BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON - As Hamilton rode the crest of the industrial revolution, its new industrialists proclaimed their town the greatest little industrial city in the nation.
They moved out of the old German Village and into big homes on Dayton Street.
Awed by the splendor, Hamilton's blue-collar residents called the homes Millionaires' Row.
"You'll find just about every architectural style down there," said Ann Antenen, a local historic preservationist. "Each house was done differently. It was a great area, a beautiful area."
Today, the factories and owners are gone, but their personal monuments remain: massive brick and wooden Victorian homes, some with turrets, wide porches and wide oak staircases that reflect the wealth of a bygone time.
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5-PART SERIES
In the past eight years, thousands of new residents have relocated to Southwestern Ohio and Southeastern Indiana. Their arrival has turned once-isolated farms into sprawling subdivisions, and small towns have struggled to maintain public services to the residents.
Also threatened have been the rich pasts and historical icons found in Butler, Warren, Clermont and Warren counties in Ohio, and Dearborn, Switzerland and Ohio counties in Indiana.
Wednesday through Sunday, Enquirer reporters will profile historic people and places in the region. It's an opportunity to tell new and old residents alike of the area's famous and sometimes forgotten past.
Wednesday: The legacy of the Shakers of Warren County.
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Life on Dayton Street at its heyday can only be imagined now. In the 1880s and 1890s, its residents threw big parties for factory barons and rich lawyers.
"Hamilton started with the German Village," Ms. Antenen said. "Workers and factory owners lived there together. Then the owners moved over to what is now the Dayton-Lane Historic District."
They were only a brisk walk or brief carriage ride from the office and factory. Thomas Beckett, president of Beckett Paper Co., lived near his factory, on the old hydraulic canal.
Driving down Dayton Street today, you notice a mixture of offices and residential housing punctuated by an occasional black iron fence and old-fashioned decorative street lights. The mayor, optometrist Thomas Nye, works in a two-story brick house with wooden shutters in front windows. He also lives in the area.
"I find the architecture fascinating," he said. "Knowing that the founders of our city lived here is exciting to me. Also, people in the neighborhood know each other. We go out for walks in the evening with the kids. It's fun."
His home was built in 1870; his office, about 1880.
"It's neighborhoods like this that set Hamilton apart from the newer cities in the area," Mr. Nye said. "Newer ones just don't have that sense of history."
In 1890, industrialist Christopher Benninghofen built his mansion for $6,000.
"To replace these homes today would be impossible," said lawyer James E. Cooney, who 18 years ago bought a three-story home at 723 Dayton for law offices. "The cost would be prohibitive.
"We put some carpet in, but this house is much as it was then. All the fireplaces work, but we don't use them. People ask if my heating bills are large. Actually, it's the opposite. The walls and floors are so thick that they insulate the place."
Mr. Cooney admires the craftsmanship of the old homes, but he is equally impressed they have survived natural and social upheavals. Near the front door, he keeps an old framed photo of the 1913 flood. Water stands over the front porch, even though the Great Miami River is not nearby.
"After the flood, a lot of the residents moved up on the hill on the west side to get away from any more floods," Ms. Antenen said.
Mr. Cooney's office is decorated with personal items and books. A dark wood mantel gives the room the feel of something out of a Dickens novel.
"I really love it here," he said. "I was downtown in a typical office building, but I decided to move to a more relaxed location. Face it, everybody who comes in here has a problem. It's good to relax them."
A few years before he moved into his building, the street and neighborhood were in decline. When older families began moving out, urban rehabbers arrived to rescue the kings of Hamilton's glory days. One of them was Sherry Corbett, a professor at Miami University, who moved to Dayton Street in 1977.
"I couldn't afford a house in Oxford, so I looked around in Hamilton and fell in love with Dayton Street," she said. "I wanted a challenge, wanted something big, and I enjoyed the place and the (renovation) process. Now I'm working on my 18th building in the area."
Her latest project is a large carriage house at Sixth and Dayton. Ms. Corbett's first house, at 643 Dayton, is the former Rentschler mansion. She still lives there. Over the years, she has restored the house with furnishings from old homes that were to be torn down. Her parquet floors required several months of stripping. The third floor included 9-foot walnut doors and cherry, oak and mahogany woodwork.
Such fancy accommodations were fit for Hamilton's rich and locally famous. In 1909, the Republican-News published the names of "the leading citizens of Hamilton" and photos of their homes, many of them on Dayton Street.
They included: G.A. Rentschler, president of Sohn and Rentschler Co., 643 Dayton; T.L. Curley, president of Columbia Carriage Co., Sixth and Dayton streets; L.P. Clawson, listed as "capitalist," 723 Dayton; and James K. Cullen, president of Niles Tool Works Co., 325 Dayton.
"Their houses are experiencing a renaissance," Mr. Cooney said. "Each generation appreciates them."
In the past eight years, thousands of people have relocated to Southwestern Ohio and Southeastern Indiana. Their arrival has turned once-isolated farms into sprawling subdivisions, and small towns have struggled to maintain public services to the residents.
Also threatened have been the rich pasts and historical icons found in Butler, Clermont, Hamilton and Warren counties in Ohio, and Dearborn, Switzerland and Ohio counties in Indiana.
Through Sunday, Enquirer reporters will profile historic people and places in the region. It's an opportunity to tell new and old residents alike of the area's famous and sometimes forgotten past.
Today: Millionaires' Row on Dayton Street in Hamilton.
