CINCINNATI – SURPRISINGLY FAR FROM “SLEEPY”

You probably have no idea how many firsts Cincinnati has birthed. Cincinnati can conjure up images of sleepy little towns, Midwestern backwoods mentalities…

Nothing could be further from the truth!

For one thing, there are so many artists/actors that come from this area, it merits its own Hollywood movie.

  • Doris Day
  • Julie Hagerty
  • Sarah Jessica Parker
  • Steven Spielberg
  • Roy Rogers
  • Jerry Springer
  • Rosemary Clooney
  • George Clooney

That’s a short list!

And social firsts? We gotcha covered there too:

  • First professional baseball team. (1869)
  • First team to play games under lights. (5/24/35)
  • First time President throws out opening day baseball. (William Howard Taft, April 14, 1910)
  • First woman to own a Major League Baseball team. (Margaret “Marge” Schott, 1984)
  • First city to establish a weather bureau, also first to issue a weather bulletin. (1869)
  • The first & only city to own a Railroad. (Cincinnati Southern in 1880)
  • The first municipal university. (1870)
  • The nations first Jewish hospital (1850). Also first Jewish Theological College in the U.S. The Hebrew Union College. (1875)
  • First licensed educational TV station. (WCET-TV in 1954)
  • The first concrete skyscraper. (Ingalls Building, 4th & Vine in 1902)
  • First shot fired in WW1. (Robert Braley)
  • The nations first interstate electric bus line left Dixie Terminal on 7/11/1937 to Northern Kentucky.
  • The first city to publish greeting cards-Gibson Greeting Card Co. (1850).
  • First heart-lung machine (1952). Developed at Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
  • First large manufacturing operation to be started and run by a woman. Maria Longworth Nichols Storer and the famous Rookwood Pottery started in 1880.
  • First woman buried in Arlington National Cemetery. (Helen “Nellie” Taft, 1943)
  • First grocery store to make its own bread. (Kroger, 1902)

That’s not a complete list either!

And as for the arts here in this quiet area:

  • Playhouse in the Park – professional theatre
  • Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati – professional theatre
  • The Aronoff Theatre – professional theatre
  • And jazz musicians, classical musicians, blues musicians, dancers…on and on and on!
    Cincinnati_at_night

Why is this area such a hotbed of new ideas? Why does it birth so many artists?

We can’t prove it, but we think it has something to do with its rhythm, its groundedness, its overall kindness to the human condition. You would be hard-pressed to find a Cincinnatian who would be shocked by the idea of someone returning to Cincinnati. Cincinnati is one of the “wombs” of the Midwest, providing a kind of lifestyle that – because of its affordability, its rhythm, its variety of events and activities – allows for a balanced life.

Yeah. We like it here.

We think you will too.

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