How the streets got their names: Springfield Pike

Roads have histories too!

If you are headed north on Springfield Pike, and look to your left, while you are waiting at the Wyoming Avenue stoplight, you will notice this little monument, in Centennial Park. It is a plaque attached to a mile marker from the Hamilton, Springfield and Carthage Turnpike.

Native Americans had trails extending from the Ohio River up the Mill Creek valley long before Europeans settled the area. With American settlement, one path was widened, first called the “Great Road” or “Old Wayne Road” after General Anthony Wayne. Later, a straight “shortcut” road was established from Carthage to what is now Glendale; in 1817 logs were laid side by side along this way to form a corduroy road http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy_road .

To enable further road improvements, the General Assembly of the State of Ohio incorporated the “Hamilton, Springfield and Carthage Turnpike Company,” per the request of Thomas Smith, Henry Morse, Anthony Huts, John Gaston, John McGilliard, Hatfield Williams, Jacob A. Riddle, Alexander Pendery, Andrew Smalley, Archibald Burns, Jonathan Foreman and Thomas Wright, of Hamilton County, and Obadiah Schenck and Wilkinson Beaty of Butler County. They were to issue stock shares for the company. As you can guess from its name, the road extended from Carthage, north to what was then called Springfield, but is now named Springdale, and then on to Hamilton, Ohio.

The state also gave the company the right to lay out the road and improve the road bed, compensating the adjacent landowners for any damages. The road was to be no more than 80 feet wide, with at least 25 feet of width improved with stone, gravel, wood, or other materials to create a firm and even road, with grade of no more than 4.5 degrees. Every five miles along the road was to be a gate where toll fees were collected at the following rates, as enumerated in the state act:

Source: Files of the Wyoming Historical Society.

As you can see from the toll schedule, the turnpike was used for farmers to bring produce, and cattle, sheep, and hogs, to market in Cincinnati.

At the turn of the century there were two new kinds of traffic on Springfield Pike. In 1901 a streetcar line, the Cincinnati, Glendale, and Hamilton Electric Railway, laid its tracks on the Pike through Wyoming. It provided service until 1932.

But it was the automobile that quickly became the vehicle most used on Springfield Pike. As early as 1905, there were efforts to keep traffic going through Wyoming on the Pike at a reasonable speed – 12 miles per hour.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer September 14, 1905.

In 1915 Springfield Pike was designated as part of the Dixie Highway , a route to get motorists from Michigan to Florida, established by the Dixie Highway Association, a group of individuals, businessmen, and local government with the goal of facilitating automobile travel. Here is a link to a great webpage about the Dixie Highway in Ohio.