Cincinnati Originally Called Losantville

by Randall Branham

Title

Cincinnati Originally Called Losantville

Artist

Randall Branham

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Photograph - Photography / Art

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One of the things that confuses people from outside the area is Cincinnati’s foremost nickname: The Queen City. Why is it called that?

Before I answer that, let’s look at the city’s original name, Losantiville. Losantiville was a settlement opposite the mouth of the Licking River on the Ohio. Today, this lies between the “Big Mac” Bridge, carrying I-471 to it’s terminus in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and the Taylor-Southgate Bridge, which spans the Ohio from US Bank Arena in downtown Cincinnati and the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky. Most of this original settlement is now Sawyer Point, a riverside park.Losantiville was founded by John Cleves Symmes in 1788 and named by a surveryor who should never have had a job in marketing. The ungainly name came from four different languages and meant “city opposite the mouth of the Licking.” One imagines Symmes’ rolling his eyes and wishing he could just adopt the name of the local fort (on the site of the new Great American Building at Queen City Square), Ft. Washington. Ironically, the fort’s name survives to this day as the name of the stretch of I-71 from the Lytle Tunnel through downtown to the I-75 merge leading into Kentucky.

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April 10th, 2013

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