale saw growth and progress in its future and it worked hard to negotiate these improvements.

Uncontrolled growth concerned many. Ray Winterrod and the Springdale Community Club feared that the community's unincorporated status would encourage the builders who would fill Springdale's open fields with jerry-built subdivisions. Winterrod, treasurer of the club and general manager for the John D. Mason Real Estate Company, pushed incorporation as the only means of controlling growth and protecting property values through zoning and building regulations. In January 1947, when the community club called a village meeting at the Springdale School auditorium to discuss incorporation. With 250 people crowded into the auditorium, Winterrod enthusiastically described the benefits of incorporation, which included increased local control, new sewers, sidewalks, and full-time police and fire protection to Springdale. Winterrod explained that incorporation did not mean higher taxes, and that the village could count on receiving the full share of the school levy, recovering what went to Springfield Township and to the county school administration. He also calculated Springdale's share of the state sales tax, beer and whiskey licenses and income from the state gasoline and motor vehicles license tax. To save additional money, services could be introduced gradually, as growth provided the resources to pay for them. Montgomery and Arlington Heights both ran governments on tax duplicates less than Springdale's, Winterrod asserted.

Not everyone agreed. Edward Schumacher, for one, rose to rebut Winterrod's arguments. He asked whether Springdale was willing to lose the protection of the Hamilton County sheriff's department, and the four hundred dollars that Springfield Township paid to help subsidize the fire department, while waiting for the village to be incorporated. Schumacher especially ridiculed the idea that collection of inheritance taxes would add to village revenues. "We're working people," he reminded his audience. Then he moved to table the question of incorporation "indefinitely." His motion was seconded and adopted by acclamation.

Schumacher sensed that the building boom would not be as great in Springdale as others anticipated and he was correct. He felt the community could not afford vital services and he feared giving up those that it enjoyed from the township and county as a result of its unincorporated status.

Undeterred, the Springdale Community Club met again in 1947 and established a fact-finding committee to identify the advantages, and costs, of incorporation. In the same year, Hamilton County established a Rural Zoning Commission to study the need for zoning in unincorporated areas. Springdale's civic leaders awaited the results of the study and the zoning plan it was expected to include. This Commission indeed saw the need for rural zoning and presented a plan which received the approval of the Regional Planning Commission. The county then placed it on the ballot in 1948 and Springfield Township voted its approval.

Meanwhile, area builders found cheap land in the outer rim of the metropolitan areas. The government subsidized the building boom through its FHA loans, veteran's benefits, and indirectly, through a new massive interstate highway system. As early as 1945 Sherwood Reeder, the director of the county's master planning division, recommended that the proposed Millcreek expressway be built from the valley into the Cincinnati downtown basin. Reeder maintained that such an artery would benefit the northern areas through faster bus travel. Even in 1945 few realized how dramatically expressways would boost the use of private automobiles which in turn led to suburbanization.

The Cincinnati Metropolitan Master Plan published in 1948 presumed that future development would occur on the perimeter, that residential areas would grow on the outskirts linked together and to the city's core by a system of expressways.

The Millcreek Expressway (I-75) was under construction and the section between Dayton and Cincinnati would soon be completed. A Circle Freeway would eventually connect Springfield Pike, Princeton Pike, I-75, and Rts 25 and 42. With Springdale on the path of the proposed circle freeway, Springdale soon outgrew rural zoning. Springdale's location at the hub of this impressive network created a flurry of interest. In 1956 Jeffrey Lazarus announced that the department store he headed, Shillito's, planned to build a 75-acre shopping center in Springdale to be completed in 1960. Although the project carried a hefty $25 million price tag, Lazarus strongly believed that this new center, called Tri-County, would change the shopping habits of the region. The question for many was would Springdale benefit from the real estate boom that would inevitably follow, or would it be swallowed up by forces beyond its control? To try to answer those questions, the Springdale Civic League, founded just a year before, held a panel in discussion on the merits of incorporation as a means of controlling growth in December 1956.

During these years, the sound of bulldozers and hammers announced the arrival, in force, of home builders. Concerned Springdale residents feared new residential subdivisions would devour open land, and leave nothing for the industrial and commercial development to provide Springdale with an adequate tax base. Property taxes from new residents, who bought inexpensive tract houses, were insufficient to pay for the basic municipal services. The schools were under tremendous pressure, and although voters approved a one-mil levy in 1958, that money was already allocated for a nine-room addition to the school. In the words of Gustave Neuss, one of the founders of the Springdale Civic League, "If we don't do something, we will have a hodge-podge of a community, without any real source of revenue and completely built up with residences."

As an unincorporated area, Springdale fell under the zoning authority of the Hamilton County Commissioners. The village had 750 acres of open land zoned A for single family residences, churches, schools and golf courses, on 20,000 square feet. Developers coveted that land, hoping that it could be rezoned C to allow them to build single family homes on smaller, 6000-square-foot lots. Although public hearings were sometimes held in Springdale, when developers applied for a zoning change, as a rule interested Springdale individuals or groups went to the courthouse in downtown Cincinnati for the commission meetings to voice objections or concerns. All to frequently the commissioners ignored local objections. Even when local efforts were successful, nothing prevented the developers and landowners from returning time and time again until they gained the zoning change they desired. Private citizens and civic groups were at great disadvantage in this war of nerves. To many, incorporation seemed the answer.

In February 1959 the civic league board met at the home of Horace Dimond to consider incorporation, and appointed Max Sanks, Jr. and Bruce W. Smith as co-chairmen of a committee to investigate all sides of the issue. The process was pushed forward by the proposed development of the Heritage Hill subdivision off Crescentville Road, which sought a change in zoning. On June 23, 1959, the Hamilton County Commissioners held a special zoning meeting to consider the request and hear from the Civic League, which presented the commissioners with a petition protesting the rezoning.

This process underscored what many in Springdale felt, that Springdale could not protect itself if it had to fight every request for a zoning change on a case-by-case basis. With the July 1959 groundbreaking ceremonies for Tri-County, events threatened to move beyond Springdale's control. To gain more control, the civic club formed a Committee on Incorporation with Neuss as President. Committee members Sanks and Smith acted as co-sponsors of a petition containing 350 names that was filed with the Springfield Township Board of Trustees requesting that an election be held on incorporation. On September 30 the first public hearing was held. Proponents of incorporation stressed that village status would add only two dollars per thousand valuation to the existing $23.70 tax, and admitted that village government would have to be extremely frugal until Tri-County was operational and on the tax rolls.

Other arguments used in favor of incorporation included the need for police protection and support for the fire department. In 1959, fire department expenses ran $4200, yet Springfield Township contributed only $1100. Springdale deserved a fire department that did not require raffles and carnivals for its support. Utility rates charged by CG&E would decrease once Springdale acquired village status, helping to defray the tax increase.

Springdale needed incorporation, said its sponsors, to bring adequate streets and sidewalks to the village. In the new sections the developers built only graveled streets. The small stores on the Pike lost customers because the housewives who did not drive and who were afraid to push their baby carriages over such an unpleasant, bumpy and dusty route.

Finally, Springdale had experienced the difficulties inherent in having voluntary organizations negotiate for services with public utilities and county officials. It had taken more than ten years after the Men's Civic Club began negotiations with CG&E for the gas lines to be installed. Many parts of Springdale were still without sewers despite almost two decades of lobbying. City water mains had not extended to all parts of Springdale in 1931 and the Hamilton County engineer's office had long maintained it would not install sewers in areas not serviced by city water mains.

Springdale was caught squarely in the middle of the great city-county water controversy. Quite simply, the City of Cincinnati attempted to use its control over the water supply to annex outlying areas. The city tried the tactic unsuccessfully with St. Bernard, Elmwood and Wyoming in 1926. Twenty-five years later the city pressured certain areas by turning off their water supplies. Hamilton County would then turn them back on. The city charged its non-resident customers 25 percent more than its residents. County Prosecutor C. Watson Hover claimed that under Ohio law it could only charge outsiders an additional 10 percent. Eventually the two parties reached an agreement. The county took charge of distributing water, reading meters, billing and improving mains in the unincorporated areas. The city sold water to the county at a discount rate. Years passed as the city and county negotiated all the fine points of a contract, while in the meantime, the city refused to add additional water mains.

As the last stop on the water main, Springdale received whatever trickle the pressure in the undersized 12-inch pipes produced. In the summer, especially in west Springdale, the tap stopped running in the morning and stayed off until night. In a graphic demonstration of the dangers involved, Fire Chief Frank Smith opened a fire hydrant to show assembled news photographers what would happen if he had to fight a fire. Complaints to the city, the health commissioner, the Ohio Public Utilities Commission brought only referrals from county to city to state. It was tedious and frustrating.

On December 22, 1954, however, the Cincinnati City Council approved water main extensions, and after the water department received permission to run a 24-inch main through Wyoming and Glendale, the work proceeded. By mid-summer 1956, Springdale had what most people take for granted, a free-flowing adequate water supply. Would Springdale have received faster attention from city and county officials if it had been represented by its own local government?

Apparently the majority believed that to be the case. By election day 73 percent of Springdale voters had been persuaded and on December 31, 1959 they approved incorporation. For the second time in its history, Springdale had village status.

Unfortunately, the leaders of incorporation were unaware of the 1837 incorporation and could find no evidence that it had ever ended. Their legal advisor suggested they begin establishing the village government as quickly as possible so as to forestall any legal challenge based on those grounds. It was felt no court would disband a village that had already made irrevocable decisions. But the elections of village officials had to await the May 1960 elections.