Cindaynati?

Are Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, on the road to becoming a single metropolitan area, or "metroplex", not unlike Minneapolis/St. Paul or Dallas/Ft. Worth? The Cincinnati Enquirer has raised that question, with additional commentary from The Urbanophile.

The expectation is that after the 2010 Census, the Cincinnati-Middletown and Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Areas would become a single entity. The rapid growth of the I-75 corridor between the two cities makes such a merger seem inevitable. Perhaps eventually leading to some sort of political merger as a mega-city of three million people!

Currently, the biggest thing connecting the two communities are the two very sorry Cincinnati sports franchises, the Bengals and the Reds. The cities have their own airports, television and radio markets. Their cultural and arts communities rarely interact, with separate professional theaters, symphonies and ballet companies. Hearty workers do commute in both directions. However, as a Daytonian I can say that I do not think of my self as a "Southwest Ohio Cincinnati-Daytonian"... Sometimes Cincinnati does not even feel like Ohio. I often think of Dayton as the last outpost of "the north", while Cincinnati feels to me like a southern city on the wrong side of the river... or as Ms. Cartophiliac often suggests, Cincinnati is its own feudal city-state.



It is going to take more than a Census Statistical merger to pull these two communities together. Dayton and Montgomery County can barely agree to cooperate on combined services. I think it will be some time before we see Cindaynati on the map.

Senators Draw Home States

We all know that Sen. Al Franken can draw all 50 states from memory, but can your U.S. Senator draw your state? To help kick off Geography Awareness Week, National Geographic invited all 100 U.S. Senators to draw a map of their home state from memory and to label at least three important places. It seems only eleven twelve of them were brave enough to give it a try, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine:





Michael Enzi of Wyoming also participated, but I think those square states are just too easy...

HT to Marilyn Terrell

Amusement Park Maps

The high point of the summer vacation, for many a kid, was an all-day trip to the nearest amusement park. Roller coasters, getting wet on the log ride, sometimes a cartoon character not named Mickey, and junk food on the midway trying to win stuffed bear. As a very young child growing up near Detroit, the park of choice was Boblo Island. Operating 1898 to 1993, boarding the SS Columbia or SS Ste. Clair riverboat ferries for the 18-mile trip downriver to the island park was always an adventure.

Later, my parents got more adventurous and were willing to make the 4-hour drive to Ceder Point, on Lake Erie, in Sandusky, Ohio. Being a young cartophile, the first thing I always did upon entering the park was purchase a map. Then carefully plan a course through the park that would most efficiently get me on all my favorite rides.

The amusement park aficionados at Theme Park Brochurs have pulled together maps and brochures from amusement parks all over the country. Their earliest map is from 1931! Unfortunately, they do not have a Cedar Point map from the late 1960s or early 1970s which would have been the first time I was there. Here is a map from 1980 (as a teen and young adult, being able to drive to Cedar Point with my buddies (or even better, a girl!) was a special kind of independence.)


Click map to enlarge

I first visited Kings Island, near Cincinnati, sometime around 1972 (the date for this map):


Click map to enlarge

It wasn't until I moved down here with my children that we visited regularly. I think I enjoyed it as much (if not more) then them. For a couple years we purchased season passes, and sometimes I would even sneak down on my own, without the kids, to ride some of the roller coasters that they were to small ride themselves. Every year, amusement parks try to top each other with the most thrilling hi-tech ride, but my favorites are still the old wooden roller coasters like the Blue Streak at Cedar Point or The Beast at Kings Island.

Of the two maps above, I still prefer the "cartoon" style of the 1972 Kings Island map. That is the style I remember and loved from my first visits to Cedar Point. The map from 1980 may have been clearer, and more accurate, but it certainly lacks charm. The single map from Boblo Island (1987) is so ugly, I cannot bring myself to reprint it here.

Also, here is an opportunity to pimp my friend Pat's blog, wherein he documents his amazing feat last summer, 12 Parks. 69 new coasters. 14 days in his Blog of Unintended Consequences.

Via Boing Boing

Little Miami Scenic Trail - The Last Bit

So, I neglected to mention here that last weekend Mrs. Cartophiliac and I completed the last leg of the Little Miami Scenic Bicycle Trail, Morrow to the Trail Head near Newtown:



This was also our longest ride; around twenty-five miles. We used two automobiles, so we could leave one at the trail head. All together, I suspect we spent more time in the car than on the trail...

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Highlights (and low-lights) of the trail:

• Drove past Kings Island Amusement Park (no roller coasters this time).
• Stopped for lunch at an Art Festival in Loveland
• Delicious Curry Humus Wrap from the Veg Head
• Run in with Speedy McBikepants, very rude bicyclist who was pissed off because I didn't give him the right of way, when he had a stop sign. Why is it, the more expensive your bike and gear, the more obnoxious they are?

We will probably stick a little closer to home for a while...

Cartocacoethes

Steve, the best maintenance man ever employed by my library, is currently repainting my department. The walls in this room have not been painted since the department was created, nearly twenty years ago. That dark red, dark blue and grey have always seemed a bit gloomy and we are being cheered by the fresh shades of blue and green on our walls. First, he works around the trim before attacking the larger areas with the roller... but wait! Is that a map of Ohio I see?



Cartocacoethes is a word coined to describe "a mania, uncontrollable urge, compulsion or itch to see maps everywhere." Yeah, that sounds like me.

I don't know if it is a real word. I cannot find it in the Oxford English Dictionary. The only reference I can find to it is on other map blogs, and has been discussed, at length, on Making Maps and Strange Maps. If someone has a citation to an actual medical dictionary reference to this word, please send it my way.

Little Miami Scenic Trail - Part 4

Today we completed the fourth leg of our goal to bike the entire Little Miami Scenic Trail before the end of Summer. Mrs. Cartophiliac AND Miss Cartophiliac.



Part One
Part Two
Part Three

14.7 miles from Corwin to Morrow (to Morrow, to Morrow, I love ya to Morrow...) was the most pleasant ride so far. Nearly all of it was directly adjacent to the river, which was teaming with a floatilla of canoes. In addition we passed through the Ft. Ancient State Memorial Park featuring 18,000 feet of earthen walls built 2,000 years ago by American Indians. A sweet conclusion at Miranda's Old Time Ice Cream Shop in Morrow.

Perhaps we can get out in another week or two and finish the route.

Ohio is a Piano

OK, I think I think we have a winner for coolest map-thing-of-the-year. Andy Woodruff at Cartogrammar has created a musical map:

Last month, as I was driving through Ohio to collect my final three counties in the state, it dawned on me: There are 88 counties in this state. There are 88 keys on a piano. I don’t know anything about music, but holy crap, I have to make a map based on this coincidence.

And so I did, bit by bit, gradually descending into madness in the process. It has no purpose, really, apart from being an experiment in some sort of weird artistic musical cartography. Ohio is a piano. Check it out. (It’s in Flash.)

Each county on the map is keyed to a piano note. Play the OhioPiano by plucking a county, or pull together a string of notes by charting a route between two cities. Change the note of each county by ranking them, highest to lowest, by a demographic (such as population, ethnic groups, number of farms, etc.). Arrange them just right to play a tune, or use one of the pre-programmed songs.

Woodruff says he's "gone off the deep end, musically and cartographically", but I say "Go Andy" you are now my carto-hero of 2009!

#440

Postcards Take a Vacation

Last week I lamented the lack of map postcards, and postcards in general while on vacation in North Carolina. On our last day on the beach, we decided to try parasailing. After a long drive around the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, we arrived at Atlantic Beach in time to find out that all parasail flights had been canceled due to thunderstorms. So we toured historic Fort Macon instead.

And there, in the park gift shop, I found two map postcards!



Both of these cards depict the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast, a portion of NC that I have never actually visited, but that has never stopped this map postcards collector before.

The second postcard records the many shipwrecks of the area. An interesting thing I learned at Fort Macon was that just a couple years after the state of North Carolina had restored the Fort as part of a State Park, the U.S. Army re-armed the fort as part of the coastal defences in 1942. Several of those ships on the card were sunk by German U-Boats.

After returning home from this vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to find this fine postcard to add to my collection. I've never been to Scotland either.

Thanks Allison!

Naturally, when you return home from a week's vacation, you need to go grocery shopping. Another surprise! The grocery store has an Ohio postcard that I haven't seen before. w00t!

So, I guess I can call this a successful postcard vacation after all.

Little Miami Scenic Trail - Part 3

This afternoon Mrs. Cartophiliac and I completed the third leg of our goal to bike the entire Little Miami Scenic Trail before the end of Summer.

Part One
Part Two

Xenia to Corwin (Waynesville), 14.3 miles one-way this time.

Followed by lunch at the Corwin Peddler (Beef and Ale Pie).

Less than forty miles to go. We'll probably do it in two trips in August.

Origins 2009

I spent three days in Columbus, Ohio, last week at the Origins Game Fair, the second largest gaming convention in North America. (See comments about last year's event.)

This year, I came across a bonus map. It's a game... AND a map postcard!



Against the Odds is a magazine about war games. This postcard is an actual min-wargame. Cut out the pieces, and the rules are on the back. This game re-enacts the famous Morgan's Raid of the American Civil War.



In 1863, Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan led one of the few raids into Union states, by riding over 1000 miles through Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, before being captured trying to escape across the Ohio River. This game offers the player to try alternate routes through Ohio.

Another postcard game is Showtime Hanoi, a little game about bombing raids during the Vietnam War.

In addition to board games and war games, role playing gamers and LARPers. In the Exhibitor's Hall, role players can buy costumes, including this tooled leather map corset... Wear this and you'll encourage cartophiles to explore...



#415

Little Miami Scenic Trail - Part 2

Earlier this month, Mrs. Cartophiliac and I set out to bicycle the Little Miami Scenic Trail before the end of the summer. Today we completed the second leg today: Yellow Springs to Xenia (actually Xenia to Yellow Springs and back again); 20 miles.

More pleasantly flat former railroad right-of-way.

Bicycling the Little Miami Scenic Trail

Mrs. Cartophiliac and I are pleased to announce the newest addition to our family... bicycles!

Neither of us have done a lot of bicycling since our teenage and young adult years. We are not serious bicyclists, and these bikes are not for serious biking. We just like to toodle around town. Last week, during Memorial Day Weekend, we visited family on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, near St. Louis. So, we took the bikes with us and tried them out on the Mississippi flats (the flood plain). Seventeen miles altogether (there and back). No small feat for an old, out of shape cartophile.

And of course, we had to map our route!



This novice bicyclist also discovered something... the "flats" are not completely "flat". It was noticeably more difficult to ride "upstream" than down. Well, duh. Even on a large river, there's a reason the water flows downstream, there is a slight change in elevation.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Cartophiliac and I were inspired to continue our adventure by attempting to cover the entire Little Miami Scenic Trail here in Ohio. Designated Ohio Bike Route #1. Primarily created along the right-of-way of the old Little Miami Railroad:

The Little Miami Scenic Trail is over 78 miles long. The trail starts at Springfield in Clark County. From there the trail runs South through Yellow Springs and Xenia in Greene County. Then the trail travels through Corwin, Oregonia, Morrow, Foster in Warren County, Loveland, Milford in Clermont County and Terrace Park in Hamilton County...

The trail ends just short of the Ohio River, but there are plans to extend it.



So, our summer project is to complete the trail. On Sunday we road from Yellow Springs, up to Springfield (the northern terminus of the trail) and back. Twenty miles or thereabouts. Then made up for all the calories burnt with a pitcher of Abita's Purple Haze at Peaches Grill. A good day.



This time, we made sure the first leg of the ride was "uphill" before returning "downstream".

I'll keep you informed of our progress... with maps.

Lost Highways

In Michigan I grew up less than a mile from Dixie Highway, a four lane thoroughfare running through the Township. As a kid, I thought it funny that our highway was named for a Civil War song... It wasn't until many years later that I understood that this was just one part of a series of roads and highways connecting the Midwest with the South; from Sault St. Marie all the way to Miami.


The Dixie Highway was part of the National Auto Trail; an attempt in the early days of automobiles to connect state roads and highways into an cross-county system. It was first proposed in 1914, and was planned, built and expanded from 1915 to 1927 by the Dixie Highway Association, a group of individuals, businesses, local, and state governments. The route was marked with signs, sometimes painted on trees and telephone poles. The symbol for the highway was a red stripe.



The highway was inspired by the success of another inter-state highway, the Lincoln Highway, connecting Times Square in New York City with Lincoln Park in San Francisco.



Dozens of these named highways were developed all over the country. Eventually, they were superseded by the U.S. Highway and later the Interstate Highway systems. Some of the roads that were the Dixie Highway, became US-25 and I-75.

Very little remains of these "Lost Highways". Many states still have roads named Dixie Highway. Here in Ohio there remain two stretches that run north and south of Dayton. For those interested in tracing the paths of these old National Auto Trails can purchase a copy of this poster published by Mark R. Everhart:



"Lost Highways" depicts 48 major Named Auto Trails along with their corresponding pole marker signs on a full-color 22.5” X 28” poster on smooth 80# stock. Below is some of detail of the poster showing Michigan and Ohio, criss-crossed by named highways, including Dixie, Lincoln and the National Road:



The Lincoln Highway, previously on Cartophilia

High-Speed Rail in America

President Obama, as part of the stimulus package, has proposed investment in a high-speed rail network that would "transform the nation’s transportation system by rebuilding existing rail infrastructure while developing a comprehensive high-speed intercity passenger rail network through a long-term commitment at both the federal and state levels."



Here in Ohio, we are excited about the possibility of the so-called "3-C Corridor". A high speed system that would connect Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati (via Dayton).



I'm excited by the possibility of hopping on a train for a high-speed trip to one of the 3-C cities, perhaps for a sporting event or concert. Connect us to the 4th "C", Chicago, and the idea of a weekend visit sounds a lot easier and more comfortable (instead of after a 7-hour drive).

Ohio Land Grants

Yesterday, I wrote about the book, How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein, and commented on the Ohio Western Reserve of Connecticut. The territory that became the State of Ohio was pieced together from lands surveyed and sold by the federal government, private individuals, and by the states of Virginia and Connecticut.

Since parts of the state were surveyed at different times, Ohio was divided into areas called survey "districts" or "land grants."


Map from the OHGenWeb Project

In addition to the Western Reserve, the "Fire Lands" were a gift from the state of Connecticut to citizens who had property destroyed by the British during the American Revolution, the "Virginia Military District" was intended to be given to Virginia's veterans, and the "Refugee Tract" was given to Canadian refugees who had helped the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. See Ohio History Central for more detail.

These details are imporant not only for historians, but also genealogists. When tracking the birth, death or property of an ancestor during the period before Ohio's statehood, it is imporant to be able to identify the territories that eventually became the different counties. Concidentally, Shawna, the Genealogy Librarian at my library shared with me some maps she drew in grade school:





I have already sent these fine maps to the Hand Drawn Map Association for inclusion in that collection.

How the States Got Their Shapes

How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. I read this book several months ago, and have been meaning to mention it here....

Each of the 51 chapters (it also includes the District of Columbia) discusses some history of each state, focusing primarily on the decisions that were made by kings, settlers and Congress when drawing borders around states.

This book answers some burning questions:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania


• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan


• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii


• Why Texas and California are so out sized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size


• Was Delaware really necessary?

Stein tells the stories of these states with humor. My favorite is the sad story of Maryland, and how they LOST every single border dispute over history (just look at it... a very unnaturally shaped state.):



As a resident of Ohio, I was particularly interested in the story of Connecticut and their claim to lands in the West. Like many of the original thirteen colonies, they claimed land stretching all the way to the Pacific. In most cases, it wasn't that they truly expected to govern that land, but they wanted the right to sell the acreage to settlers. Eventually they were obliged to relinquish they claim to half of Pennsylvania, and much of the territory in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois as Congress organized that area as part of the Northwest Ordinance:



However, Connecticut reserved the right to sell the land in what is now northeast Ohio. It was their "Western Reserve." I had often wondered where the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland got their name.



My only criticism is the author's arrangement of the chapters. He chose to put the states in alphabetical order, which is fine if you are not reading the whole thing straight through, but want to find and refer to specific states. I would have preferred that he arranged them by regions. So many of the states have common histories of their borders (such as the 49th parallel and the Mason-Dixon Line). If arranged thematically, many of the chapters would not have needed to be so repetitive. Still, this book is a must for map and geography buffs.

#280

Buckeye Firsts

Just as Ohio likes to style itself the "Mother of Presidents" (because, like Virginia, they lay claim to eight presidents that called Ohio home), Ohio historians also like to highlight the number of famous inventors from Ohio. The list of famous inventors from Ohio includes Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, and Charles Kettering.

I only mention this as an excuse to highlight this poster on display in my library:



The photo does not effectively show the 3-D effect of the state of Ohio thrusting out of the heart of America, but it creates an attractive display.

More Ohio Postcards

I finally got around to scanning the rest of my Ohio map postcards. There's not a whole lot to say about them. If you enjoy map postcards, then enjoy perusing these.

If you are interested in trading postcards, see Map Postcards to Trade and my Postcard Gallery.


















#228

Dick's Map

Mrs. Cartophiliac and I visited Dick's Sporting Goods the other day. While there, I could not help but notice, and appreciate, this use of a map in the design of their store:



Out came the camera phone!

In case you are wondering, that is a pillar in the middle of the store. The star represents the location of the store.