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.