Ludlow Scenes

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Hygeia

Before it was Ludlow, the area where Ludlow now stands was to be a city named Hygeia. Click on the map for a larger version. For a really big version (1.3 mb) of the plat, go here. Hygeia (Wikipedia) was the ancient Greek goddess of good health.

Panoramic View of Ludlow


Louis Charles Vogt (1864-1939) was a noted Cincinnati painter who studied with Duveneck. Both scenes from c. 1910. Note the amount of undeveloped riverbank in Ludlow, because of flooding concerns.


Ludlow, From Elberon Avenue in Price Hill, Ohio	Ludlow from Mt. Echo	From Mount Echo Park in Price Hill


Looking West, 1912	Looking East, 1912	Close up of the ads on the underpass

Odd Fellows Hall at Elm and Butler. We'll quote Dave Schroeder on this one: “It was Ludlow’s second Odd Fellows Hall (designed by Ludlow architect John Boll who also designed St. Boniface Church on Adela and the Carnegie Library in Covington). It was demolished in August 1971 to make way for the new Ludlow First National Bank (the bank building is now used as Ronald B. Jones Funeral Home offices). The Odd Fellows Hall housed many business over the years, banks, bars (including the old Rock Bar), Pop’s Pool Hall and a church!”


We're at the corner of Euclid (earlier named George Street) & Elm. That's John McCormick in front of his pharmacy on the left.

Elm Street
from a Jeff Barkley post on Facebook

Wheelmen
Cincinnati Times-Star, August 15, 1891


Both of these are believed to be from the damage of the great tornado of July 7, 1915. from Facebook posts by Tom Dryer More on the horrendous damage this storm caused is on this page of our site.


An aerial view of Ludlow from c. 1877	WW II Memorial, c. 1980

Ludlow Lodge, 1921

St. Patrick's Day Parade, March 17, 1964
From a Facebook post by Jeff Barkley, of an Abigail Miller photo


	Hot Rod Magazine, April, 1962

Key to guys we can name in the picture.


Welcome to Ludlow Highway Ave., going west.	Ludlow, Playground, on Elm	At Oak and Park
From Facebook posts by Jeff Barkley		From a Facebook post by Gary Rolfsen


Somewhere on Elm Street		Mr. Birkenkamp at this saloon at Ash and Locust, 1893	Dr. Crisler in his sleigh, 1882
From a Facebook post by Gary Rolfsen	From Facebook posts by Will Lack


Ludlow Ferry, reportedly the Fanny Webster, 1870. (We've also seen this photo published in reverse, i.e. with the ferry looking to the right.)
The Daily Commonwealth, August 8, 1883	The Daily Commonwealth, November 4, 1877

At a time when most homes, 1913 in this case, were heated with coal, coal barges were plentiful.


The Infamous Ice of 1977 From a Facebook post by Dan Markey

The Wonderful John Acton was a TV show from 1953 set in Ludlow. This video clip is the 3 minute opening sequence. IMDB takes note of the show, but it's pretty scant.


Elm Street, East of Butler Street, Ludlow	Elm Street, East from Euclid,	Odd Fellows Hall on Elm Street


The Underpass from a Facebook post by Charles Geise	US Post Office, nw corner of Kenner at Elm, Ludlow left, That's William Baldwin, postmaster, in the center. Thanks! to Tom Baldwin for these.


Ludlow, July 4, 1959	Elm Street, looking east from Euclid Refinery fire, July 26, 1892. It burned until August 13th.	Ludlow, 1883

Ludlow Public School, March 20, 1910

The 1885 supply committee of the Ludlow Board of Education determined that they “should purchase two water buckets and two tin cups for each room not so supplied as well as some sort of stand for same. The teachers should be required to keep a sufficient supply of fresh water in each bucket for the pupils during school hours.”


C. 1910	1907	1910	unknown year
Public School, Ludlow, built in 1895-97 at Oak and Adela; razed in 1957.			Ludlow High School

Rigney Field dedicated, 1937.

Ludlow built a school at Oak and Adele in 1895 of 14 rooms, costing $27,000. Rapid growth of the city led to a high school being built, with nine rooms, in 1916. It cost $33,000. The high school occupied all nine rooms, two laboratories, one gymnasium and one shop, also at Adele and Oak. The first building was dedicated to the grades only.

Ludlow High School Fishing and Hunting Club, 1946

Ludlow's Cornelius Joseph “Neal” Brady is the youngest man to ever pitch for the New York Yankees.
See his major league record at this site. More on him here.


Ludlow Baseball Teams. These four Ludlow baseball team pictures are from Mary Ann Kelly's My Old Kentucky Home Good-night

In 1925, the Kentucky Post ran a story on the popularity of baseball in Ludlow

The Ludlow Springs Hobo Club
An explanation of who they were, here.

Ludlow Incinerator

A little background on the Ludlow Incinerator is at this site.

“Our lots are not in the wilderness.”
Kentucky Post, May 26, 1894

Miss Carneal, 1939

Ludlow's Anne Lee Patterson

Patterson, a graduate of St, James Elementary and LaSalette Academy, was Miss United States, 1931. She grew up on Kenner, between Somerset and Hooper. Later, she was a runner-up in the Miss Universe competition, altho that crown evidently was not without controversy. She later became a Ziegfeld girl. Google her for a variety of, uh, interesting pictures.

John Major Hicks hangs for killing Henry Williams, in Ludlow, on December 15, 1880. The short version is here. More details here. Longest version here.

Starke
Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, December 29, 1858

Ludlow’s Rigney Stadium was named after Panther basketball/football star James Rigney (LHS '32) who had died in a car crash in the month preceding to the school board's construction announcement for the stadium. Rigney Stadium is one of four WPA stadium projects still in use in Northern Kentucky. And while Bellevue’s Gilligan Stadium and Dayton’s Davis Field are still going strong. Newport Stadium is in dire need of replacement.
A few words about the history of Ludlow are here.	Ever see a banknote from the First National Bank of Ludlow? Here's one.
In 1893, an unnamed old-timer from Ludlow recalls the days of the buffalo hunt at the Ludlow race track, the time Mr. Bentley tried to keep his cider in a 200 barrel cistern, and the escape of John Hunt Morgan through Ludlow. Read it all here. Also in 1893 this unnamed old-timer from Ludlow recalls the early days. Read it all here.	“Ludlow, Ky., July 27, - Saturday evening, Wm. Gardner was fishing at the ferry landing in this city, when he landed a catfish weighing about eight pounds, with two well-developed heads. Numerous people in Bromley saw the freak, but Gardner did not think enough of it to preserve it, and it met death in a frying pan.” from Maysville's Daily Public Ledger, July 27, 1897
It's 1869, and Ludlow is booming.	Ludlow turns 50 years old in 1914. They celebrate.
A history of Ludlow from the Kentucky Post in 1925.	The circus comes to Ludlow, 1923.
A Ludlow citizen writes the Boone County Recorder to describe his historic town in 1902.	Later in 1902, the Recorder's editor came to town to write his own description.
The Kentucky Department of Labor counted how many people worked in selected Ludlow Businesses in 1916-1917. Results are here.	Teddy Roosevelt once spoke in Ludlow. Details are thin.
“There are fifty-nine separate places of business in Ludlow, comprising forty kinds of businesses, viz.: Baking, barbering, brick-mold making, boots and shoes, coal, cigars, carpentering, confectionery, coal-harbor, clock-repairing, drugs, dry goods and notions, dress making, feed, groceries, insurance, boarding houses, lumber, lock smithing,medicines, meat, news depot, painting, printing, plane-making, saloon, tinware, wholesale liquor dealer, ministers, music teachers, plastering, tailoring, broom-making, pasturing, gardening, wood-swing, machinist, manufacturer of kindling wood, teaming, and loafing.” from the Ludlow Reporter, February 20, 1875
In 1952, Vernon C. Lowdenback submitted his master's thesis at the University of Cincinnati on The Leisure-Time Activities of Ludlow, Kentucky High School Boys, 1949-50. You can see his charts here. His conclusion was: boys did not pursue wholesome enough activities. Imagine our surprise . . .	“We notice that Captain McCoy has given us the Bessie Pearl [formerly running at Dayton] in exchange for the Fanny Webster. The Bessie looks well, but is not adopted to the immense business of this ferry. The Webster has gone on the dock, for a new rig, and in a few days will appear again, with a smooth front and her dress done up in the rear.” from the Ludlow Reporter, June 19, 1875
The magazine In Kentucky ran a feature on Ludlow in 1939. Page 1 and page 2 and page 3.	“The Fanny Webster is the name given to the new Fifth Street ferry boat. The boat is named after a young miss of Ludlow, Kentucky, and will be completed in about two weeks.” Evansville (Ind.) Journal, December 30, 1869
Huge fire in 1892 at the Standard Oil plant in Ludlow. Read it here. (pdf)	And then there was the Ludlow school for train robbery, details here.
“A Sixteen-year-old lad named John Bagley. Living in Covington, went out on his bicycle Saturday. While speeding through the streets of Ludlow at a rate in excess of the limit fixed by the Town Council he ran into Mayor R. H. Fleming, and sent him sprawling to the ground. Mayor Flemming jumped up before the boy could escape and after giving him a vigorous lecture ordered his arrest. The accident happened just as the Mayor was alighting from a street car. To-day the boy was fined $1 and costs for his performance.” From the New York Times, June 12, 1900.

Whipple and Bentley, 1880
Sole Proprietors of the Whipple Safety Bar

Oak Street at the Lagoon spillway, Memorial Day, 1973
The crowd's looking for two boys who had drowned.
The tragic news story behind this one is here.
picture from a Facebook posting by Donny Walker

Ludlow incorporates, becoming an official city in 1864.
Walking tour of historic Ludlow is here (pdf).	Dave Schroeder writes on the rich history of Ludlow at this site.
“On Tuesday morning, Dec. 28th, a runaway negro, the property of Mrs. Stark, of Campbell county, Kentucky, was captured in attempting to cross the Ohio, below Ludlow.” Sacramento Daily Union, January 26, 1859
The Ludlow Turnpike Company was created by this 1864 act.

It can be tempting to wonder why Ludlow, Bromley and West Covington, since they all run together these days, are three places, and not just one. That's because at one time - the map here is 1888 - they were very distinct places. The map is from Max Bergheim's Cincinnati in Wort und Bild.(Cincinnati in Words and Pictures)

Here's Ludlow's application to be on the National Register of Historic places, complete with photo's, history, and maps.

There's also an application for Central Ludlow. Both are pdf's.