Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1978. 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
“The College Hill Town Hall is a historic village hall in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Built as village offices for College Hill when it was a separate community, the building was designed by Samuel Hannaford, and it has been named a historic site.”
Wikipedia article College Hill Town Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 314 National Register listings in Hamilton County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · one of 9 National Historic Landmarks in Hamilton County.
National Register reference number.78002075- 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 5,795 specimens
collected within 10 miles of College Hill Town Hall between 1819 and
1975: 2,788 Fungi, 1,753 Animalia, 912 Plantae, 291 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
3 workings within 5 miles of College Hill Town Hall: 1 past producer, 1 producer, 1 unknown.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Tin, Lead, Antimony. 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
3,517 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
Built in 1886, by Gibbons & Smith of college Hill, the College Hill Town On the north, west and south sides are projecting pavilions having triangu- cornice and a corbeled brick frieze. On the north, west and east sides brick with stone detail. The foundation is coursed fieldstone. The lar pediments with dentils and a circular window.There is a porte-cochere and south sides have brick arcades with arched stone lintels.The lintels ating in imposts. The stone water table terminates in bands on the portico and 2/2,with stone 1intels and si1ls.There are 2/2 windows with wood DATE. Form No.
10-300a UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES MAR 17 1978 INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM College Hill Town Hall ITEM NUMBER The porte-cochere has a hipped roof with a plain metal cornice. supported by corbeled brick posts and wooden brackets decorated by pateras. The posts rest on a supporting wall with a coursed field stone base and brick wall treatment capped by a stone sill. The interior of the Town Hall has 17 rooms on 3 floors. An auditorium with a stage is lighted by the arcade windows on the north and south sides of the the building, between the 2nd and 3rd floors.
Alterations include the enclosing of the campnile staircase, dropping of the ceiling in the auditorium and the entrance hall, florescent lighting, perhaps a carriage entrance, has been altered to a door. The Town Hall PAGE building.The balustrade of the campnile staircase is wooden with turned CONTINUATION SHEET rectangular opening with flat brick arch on the east side of the building, balusters.There is a wooden, spiral staircase in the southeast corner of FOR NPS USE ONLY DATE ENTERED (Hev. 10-74) and the finishing of the basement, which had a dirt floor.
of land in the central part of the village from Samuel F. Cary, son of a founder Republican congressman in the late 1860's, active in state government, and his It was described as having a council chamber, stage, ante-rooms, basement and and the Building Association were held there. Dances, suppers, lectures and The Town Hall and grounds were acquired by the City of Cincinnati in accordance The Town Hall was rented to the YMCA for a period, and to the Masons, who finished council, the option to rent the Town Hall for $1.00 a year; otherwise, it is to be the College Hill Forum, and perhaps senior citizen's and youth organizations. 1700-1799 park.
ART ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC ENGINEERING THEATER PERIOD LAW SIGNIFICANCE EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT AGRICULTURE BUILDER/ARCHITECT 1900- MILITARY X1800-1899 SCULPTURE TRANSPORTATION LITERATURE _CONSERVATION _PHILOSOPHY MUSIC XARCHITECTURE XPOLITICS/GOVERNMENT _EDUCATION _COMMUNICATIONS nati Recreation Commission administers the 5 acre park. _PREHISTORIC _RELIGION of the village and a prominent citizen in his own right.Samuel F.Cary was a The auditorium would be available to be rented out by the community.The Cincin- -1600-1699 _SCIENCE and unique in this small community. The Town Hall is important to the community as the first and only public building -1400-1499 _INDUSTRY _COMMERCE 191l.The Hall and park were to continue to be used by the community.
-_1500-1599 College Hill was first settled in 1816. It was incorported as a village in 1866. center for 24 years. Meeting of the Village Council, the Improvement Association the basement and dropped some of the ceilings. It is boarded up and vacant at the ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC COMMUNITY PLANNING for College Hill.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78002075, 27 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
