Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1986. 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
“Longworth Hall is a registered historic building in Cincinnati, listed in the National Register on December 29, 1986. Constructed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1904 as the B&O Freight Terminal, the building was reported to be the longest structure of its type in the world at 1,277 feet (389 m) long.”
Wikipedia article Longworth Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 314 National Register listings in Hamilton County · listed in 1986 · category: Building · one of 9 National Historic Landmarks in Hamilton County.
National Register reference number.86003521- 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 5,837 specimens
collected within 10 miles of B & O Freight Terminal between 1819 and
1975: 2,831 Fungi, 1,702 Animalia, 955 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
1 working within 5 miles of B & O Freight Terminal: 1 unknown.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: 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
2,379 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
This is a large, common bond brick, one of a kind railroad freight storage building exhibiting details associated with the Romanesque style. It is approximately 1,160 feet in length and is distinguished because this length. It is located just west of the central business district in an area containing numerous mix- ed industrial uses and adjacent to the main line of the Chessie system (formerly the B & O Railroad) . The building possesses high degree of integrity in spite of several changes to its ex- terior. The first floor exhibits rock-faced limestone columns with simple unadorned capitals. Between each column on the main facades are bays with metal doors used for loading and unloading freight. Several bays are blocked up and small windows added.
The original shed roof covering the doors has been removed. The second and third floors have recessed bays between engaged brick Fenestration is composed of 6/6 wooded sash windows at each bay with flat brick voussoir lintels and plain sandstone lug The decorative fourth floor exterior is composed of large semi-circular brick arches springing from each engaged column and evolving across the whole facade. Decorative brick capitals and dentil course terminate the column treatment. Windows are 6/6 wooden sash with brick semi-circular lintels. The fifth floor has several corbel courses above the windows that extend across the facade. Roof trim is accentuated with machicolations. When originally constructed the length was 1,277 feet.
In 1961, the east end was reduced by approximately 150 feet to allow for the supporting piers of the elevated I-71 & 75. The city allowed for the construction of a five story, 30,000 brick addition at the northeast corner. Coe tate Eotyte' his vas not ie ft. al building, destroyed part of the fifth floor. This was not re- built.
/Architect M. A. Long Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) Criteria A and C Identified within the Cincinnati Historic Inventory, the B & Freight Terminal is significant as a unique example of func- tional railroad architecture embellished with Romanesque Revival details. It exhibits distinctive characteristics of the style and is further enhanced because of its exceptional length. Add- itionally, the building contributes to our understanding of the movement of freight by the railroad industry during a period when this was an important mode of transporation. Constructed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad designed by M. A. Long, an architect employed by the railroad, this build- ing was specifically constructed to facilitate the handling and storage of freight.
It is distinguished from other freight stor- age buildings because of its exceptional length; originally 1,277 feet in length. Its functional design is highlighted the use of Romanesque Revival details to articulate its facades. These details include rock-faced ashlar first floor supporting engaged columns rising to the forth floor from which decorative semi-circular arches adorn the facades. Machicolations accentu- ate the roof trim. building was constructed in 1904 during a period when the B & O was placing emphasis on freight activities and the im- portance of Cincinnati as a major shipping center and transfer was constructed to consolidate the space of several smaller warehouses that had become obsolete and to provide space anticipated growth.
Freight arriving in Cincinnati was un- loaded from freight cars through the north side of the building and stored for later transshipment or held for a short time and loaded onto wagons (later trucks) on the south side of the building. For freight being brought to the warehouse, the normal procedure was to store it until enough was consolidated for ship- ment to a specific destination.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 86003521, 28 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.
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