Isa's Blog - America 1854 - Cincinnati
Lynn B. Connor - Adventures in History
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Queen of the West
Burnet House Hotel
I'm tired! After the thousand miles, forty-two hours and five trains, it is the greatest luxury to remove the soot, dust, and cinders and to sleep in a bed tonight.
Last night a gentleman turned a chair into a sofa, lent me a buffalo robe (although the day was hot, the night was intensely cold), and several times brought me a cup of tea.
At two in the morning the train stopped "and the announcement was made, 'Cars stop three minutes for refreshments.'" I got out in the dark and followed a lantern to a shed with an earth floor. There were cups of steaming tea and a dirty boy frizzled oysters on a wood fire. "I swallowed a cup of scalding tea; some oysters were put upon my plate; 'Six cents' was shouted ... and, while hunting for the required sum, 'All aboard' warned me to be quick" and I jumped into the cars..., I left my untasted supper..."
Cincinnati railroad station 1854
When Isa visited Cincinnati, it was the fastest growing city in the U.S. (a population of over 115,000) and the second largest manufacturing center: soap, candle-making, textiles, leather goods, furniture, and hardware.
It was the main pork processing center in the country and often called Porkopolis.
FACT: The first airmail (by hot air ballon) July 4, 1835. Cincinnati to Toledo, Ohio.
