City of Springdale History On-Line

With the opening of a new century came the dawn of a new era for Springdale. The introduction of the streetcar opened up new opportunities for growth giving new life the old village. In 1901, the Ohio Traction Company began operating between Hamilton and Glendale with tracks and lines running directly through the center of Springdale. A terminus was located at the corner of Sharon Road and Princeton Pike. Travelers to Cincinnati transferred at Springdale to the Cincinnati Street Railway, which had an exclusive franchise to use the city's streets. Since the company used a gauge that was wider than standard, feeder lines always terminated at the end of the Cincinnati tracks.

If farmers had indeed been reluctant to sell right-of-way to the CH&D back in 1851, in 1901 they greeted the traction line enthusiastically. The people in the Springdale area desperately needed an improved transportation system because the Pike had deteriorated as it diminished in importance. Improvements consisted of a few wagon loads of crushed stone on the most eroded sections. Summer rains quickly turned its two lanes into mud and chuck holes. It was passable only because buggies had narrow treads and the wheels had a high perch, but the ride racked the body and jangled the nerves. Horse-drawn wagons called omnibuses were even more uncomfortable and were very slow, averaging speeds of only five miles an hour. In the winter the people of Springdale turned up their coal oil lamps and stayed at home, unwilling to risk the adventure that ice and snow could make of a trip to Hamilton or Cincinnati along Springfield Pike. Shipping and receiving goods was also inconvenient. The Miami and Erie Canal carried very little traffic by the turn of the century causing farmers to resort to the methods of yesteryear to get their livestock to market. In 1898 drovers herded cattle and hogs down the Pike just as they had done ninety years before.

Although the streetcars left that problem unresolved, they certainly made a difference in the quality of life. An additional car attached to the end carried small freight items which permitted the Springdale grocery to stock perishable items. The drugstores in Hamilton or Glendale delivered medicines via the trolley. The crew even tossed out daily newspapers along the route. The people came to know the conductor and the motorman on the Millcreek line, including George Staten, who for many years conducted on the morning shift - 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. George Miller was the motorman.

The Millcreek Line, as it came to be known, reached top speeds of 35 to 40 mph along limited sections of the route. The trip to downtown Cincinnati took more than an hour including transfer time. But the old Millcreek cars made up for their lack of speed with their punctuality. People along Springfield Pike set their watches by the bright yellow cars. Initially a car ran every hour. A ticket to Cincinnati was thirty-five cents with shorter distances costing less.

The streetcars had numerous advantages over the train. For one thing, streetcars did not need to slow down as gradually before coming to a stop. Streetcars were quiet and electrically heated, and the passengers sat on comfortable rattan chairs and read their newspapers. In the early 1920, the traction company purchased new green cars with green leather seats. For a while it provided special smoker cars in which the men could escape to smoke their cigars and swap stories unfit for a lady's ear. Little boys always tried to sneak into the smoker but the conductor kept them out.

The cars stopped several times a day in Springdale. In the late 1920s, Harry Dean's apple farm at the corner of what is now Rt. 4 and Cameron was the first stop north of Sharon Road. The next stop was at the corner of Peach. Two other stops were in the heart of Springdale: at A & R Biler's grocery and at Kemper Road. Passengers could then enjoy the 3.3 minute ride to John Sellers' farm before going on to the home of Judge Charles Hoffman, author of a history of the Springdale Presbyterian Church. The final stop in Springdale was at the Poor's farm at the Butler County line.

Thanks to streetcars, Springdale's slide into oblivion was halted forever. From 1901 to 1910 new families moved in along the Pike because those with jobs in the Millcreek valley factories or closer to the city could easily commute from the village. The school population increased as streetcars also made it easier for children to attend high school in other communities. Springdale School offered only grades one through eight. With the streetcars, however, students who chose to continue their education could travel to Mt. Healthy or Glendale high school.

Despite its initial success, and a number of changes of ownership and mergers, streetcars had a short life span. The motorbus, which became popular after the paving the paving of Springfield Pike from Carthage to the Butler County line in 1917, quickly proved buses practical and more economical than the streetcar. Motorbus companies could run more frequently, hire one employee rather than two, and, most importantly, eliminate the maintenance costs of miles of track and electric lines. The public paid the maintenance on the highways the buses used. The Millcreek tried to compete and in 1918 cut its schedule to every two hours. Still not profitable enough by the early summer of 1926, the Millcreek ceased operation to Springdale.

The closing of its streetcars line made many in Springdale unhappy. Mothers who disliked mounted a campaign to get their streetcar back again. Mothers disliked the buses and felt more comfortable letting their children to ride alone on the streetcars. A campaign to reopred the line was mounted and, for more than a year the people of Springdale lobbied to have the Cincinnati Street Railway Company extend its line from Glendale to Springdale. They won the battle, if only temporarily. In March 1928 The Millcreek Valley News proclaimed "Street Cars May Day" as Springdale's new slogan because the Cincinnati Street Railway Company had already begun construction on a new loop at North Alley. Service actually resumed before May Day, in mid-April. Cars left the loop every half hour starting at 5:21 a.m. Ten cents took the passenger to Winton Road, thirteen cents to Mitchell Avenue, and twenty cents to downtown Cincinnati.

The success of these efforts led to predictions of major new expansions of industry in the valley area. Springdale had successfully battled a major public utility, and for the first time in many years, Springdale looked toward a brighter future.

Eighteen months later the dream ended. The financial crash of 1929 and the depression that followed ended any hopes for economic expansion. The Cincinnati Street Railway Company saw little profit and less future in continuing the run to Springdale. Major repairs on the Pike forced the company to stop running temporarily and when the work was done it announced that service would not be restored to Glendale and Springdale. Wyoming became the end of the line. The company operated buses from Springdale to meet the cars at the north corporation line of Wyoming.

Springdale again went to war against the streetcar companies. With no local government of its own, it worked through the Glendale Council. In late May 1930 concerned Springdale residents crowded the Glendale Council meeting, and presented a petition asking the council to submit their complaints to the Ohio State Public Utilities Commission. But PUCO granted the Cincinnati Street Railway Company the right to substitute motor bus transport for the streetcars. That decision marked the end of an era.

II

The private automobile made its presence felt well before the demise of the streetcar. While the farm animals continued to graze along the sides of the road, oblivious to the danger, cars operated by novice drivers careened along at ten mph. After numerous animal fatalities, the Springfield Township Trustees instructed their road supervisors to post notice with local farmers that under no circumstances were they to allow their livestock to graze on the public highway. Springdale mothers were convinced that the automobile had to be the most dangerous means of transportation ever devised. Yet in fact, mishaps with the streetcars also occurred. In January 1918 the newspaper ran the following story: "A streetcar struck Nelson Roberts, 60, and a cow near Stop 34. After taking the man out from under the car, he lived only a short time....The cow was also killed." Nevertheless, accidents did nothing to alter most folks' opinion of the vast superiority of the streetcar over the automobile.

The increased use of the automobile almost led to the revival of Springfield Pike as a major transportation route. In 1911 Colonel W.S. Gilbreath devised plans for an efficient auto route stretching from Chicago to Florida. As the situation then existed, motorists driving to Florida from Chicago had to detour all the way east to Washington D.C. in order to connect with Rt. 1 down the Atlantic Coast. Gilbreath took a ruler to the map and chose a way to link North and South together, a route to be called Dixie Highway. In 1916 the Hamilton County Commissioners announced plans to improve Springfield Pike as part of this Dixie Highway road system to Florida. The next year the Commissioners accepted the bid of an Indiana firm to lay a brick pavement with grout filler and a concrete curb from Gas Hall, Carthage, to the Butler County line. The costs were estimated at $131,870. The brick road was replaced by concrete block at the end of the twenties, which was in turn given a two-inch blacktop surface in 1951.

IV

Dixie Highway led to a controversy in Springdale between proponents and opponents of change. Samuel Smiley, a retired Indiana schoolteacher who became a prosperous farmer and entrepreneur after moving to Springdale, viewed the new highway as an opportunity. "The world is moving," a local newspaper quoted him as saying, "man or community that stands still is going to get run over." Others disagreed:

Smiley tried his best to modernize Springdale. He built a few bungalows in the area which came to be known as "West Springdale." He even hired the local carpenter, Madison Sharp, to improve some of the old homes on Springfield Pike. Sharp moved the houses back on the lots, away from the road, turned some around, changed the plans of others and added porches. Poured concrete sidewalks replaced the old cobblestone paths. One of the many houses Smiley purchased was a two-story house on the Pike and Peach Street which eventually became the site of Springdale's firehouse. Smiley left an adjacent lot empty "as a means of beautification of the town." The grass was to be kept mowed in the little park and thirsty passerby's could drink their fill of Springdale's clear cold water from the pump that stood nearby. Despite Smiley's efforts, Springdale did not change. Smiley had dreamed of a village government complete with a mayor and marshal, a public square and town hall, a drugstore and an ice cream parlor for the young folk. But automobile travelers found no particular reason to stop in the village. Most passed through with scarcely a glance at Smiley's improvements. Springdale remained "old-fashioned."

Charming though it may have been, "small and old-fashioned" also had certain disadvantages. In 1911 the postal authorities abolished the Springdale post office, which had a long history. In 1815, John Baldwin, the first postmaster, provided the Cincinnati newspaper, Liberty Hall, with names of those who had unclaimed mail. In the 1840s the Kempers received letters addressed to Springfield although even then they referred to the village as Springdale. In the early 1850s the postal authorities changed the name from Springfield to Springdale in order to prevent confusion with the larger Ohio city. In the 1880s the post office was operated by Perry Colburn, a son-in-law of Anthony Hilts, Jr., and after him, by John Lindner. Now it seemed that long tradition had come to an end. After considerable lobbying from the residents, Alfred G. Allen, the Second District Congressman, successfully interceded. But it did not last. By 1915 the post office no longer existed.

In addition to the inconvenience, the loss of the post office hampered local courting styles. Young peoples often met their beaus while waiting for the mailman who drove up in his horse-drawn spring wagon every day at the same time. With a post office that was now a Rural Route, they had to find another place to court. During the next fifty years Springdale residents would be served at various times by post offices in Lockland, Hamilton, Glendale and Mt. Healthy.

More critical than the lack of a post office was the serious lack of medical care in Springdale. After Dr. George Wilmuth, left the village to work in Glendale sometime between 1910 and 1913, another fifty years would pass before the next doctor established a practice in the Springdale. Others had also come and gone. Before Wilmuth, Dr. James Heady, son-in-law of Dr. Hunt, served the village but also later moved to Glendale.

After Dr. Wilmuth closed his Springdale office, most of the residents chose Dr. Howard James as their physician. James, the son of the beloved and well-remembered Reverend James, also practiced in Glendale. He made his house calls in a circuitous route in a manner similar to that of Dr. Hunt in the 1820s. Babies, however, had a way of ignoring the doctor's timetable and arrived whenever they were ready. In those cases the husband drove to Glendale for Dr. James while an older child or neighbor hurried to the home of Fannie Wroot Sharp. Mrs. Sharp attended to the patient until Dr. James arrived and if something delayed him, she delivered the baby. After the delivery she stayed with the new mother to do the cooking and, if necessary, to show her how to care for an infant. Legend states that the James-Sharp team never lost a patient. Mrs. Sharp mastered many folk remedies that brought comfort to the aged and the ill. Among many others was the use of a white chicken feather dipped in castor oil to swab bed sores.

Faith-healing and patent medicines were other alternatives to a physician's care and conventional medicine. Jacob Sorter earned his living by faith-healing, and sold a special elixir from the back of his wagon guaranteed to cure virtually all ills known to man and to woman. The absence of readily available professional medical care added to the attraction of these alternative methods. But undoubtedly there were other factors, including price and the deficiencies of medical science. Advances in medicine led to a decline in epidemic disease such as typhoid and diphtheria between 1900 and 1920. But cancer, diabetes and heart disease increased and medical science had no more effective treatment for these than Jacob Sorter.

Not surprisingly, cases in which quick treatment was vital often proved fatal because of the long distance to doctor or hospital. In one tragic gunshot case, Dr. Heady rushed from Glendale to remove a bullet from the brain of a young man, using the kitchen as an operating room. Although the boy would almost certainly have died even in a hospital, in these conditions he had no chance at all for survival.

Springdale also lacked police protection to confront crimes which occurred in the village and countryside. Horse thieves and felons" were the bane of rural existence but other types of crimes were also committed. One morning in January 1905 fourteen village dogs were poisoned, "the entire canine population of Springdale." Arson was also common, including fires set to barns or other type of farm building often resulting in lost livestock, farm equipment and hay. In perhaps the most serious case, a young man went on an arson spree, burning four barns, including that of his uncle, before he was apprehended. In Springdale, dependent as it was on the county's law enforcement agencies, the criminal stood an excellent chance of escaping scot-free.

To combat crime, in 1890 a group of men formed the Springdale Mutual Protection Company, Inc., whose object was

The Board of Trustees nominated members who paid a one-dollar fee and swore an oath not to reveal the inner workings of the MPC. The entire operation had all the elaborate ritual and furtiveness of a small boy's secret club.

If a member of the society became a victim of a crime he reported it to the captain who called out the minute men as the members were called. The captain, his lieutenant and eight or more minute men immediately began to search for the criminals and stolen property. Although completely grass-roots in its organization, the State of Ohio gave it rather extraordinary powers:

How many "horse thieves and felons" the Springdale Mutual Protective Company actually apprehended or how long the company continued is difficult to determine. The elaborate ritual, the secret membership roles and the ranking of the men into captain, lieutenant, and minute men, suggested a "secret society" whose purpose may have been as much social as much as meting out rough and ready justice. In any event, MPC manifested a cavalier attitude towards civil liberties, part of the price Springdale paid for being "old-fashioned."

Fires--not only those caused by arson--posed a constant threat to the community. In November 1917 neighbors saw flames coming from Mrs. Arthur Hough's house on the Pike. The unskilled and poorly equipped "bucket brigade" fought a long and hard but unsuccessful fight to save the home. The raging fire produced such heat that the men exhausted themselves in preventing its spread to adjacent homes. If they had failed, by the time reinforcements arrived from neighboring communities, Springdale would have been a heap of ashes. Shaken by the disaster, the villagers met soon afterwards in the YMCA rooms to discuss better ways of fire-fighting. It took nearly twenty years, however, before Springdale established a volunteer fire department.

IV

During the early 20th century, most of the men worked outside the village. Wives cooked them breakfast, fixed them lunches and put them on the streetcar to their jobs in the industrial Mill Creek Valley. All of this necessitated rising before dawn. First of all the fire in the big black cast-iron stove took time to heat up although undoubtedly the wood or coal for it was already in place. Hot water for bathing or a shave came from the tank on the side of the stove which was filled each night from the pump on the porch or the well in the backyard. Breakfast probably consisted of fresh eggs since chicken coops adorned the backyards of many Springdale homes. Then after a hurried good-bye and an admonishment to the children not to pester Miss Sarah Western, Springdale's favorite schoolteacher, the men rushed off. The streetcars waited for no one.

Saturday might be devoted to chores, but Sundays were reserved for neighborly chats, musical get-togethers and visits from friends and family. The members of the Harmony Club frequently met at the home of Harry Dean, who owned a piano. Or as the Bernhardts, Wroots and Hamilton families discovered, "time was pleasantly passed with the music on the victrola." Charity Carmen's numerous children and grandchildren adored their Sunday visits to the Carmen farm where "Grandma Carmen" always had a "crock full of warm crullers" waiting for them.

Many Springdale families saved their money for special summertime treats such as a day at the Cincinnati Zoo or Chester Park, a popular amusement park on Spring Grove Avenue. In conjunction with promotions at these places, the streetcar company added a special car to handle the extra traffic. Springdale families apparently favored the Zoo and Chester Park over the increasingly popular Coney Island, probably because the first two were closer. In any event, families sacrificed one of the backyard chickens for the occasion, and the family departed on the streetcar, picnic basket firmly in hand.

Chester Park offered entertainment for everyone. Swimming, the merry-go-round and other rides entertained the children. In the evening the exhausted children slept peacefully near the dance pavilion while their parents enjoyed a few minutes alone waltzing to the music of a live band. The management of Chester Park intended to keep it a place for family entertainment. In fact, some years later, during the "roaring twenties," the manager condemned the new Charleston dance craze, vowing to bar that "vulgar" dance with its wild new jazz music from wholesome Chester Park. He would stick to dances that would last, like the waltz, two-step, schottische and yorke, rather than indulge in a passing fad.

In 1916, the new speedway planned for neighboring Sharonville set Springdale agog. The people of Springdale and the automobile had a quixotic affair. On the one hand they loved it, on the other, neither cows nor people could keep out of the way. Cars collided, drove pedestrians into ditches and killed John Long Riddle's ninety-year-old widow, Julia. The initial attraction of the Sharonville Speedway may have been that it kept the automobiles off the roads! As Springdale residents would discover in the future, even a race track could not prevent their vulnerability to the automobile. In 1928 Herbert Hera ran into a racing auto which broke through the fence at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds leaving him with a leg broken in two places.

But that was in the future. For two short years after its opening on Labor Day 1916, the speedway was the place to go. The all-wooden track, the largest in the world, attracted the most daring and the fastest auto racers. One of racing's most famous pioneers, Eddie Rickenbacher, drove there as did Barney Oldfield. Then the first World War came and the speedway made way for an army depot. In March 1918 the Cincinnati Speedway Company went into receivership.

V

Springdale had other concerns when the United States declared war on Germany in 1917. Raging almost three years in Europe, most Americans could no longer remain neutral in their hearts. Many believed the stories of ruthless atrocities committed when Germany crushed neutral Belgium. At the same time, larger numbers were immigrants, newcomers from Europe who brought with them European sentiments. Many of the United State's German Americans "rooted" for their native land, as did many Irish Americans whose support for Germany was really an expression of their anti-English feelings. Samuel Smiley gave Springdale a firsthand account of Wilson's fears that partisanship would divide the nation. Smiley heard the campaign speech on "The Unity of America," given by the president at Music Hall in 1916.

Both the Allies and the Central powers recognized that if they gained exclusive use of American economic resources, victory would be theirs. Both sides tried to prevent America from trading with the other, Germany used its submarine warfare and Britain its more traditional sea power. Ultimately, the British blockade of Germany proved more successful. Although U.S. trade with Germany diminished steadily, trade with the British increased from $600 million annually in 1914 to over $2 billion by the time America entered the war "to make the world safe for democracy."

Unsurprisingly the coming of war affected the American economy, causing many prices to rise steeply. This inflation was particularly beneficial to farmers who had suffered from two decades of depressed farm prices. By 1915 Springdale farmers were receiving $1.50 a bushel for wheat, the highest price recorded in many years. The next year--a poor one, agriculturally--Congress set a minimum price of $2.00 for wheat. That minimum meant little, however, since by then the United States Grain Corporation was purchasing everything the farmer could grow at $2.20 a bushel.

The war also caused many shortages. Although the high prices encouraged grain production, it was still insufficient and Americans observed wheatless Mondays and Wednesdays. Meat and pork were also in short supply and sugar was such a scarce commodity that the government asked grocers to sell customers no more than two pounds each month.

Springdale, located in the middle of a farm belt and with its tradition of small garden plots even among non-farm families, suffered far less from food shortages than from the lack of coal. The winter of 1917-18 was unusually ferocious. The members of the Presbyterian church shivered through Sunday services as to save fuel. The Christian Endeavor Society and the other groups that met at the church canceled their meetings. On January 19, 1918 all valley industries shut down for five full days followed by closures on ten subsequent Mondays. Harry A. Garfield, Director of the National Fuel Administration, ordered this drastic action to conserve important resources.

In another energy conservation move, the streetcars began to operate on a skip-stop schedule. What ordinarily might have been a mere inconvenience was a real hardship because the winter of 1918 was marked by heavy snows and extreme cold. At midnight on March 30, 1918 Springdale joined the rest of the nation in instituting the first-ever daylight-savings time.

But civilians worried most about who would have to fight and for how long. Initially the various branches of the military service recruited volunteers. Volunteer recruitment ended on August 9, 1918, more than a year after Congress passed a draft bill that mandated registration for all men between twenty-one and thirty. The Marine Corp established its area recruiting station at Igler's Drug Store in Glendale. Governor Cox posted notices in every village announcing that "shirkers will have to go to work, go to jail, or go out-of-town."

Cox's announcement reflected something of the shrillness associated with this war. Barely three years after he had advocated neutrality as a way to avoid the divisiveness of war, Wilson now led an ardent pro-war campaign aimed at countering the considerable anti-war sentiment in the country. George Creel, chairman of the government's propaganda arm, the Committee on Public Information, used sophisticated advertising techniques to paint the Germans as depraved, bloody and cruel. Soon some Americans began to view their German-born neighbors as potential traitors. From February 4 through 9, 1918 all Germans who were not yet naturalized citizens had to register as enemy aliens. The government had the right to seize and administer their property. The Lockland school district, like many others across the country, banned the teaching of the German language. As a result, the war years were particularly bitter for Hamilton County which had a large German-American immigrant population.

Ordinary citizens set themselves up as self-appointed monitors of patriotic behavior. For example, since Sunday was a gasless day in the valley, citizens who appointed themselves to watch the streets reported the license numbers of violators to federal officials.

Even the degree to which one contributed to the war effort became an object of interest and comment. The Red Cross, for example, raised funds to provide for the soldiers' medical needs, entertainment and other types of relief work. In Springdale, Mr. and Mrs. James Lovett, Mrs. Frank McGilliard, Julia Allen and Louise Boerner were solicitors. Their district coordinator instructed them to list those who did not subscribe and to give the reasons why. The list of noncontributors in Springdale must have been brief, since by all accounts the Red Cross drive in Springdale was a great success.

The actual combat involvement of American troops in Europe barely lasted a year. Naturally far fewer Springdale men served in this war than in the Civil War. One who did serve, Private Fred Niehaus, the son of Rudolf Niehaus, died from wounds suffered in France in one of the most important battles of World War I. The Germans had been entrenched in the St. Mihiel salient, southeast of Verdun, since 1914 in an extremely well-fortified position. The Allies, who had repulsed a desperate last-ditch offensive by the Germans in the summer of 1918, began a counteroffensive shortly thereafter. St. Mihiel was an important target. Initially the attack stalled. Then, in some of the heaviest fighting of the war, St. Mihiel fell to the Allies. A Springdale hero, Private Fred Niehaus, A Company, 153d U.S. infantry, suffered wounds at St. Mihiel that cost him his life.

V

Springdale could not escape the ills that afflicted the nation in 1918, including the war, the blizzards, the anti-German excesses, and finally, the great influenza epidemic. Ten million people world-wide died from the Great, or Spanish, Flu, killing far more Americans than the German Army.

In October, Springdale School shut its doors and area churches agreed not to hold Sunday services. Soon communities banned all public meetings. The scourge spread so easily, doctors and others tending the sick wore masks. Still the death toll mounted. In Springdale, flu killed Cora Ruettinger Rush, the eldest daughter of George Ruettinger. Many others were severely stricken. Few had the energy left to cheer the signing of the Armistice on November 11. The year that began with blizzards, heatless days and darkened factories ended with one of the worst epidemics the nation has ever suffered. Prayers of thanksgiving for the end of the war were joined with those pleading for a quick end to a terrible year.