Bicycling Through Paradise is a collection of twenty historically themed cycling tours broken into 10-mile segments centered around Cincinnati, Ohio. Written by two longtime cyclists—one a professor of history and one an architect—the book is an affectionate, intimate, and provocative reading of the local landscape and history from the perspectives of cycling and Cincinnati enthusiasts. Tours, navigated by Smythe and Hanlon, take cyclers past Native American sites, early settler homesteads, and locations made know through recent Ohio change-makers as navigated by the authors. With extensive details on routes and sites along the way, tours between 20 and 80 miles in length are designed for all levels of cyclists, and even the armchair explorer.
Riders and readers will visit towns called Edenton, Loveland, Felicity, and Utopia. Along the journey, they’ll encounter an abandoned Shaker village near the Whitewater Forest and a tiny dairy house called “Harmony Hill,” the oldest standing structure in Clermont County, Ohio. They’ll also take in the view from the top of a 2,000-year-old, 75-foot tall, conical Indian mound at Miamisburg. Riders can follow the Little Miami Scenic Trail and take a detour to a castle on the banks of the Little Miami River. Other sights include a full-scale replica of the tomb of Jesus in Northern Kentucky and the small pleasures of public parks, covered bridges, tree-lined streets, riverside travel, and one-room schoolhouses. And if all this isn’t exactly Paradise, well, it’s pretty close.
Introduction
Cycling Advice
Part I: Waterways
1. Path Dependency: Layers of History along the Mill Creek
Northside, Ivorydale, Elmwood Place, and Lockland
2. William Henry Harrison and the Shawnee Nation
The Ohio River Valley West to Harrison’s Tomb, Shawnee Lookout, and Indiana
3. Visions and Dreams on the Little Miami Scenic Trail
From Milford to Xenia via Loveland Castle, Kings’ Mills, and George Barrett’s Concrete House
4. Floodplains and Hilltops
Eden and Ault Parks, Cincinnati Observatory, Pioneer Settlement and Lunken Airport
5. Following the River: The Story of Mary Ingles
Alexandria and Bellevue, Kentucky
6. Swimming Pools, Parks, and the Integration of Coney Island
7. The Whitewater Canal Route
Indiana from West Harrison to Cedar Grove, Brookville, and Metamora
Part II: Paradise
8. Bicycling Through Paradise
Mariemont, Perintown, Harmony Hill, Felicity, and Utopia
9. The Party Tour: Breweries and Inclines
Amusements Past and Present in Over-The-Rhine
10. Town and Country
Mt. Airy Forest, Winton Woods, Greenhills, Glendale and Sharon Woods
11. A Holy City: Churches, synagogues, and Shrines
Northern Kentucky, Downtown Cincinnati, Walnut Hills and Evanston
12. Immortality and its Consequences
Spring Grove, College Hill, Fernald Preserve, and Whitewater Shaker Village
13. Immortality, Continued
Hamilton, the Hollow Earth Monument, Chrisholm Farmstead, and Miamisburg Mound
Part III: Big Ideas
14. Homeland Insecurity
Military Installations from Fort Washington to Newport Barracks to Fort Thomas, Kentucky
15. People, Animals, Water, and Salt
Anderson Ferry, Burlington, Kentucky, Rabbit Hash and Big Bone Lick
16. Building a Nation’s Soil: The Civilian Conservation Corps
Big Bone Lick and Walton, Kentucky
17. Black Community Leadership in Madisonville
18. Crosstown Missions
Xavier University, University of Cincinnati, and Hebrew Union College
19. Art Deco Architecture
Lunken Airport, Downtown, Union Terminal, and the Mt. Washington Water Tower
20. Industry, Rustbelt, and Re-development
Norwood, Oakley, and Madisonville
