Monday, December 20, 1999
Towns hope to share Butler Co. growth
Seven Mile looks toward new highway
BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SEVEN MILE — From her antiques mall on Main Street (U.S. 127), Vivian Gorsuch can watch busy people on their way to somewhere else.
Few of the thousands of cars bother to stop in the incorporated town of 814 people. They move on to Hamilton, Oxford, Eaton and other destinations. To most, Seven Mile is a momentary respite for weary eyes, a blink-and-you-miss-it collection of old homes, a church and post office.
But Mrs. Gorsuch knows that it is a town eager to grow and improve, perhaps getting a boost from a newly funded highway.
“The town has annexed a few acres and some homes are planned,” she said. “Seven Mile is growing. We have a local group, Hands on Seven Mile, that does special things for the town. We bought two attractive "Welcome to Seven Mile' signs this year, and we landscaped the area around them.”
Her father, Roy Peters, served as police chief here for 20-some years. Now she serves on village council and the village historical society board and operates Main Street Antiques & Such with her husband, Mike Gorsuch.
They work in a 6,000-square-foot building at 417 N. Main St. that's filled with antique furniture, collectibles and home decor items. In a glass display case is a black-and-white photograph of the building as it appeared in 1924, when it was a Ford dealership and Seven Mile was vibrant.
It developed in the early 1800s when Samuel Brand built a distillery here. A turnpike — at 60 feet, wide enough for three teams of horses — came in 1833. Seven Mile was laid out in 1841 and named for Seven Mile Creek.
“Seven Mile is filled with generations of families,” Mrs. Gorsuch said. “When a house comes up for sale, a family here tries to get it for someone else in the family. There are close ties to the town.”
This month, Hands on Seven Mile will award three prizes for the best-decorated house and villagers will light a community Christmas tree in a triangular park near Main Street.
Community spirit notwithstanding, Mrs. Gorsuch knows Seven Mile, like many other small Butler County towns, lacks a sanitary sewer system that subdivisions and factories would need.
“It's an issue that will be brought up at council next year,” she said. “Development is moving this way. On the back roads you'll see beautiful big homes. If sewers come in, in addition to the new Trenton corridor, we'll see some growth here.”
The Ohio Transportation Review Advisory Council recently received $27.9 million for the proposed $41.9 million Trenton Bypass, a controlled-access highway that would run from Ohio 4, near Ohio 63, to U.S. 127, north of Seven Mile.
Butler County Engineer Dean Foster said the highway is needed to ease congestion in Trenton near the Miller Brewing plant. Construction could start in 2003.
Though the idea encourages Seven Mile officials, it does little for Michael Juengling, director of Butler County develop ment.
“The bypass might cause some additional growth, but they don't have sewers there (in Seven Mile) and I'm not sure that growth is desirable,” he said. “South of there, in St. Clair Township, the trustees do want to see some industrial and residential growth, which would bleed off as you get into Seven Mile. But that's all in the long term.”
Towns old, obscure
And so it is — “in the long term” — for other Butler County towns like Seven Mile. Places named Darrtown, Millville, Somerville, Reily and College Corner.
The towns are all old, places still obscure to most except the locals.
Somerville, north of Seven Mile on Ohio 744, hangs on to its local bank but looks worn out. A prankster has carefully changed a town sign to read, “Welcome to Dumerville.”
Since 1990, Butler County's population has grown by 40,000, to about 331,000. Most of the growth has occurred in suburban Fairfield, and Union and Liberty townships, on the county's east side.
But not all of it.
Take McGonigle, for example. The unincorporated community in western Butler, on U.S. 27 in Hanover Township, is seeing new businesses pop up regularly. A furniture store, a garden decorating store and a golf course are among the newer ones.
Indian Ridge Golf Course, a former dairy farm at 2600 Oxford-Millville Road (U.S. 27), covers 175 acres running parallel to the two-lane highway. The site includes an 18-hole course, driving range, practice area, and chipping and putting greens.
"Difficult to predict'
Soon, Indian Ridge developers — an investor group of 41 people from Chicago, Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Oxford — will build 12 individual and 30 “patio” homes.
Township Administrator Bill Cropenbaker said the area still isn't a growth hot spot.
“It (development) is difficult to predict,” he said. “Who knows what a golf course will trigger?”
Back in Seven Mile, Vivian Gorsuch knows that most change comes with small steps. She lobbied for five years for telephone reform, and in June villagers finally received two-way toll-free calling to Trenton and Middletown and measured-service (lower than average) rate with a flat-rate option to Oxford.
As a result, her typical telephone bill decreased from $120 to $28 a month.
“I'll help somebody else in this cause,” she said. “Small towns have to help one another.”
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Towns hope to share Butler Co. growth
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