BlockBefore
Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Reading, Ohio

19 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1898 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Reading City. It lies in ZIP code area 45215. It stands on West Fork Mill Creek. The Survey maps it on the Cincinnati East quadrangle. 10,600 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 561 feet above sea level.

Reading within Hamilton County

Population over time

2 figures

Reading grew from 10,385 to 10,600 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
201010,385
202010,600+215 (+2%)

Then and now

1898 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 88 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Reading, surveyed 1986
Topographic sheet of Reading, surveyed 1898

Topographic sheets covering this place

19 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

2,777 words on this township

History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881 names this settlement in its chapter on Reading City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The great industry in Reading is the manufacture of ready made clothing, for which there are eleven shops here, employing more than a hundred hands, with a large weekly pay roll. Their product is disposed of mainly in Cincinnati, which is the greatest clothing mart in the world. There are also marble works, stone yards, and quarries, a cigar factory (formerly two sucli factories), several carriage and car manufactories, a planing mill and lumber yard, and other industries. From the founder the place took in early times the name of Vooheesetown.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

In 1809 a teacher from Newport, Kentucky, subscrib-. ing himself "Robert Stubbs Philom," who was, or became the editor of Browne's Cincinnati Almanac, took a tour through parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, the notes whereof were published in the almanacs for the next two years. As he neared Cincinnati on his return he passed through Reading, to which he gives the following notice:

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

From Lebaum I passed to Reading, a town laid out on the North fork of Mill creek by Mr. Abraham Voorheese ; on which account it is well known by the name of Voorheese-towu. Here are two or three taverns, and about twenty houses. The adjacent country is very thickly settled. Mill creek is a fine stream, on which are several mills ; and the bottoms through which it flows are of a very rich soil.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Reading City - it names this place 8 more 8 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 7,350 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 7,350 specimens collected within 10 miles of Reading between 1819 and 1975: 4,165 Fungi, 1,782 Animalia, 932 Plantae, 418 Protozoa, 32 Unrecorded, 20 Chromista, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by 14753, A Schwartz, A. Braun and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Clavaria striata Pers.Clavaria striata Pers.1899Aiken, Walter H.College Hill
Specimen of Corticium polyporoideum Berk. & M.A.CurtisCorticium polyporoideum Berk. & M.A.Curtis1899C.G. LloydCincinnati
Specimen of Microsphaera diffusa Cooke & PeckMicrosphaera diffusa Cooke & Peck1899Aiken, Walter H.Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Quercus leana, not of this specimenQuercus × leana Nutt.1819Thomas Nuttall3 miles North of Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Atrichum angustatum, not of this specimenAtrichum angustatum (Brid.) Bruch & Schimp.1820T. G. Leaprobably Cincinnatti
A photograph of the species Barbula unguiculata, not of this specimenBarbula unguiculata Hedw.1820T. G. Leaprobably Cincinnatti
A photograph of the species Sebacina calcea, not of this specimenSebacina calcea (Pers.) Bres.1827Lloyd C. G.Linwood
A photograph of the species Rhus venenata, not of this specimenRhus venenata DC.1830Clark, JosephNorth of Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Equisetum arvense, not of this specimenEquisetum arvense L.1834Short, Charles Wilkins; Lea, Thomas G.Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Carex comosa, not of this specimenCarex comosa Boott1835Collector unspecifiedIn citivate Ohio prope Cincinnati. [Inferred locality from precise loc.]
A photograph of the species Carex lupulina, not of this specimenCarex lupulina Muhl. ex Willd.1835Joseph C. FrankCincinnati.
Albugo candida (Pers. ex J.F.Gmel.) Roussel1897Kellerman, W.A.College Hill

All 7,350 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Reading: 1 past producer, 1 producer, 1 unknown. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Zirconium, Titanium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Continental Mineral/ Sharonville OhZirconium, TitaniumUnknown
George L. Rack PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
George L. Rack PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Hamilton County

Storms near this place

4 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Reading in 4 storm reports between 1995 and 2013: 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2009Thunderstorm WindReading$6,000A widespread area of trees and large limbs was blown down.
May 1995Thunderstorm WindReading$4,000Large trees were downed, some knocking down power
July 2013Flash FloodReading$1,000Evacuations of a building were occurring due to high water caused by heavy rainfall.
July 2013Heavy RainReading-Ponding of water on roadways occurred in Reading due to heavy rainfall.

Every storm recorded in Hamilton County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Lockland0.9 miles19
Arlington Heights0.9 miles19
Whitetree1.2 miles19
Lincoln Heights1.3 miles19
Wyoming1.4 miles19
Amberley1.5 miles19
Brookwood1.5 miles19
Rolling Knolls Estate1.5 miles19

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on ReadingAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1848450The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1056486. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.