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The Hogan Family owned and operated what was known as the Hamilton Airport for over 52 years. Airplane owner and pilot, Carl “Pop” Muhlberger and aviation enthusiast and farmer, Joe Hogan, co-founded the airport in July 1929. Muhlberger taught Joe to fly and in return, Joe managed and maintained the field. During the Great Depression, Muhlberger could not afford to operate the airport, closing in July 1932. With financial backing from Joe’s older brother, Charles, and their father, William, the family purchased and reopened the airport. Running the airport was a family affair. Joe taught his brothers, Bill, Bernie, and Art to fly. They raised money to run the airport by barnstorming, sightseeing flights, and flying lessons. Sisters, Mary Ann, Katie, and Loretta (Sauer), also flew. They, along with their mother Emma, helped run the airport and its restaurant. (Continued on other side)
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This historic synagogue symbolizes the work of one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American Jewry, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900). The Bohemian-born rabbi’s many achievements include the establishment of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1873, Hebrew Union College in 1875, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1889. Wise’s leadership made Cincinnati a center for Reform Judaism in America. The Plum Street Temple, designed by Cincinnati architect James Keys Wilson and built in 1865-1866 for the B’nai Yeshurun congregation during Wise’s tenure, is one of the best-preserved Moorish Revival buildings in the United States. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1975.
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Around 1843, local Methodists organized a new Methodist Episcopal church at Fair Play and later erected a brick chapel. The congregation was short-lived, however, and fell into decline after one of its leading members, Joseph Lashorn, moved to Hamilton. In 1876, Reverend F. G. Grigsby of the United Brethren church organized a congregation here, repairing and occupying the old Methodist chapel for the next several years. The cemetery is the burial place for veterans from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War; some of whom are interred in unmarked graves. The last known burial was Etta Thomas in 1941.
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On June 25, 1839, Greater Cincinnati Water Works became the first publicly owned water system in Ohio, when the city purchased a privately owned water company in operation since 1821. This purchase required approval of the voters of Cincinnati and authorization by the Ohio State Legislature. The Water Works, with two steam pumps at this site, three and a half miles of iron pipe, and 19 miles of wooden pipe, provided one million gallons of water per day. Front Street Pumping Station (ruins at this site) replaced earlier facilities and operated from 1865 to1907.
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The Civil War created orphaned and impoverished children across the nation. To establish a home for area children, a group of Hamilton women met with Reverends Thane Miller and Benjamin W. Chidlaw in January 1869. By May, the women had rented a house on North C Street. Five years later, a new house was needed. Local businessmen Clark Lane and Elbridge G. Dyer pledged a combined $10,000 to purchase the property at 425 South D Street. One condition of the gift was that home’s operators had to raise an additional $2,000 to cover expenses. The newer, larger home opened in September 1875. In 1902, Robert and Eleanor Beckett McKinney donated funds to build a hospital on the property, named Ruth Hospital, to honor their deceased infant daughter. Mrs. McKinney and her mother, Martha Beckett, had long supported the home’s work. (Continued on other side)
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Born here on September 15, 1857, William Howard Taft is the only American to have served as President and Chief Justice of the United States. His unique career of public service began after he graduated from Yale University and Cincinnati Law School. He became an Ohio Superior Court Judge at age 29. In 1892, he was appointed a judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1900, President William McKinley sent him to the Philippines as chief civil administrator. President Theodore Roosevelt named him Secretary of War in 1904, and he was elected president of the United States four years later. In 1921, President Harding named Taft Chief Justice, a position that he relished, serving until just before his death in 1930.
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Hebrew Union College (HUC), founded in Cincinnati in 1875, is the oldest institution of higher Jewish learning in the United States. Its founder, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), was a leading proponent of Reform Judaism in America. In 1950, the college merged with the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR), a liberal Jewish seminary in New York founded by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise (1874-1949) in 1922. A third center opened in Los Angeles in 1954 to serve Jewry on the West Coast and, in 1963, a fourth campus opened in Jerusalem. As of 2003, HUC-JIR educates rabbis, cantors, communal, and educational professionals. It also offers advanced academic training for scholars of all faiths. The holdings of the school’s Klau Library constitute one of the most extensive Jewish libraries in the world.
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Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus (1896-1995), pioneering historian of the American Jew, founded the American Jewish Archives (AJA) in Cincinnati in 1947. In the aftermath of World War II and the brutal destruction of European Jewry, Marcus anticipated the need to establish a central repository dedicated to preserving the history of North American Jewry. The AJA, which began with a few boxes of documents, has become one of the world’s largest catalogued collections of primary source material on the history of American Jewry. An international community of scholars, researchers, and students utilizes the AJA’s vast archival holdings.