Little Miami Railroad

Possibly the one thing man has done to most effect the river has been to build the railroad. Indeed several of the small towns up and down the river owe their very existence to the railroad. And with the railroads decline and eventual closing so has the fortunes of these small towns declined.
Incorperated in 1836, the railroad was conceived as the best way to get goods from the capitol and central Ohio to Cincinnati and the Ohio River. This was considered so important to the states future that the railroads first president was govenor Jerimiah Morrow and he served without pay. In 1837 there was a great economic crisis
and the fledgling railroad was unable to buy steel rails and the first bit of track laid actually used wooden rails for a year. The track reached Milford in 1841 and Loveland a year later. Tracks were laid to Xenia in 1845 and Springfield in 1846, a full decade after the company was formed. There the railroad met the track of the Columbus & Xenia railroad and central and northern Ohio were finally linked to the Ohio River. Afterward for decades the Little Miami River Railroad was one of the most profitable railroads in the world. Over time though as the country spread westward, north/south rail lines began to lose their importance to east/west lines and the LMMR declined. In 1870 the LMMR was merged into the Pennsylvania Railroad. The LMMR was operated by the Pennsy till that railroad too eventually declined and went bankrupt and merged into Conrail. With the merger the line was idled except for a few miles closest to Cincinnati which are still in use today. For years the track was unused untill it was converted into the wonderfull Little Miami Bike Trail which follows the railbed the length of the mainstem of the river. My greatgrandfather, several uncles and my great uncle as well as my father all at one time or another worked for the railroad. Even in their day though the railroad had allready passed its glory days and stations at South Lebanon and Kings Mills had already been closed. My Father said he remembers the mail sack being hung on a pole in South Lebanon and was snagged by the trains as they passed without stopping.
Miles and miles of riverbank have been profoundly affected by the railroad as thousands of tons of rock and rubble were dumped along the riverbank by the railroad to controll erosion. Probably the best places to see this are just north of South Lebanon at the "Big Rocks" and at Fosters. My grandfather had a extensive collection of old glass and ceramic insulators that had been left on telegraph poles alongside the abandoned track. Several of these old poles can still be seen poking out of the bushes all along the bike trail. Other neat old reminders of the railroads glory days are the wonderfull old stations kept up bu towns like Yellow Springs or Loveland as well as old markers or signal & water towers at such places as Fort Ancient and Roxanna.
The Little Miami was marketed by the railroad as a sportmans paradise and excursions were offered to fishermen from Cincinnati to towns like Loveland and South Lebanon. Even now the old railbed offers access to thousands of fishermen, hikers, bikers, and birdwatchers every year who use the bike trail to see the wonders of the river.

Ghosts of the past...Turtle Creek

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At the end of my street the railroad track leaves town, roughly following Turtle Creek towards the Little Miami and providing an easy getaway out of town. Tired of days of cold rain I bundled up in my heavy hunting coat and took off. Within sight of my house Turtle Creek forks. Here at the forks is the best documented incident of the killing of Indians within the limits of Warren County. In July, 1792 two men in route to Cincinnati were captured by Indians. A search party was formed and the Indians were tracked here to the forks of Turtle Creek where the trail was lost. Among the would be rescuers was Henry Boltzelle, who discovered smoke in the woods close to the fork. Sneaking closer he found an Indian leaning against a tree eating meat off a large bone he had cooked on the fire. Henry shot him dead and reloaded in time to kill another Indian who burst from the trees. The Indians were buried in the sand along the creek. In the Indians gear was supposedly found four scalps. Just another reason I guess that Lebanon has a reputation of being one of the most haunted small towns in America. Close by here Gen. Josiah Harmar's army camped on a hillside just outside of Lebanon overlooking Turtle Creek's valley. Ironically Turtle Creek itself is named after the great war chief of the Miami's Little Turtle who kicked Harmar's armies butt and sent them packing. Little Turtle, along with the other great war chief of the time Blue Jacket of the Shawnees, defeated not only Harmar's army but also General Arthur St. Clair's army in the worst defeat ever suffered at the hands of Indians. Over six hundred soldiers were killed while Indian losses were only 40. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull's victory at the Little Bighorn years later on had only the advantage of much better news coverage in becoming famous. It was four years before Little Turtle and Blue Jacket were defeated by General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
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A quarter mile further on down the tracks a small creek runs under the tracks before joining Turtle Creek. I haven't yet been able to find a name for this tiny creek on any map. The railroad crosses the creek on a small bridge maybe twenty five feet long and about head high. Here I found the evidence of a deer doing something I would have never thought one would do. A set of muddy hoofprints showed that a deer had crossed the creek on the railroad ties of the bridge! So much for the water gates used for cattle working on whitetails.
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I followed the left bank of this tiny stream down to Turtle Creek. Here in the streambed I found old bricks rounded off by time.
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Possibly relics of the July 10, 1882 flood. Two heavy downpours cause a reservoir dam at the site of present day Harmon Park to break, flooding the town and washing away several houses. No lives are lost, but bridges on Broadway, Main Street and Mulberry are washed away.
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Among the stones on a gravel bar in the creek, I spotted something very odd.
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A closer look made me think of a bone before I finally decided it must be some kind of tooth. While the outside looked like a bone it was not hollow or filled with spongy marrow. Instead wavy ridges seemed to fill the interior. I decided it must be some kind of tooth. There was just one problem with this theory. The "tooth", if indeed that's what it was, measured three inches long, way too big for any animal roaming Ohio now.
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Excited I returned home to do a little poking around on the internet. This seemed to confirm my idea that it was indeed a big tooth but gave me no clue as to what species. The next morning, with daydreams of everything from elk to the megafuna at the end of the last ice age dancing around inside my head, I headed out to Cincinnati's magnificent Museum Center at Union Terminal. If your in town for only one day and can see only one thing in Cincinnati come to Union Terminal, it's easily the best thing in town. At the Natural History Museum they went and rooted around in a box of jawbones and came back with an ID. A Bison, probably a bull considering the large size. Pretty cool considering that Bison have been extinct in Ohio for two hundred plus years. Although never coming close to the numbers out west, small numbers lived in the Little Miami Valley from the time of the last ice age up until the coming of the first white settlers in the late 1700's.
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The Museum Center at Union Terminal:
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A collection of mussels from the Little Miami at the Natural History Museum.
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