Photograph by Bedford at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Via
Wikimedia Commons.
William Howard Taft National Historic Site
A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1969. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1966. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“William Howard Taft National Historic Site is a historic house at 2038 Auburn Avenue in the Mount Auburn Historic District of Cincinnati, Ohio, a mile (1.6 km) north of Downtown. It was the birthplace and childhood home of William Howard Taft, the 27th president and the 10th chief justice of the United States.”
Wikipedia article William Howard Taft National Historic Site, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 314 National Register listings in Hamilton County · listed in 1966 · category: Building · built in 1969 · one of 9 National Historic Landmarks in Hamilton County.
National Register reference number.66000612- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The reader looks forward to this, the first history of Cincinnati that has yet found itself in print. The writers look back across its half-century of chapters and the century of years embraced by its annals, and have, chiefest of all, to regret many unavoidable errors, both of omission and commission. The more important of these, it is hoped, will appear in our page of errata; but there are still many, doubtless, that have escaped the compilers' attention. In a few cases, discrepancies appear between their statements and those of an extract immediately following. In those instances they must assure the reader that the former rest upon an authority believed to be superior to the other in regard to the matter in hand; but time and space could not always be taken for the discussion and settlement of points concerning which there are variant reports. In all really important matters, they believe the history will be found quite trustworthy, especially when corrected from the page of errata.
Within the decade whose annals have just been passed in review, fell the birth of Cincinnati township, to which was entrusted, for almost twelve years, the government of Cincinnati village, which it of course contained. The township was created, after Columbia, by the court of general quarter sessions of the peace, which then had jurisdiction in these matters, in 1791. To the time of the erection of these townships, the whole county, which contained but a few hundred white inhabitants, was most conveniently governed as one municipality.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 5,864 specimens
collected within 10 miles of William Howard Taft National Historic Site between 1819 and
1975: 2,883 Fungi, 1,711 Animalia, 921 Plantae, 298 Protozoa, 32 Unrecorded, 18 Chromista, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A Schwartz, A. Braun, A. F. 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
4 workings within 5 miles of William Howard Taft National Historic Site: 2 unknowns, 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Tin, Lead, Antimony, Zirconium. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Cincinnati, the town this property stands in, in 70 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 25 thunderstorm wind, 17 hail, 14 flash flood, 7 flood.
The reports record 1 injury. 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.
Numerous roads were flooded throughout the Cincinnati area and some basements were flooded. Flooding also caused some damage at Reading High School and Whitaker Elementary School.
Lightning struck a home causing a fire in the attic, which spread toward the second floor before being extinguished. Significant fire and water damage occurred to the home.
High water was reported on several roads in the downtown Cincinnati area and the near West Side. A retaining wall collapsed onto a roadway near the intersection of State Avenue and Ernst Street and a building was flooded on Poplar Street. Also, an apartment basement flooded on Linn Street and one resident needed to be rescued.
14 papers published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
9,580 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
William Howard Taft National Historic Site is located at 2038 Auburn Avenue in the former suburb of Mt. Auburn in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mt Auburn was platted as a town in 1837. Within easy reach of downtown, Cincinnati's first suburb became an ideal location for middle and upper class homes. By 1849, Mt. Auburn had been annexed to the city, and fashionable "Auburn Street" became known as the "Fifth Avenue" of Cincinnati. Among the old homes that reflect the elegant era is the Alphonso Taft home, birthplace of President William Howard Taft. The Taft property historically included the main house, a garden and orchard, and several dependencies such as a barn and stable. The original house was a two-story brick structure approximately 39 feet by 21 feet with a full basement.
It faced west toward Auburn Avenue. Judging from structural and stylistic trends, the building appears to have been constructed in the early 1840s. In 1851, Alphonso Taft, the father of William Howard Taft, purchased the property and added a 40-by-22-foot wing on the east. This addition also contains two stories and a full basement. Because the Tafts were in a relatively wealthy position, they undertook a host of alterations to the house throughout their occupancy. Although none can be singled out as particularly important, it should be noted that during their ownership the heating, plumbing, and lighting systems were completely replaced. The entire building was constructed of bricks on a rubble limestone foundation.
The walls in the lower two stories of the rear addition and the first story of the original structure are three wythes thick and the upper story is two wythes thick. The coursing is American Bond with one course of headers to each seven courses of stretchers. The bricks are set in a lime mortar.
/ARCHITECT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE William Howard Taft National Historic Site, designated on December 2, 1969, preserves the birthplace and boyhood home of the 2Tth President of the United States. The house, an example of Italianate architecture, included within the Mount Auburn historic district, saw the birth of Taft on September 15, 1857 and witnessed his growth into manhood. Taft's association with the house ended, except for visits in later years, with his matriculation at Yale University in 1874. This house is the only structure surviving which is associated with Taft and his family. The Taft family has had a significant role in the history of our nation for almost one hundred years.
Alphonso Taft, the only child of Peter Rawson and Sylvia Howard Taft, after a distinguished career as a Cincinnati lawyer and a member of the Ohio judicary served in President Ulysses S. Grant's cabinet and as minister to several European powers. One of his sons, William Howard Taft, was elected President of the United States and served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until 1930. He is the only man to head two of the three branches of our government. Horace Dutton Taft, another son, founded the Taft School. Robert Alphonso Taft, the President's son, was the Republican leader in the Senate from 1939 until his death in 1953. Mr. Republican's son, Robert A. Taft, Jr., is currently serving the people of Ohio as their junior United States Senator.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 66000612, 41 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
Block
