By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It's all uphill for Jack White, and that's the way he likes it.

Mr. White, 68, of Oxford, is author of 11 books and 130 articles. He's a Miami University historian - a transportation historian, no less - and author of Cincinnati, City of Seven Hills and Five Inclines - (CRRC, $34.95), a lush coffee-table book about Cincinnati's inclines, the system of hillside "elevators" that carried horse carts and street cars out of the city's crowded, polluted basin to the fresh air of surrounding hilltops.

Author Jack White has written a book about the old Price Hill Incline. ([name of photographer] photo) | ZOOM |

Right now, he's a little misty-eyed, standing in a blustery wind high atop Price Hill in a tiny park next door to Queen's Tower, pointing out the path of the Price Hill incline.

"If I could ride them all, I would die a happy man. You know, this is the only one with any kind of significant memorial," he says, pointing to plaques lining a stone wall that may or may not have been part of the incline's powerhouse.

Cincinnati at one time had five inclines - Price Hill, Fairview, Elm Street, Main Street and Mount Adams - all but one terminating in elaborate beer halls, usually with entertainment.

Million passengers a year

A passenger or entire streetcar would board the platform at the bottom. A series of pulleys would then sloooowly drag the platform up the hill on rails. Each incline carried about a million passengers a year for 2 to 4 cents a ride.

Once at the top, the streetcar would continue on its route after dropping off passengers headed into the halls for a beer.

"Or buttermilk," Mr. White says.

Huh?

"That was Price Hill House. The original Mr. Price was opposed to drinking. They used to call it Buttermilk Mountain because it was the strongest thing you could get there. He wouldn't even allow apples because they were the forbidden fruit. Later, when the family sold out, beer was introduced."

The Price Hill incline, opened in 1875, was the steepest grade at 44.6 degrees, but it wasn't the most famous. That honor goes to Mount Adams, opened in 1876 and beginning in the middle of what is now I-471 and ending at the plush Highland House, today site of Highland Towers.

"Highland House was the most famous and I suppose the nicest. You could dine, drink, sit on the terrace and admire the view, watch the river, hear live music, they even had light operas.

"Highland House closed at the turn of the century, but the incline ran until 1948. It's the only one I ever got to ride."

But they're alive and well in his 128-page book spiked with 150 pictures and illustrations. Getting it done has been a labor of love for him since he moved back here six years ago after 30 years in Washington as a curator at the Smithsonian.

A true labor of love, as opposed to profit. All proceeds go to the Cincinnati Railroad Club. "I'm a member. It's a little group full of odd people, people crazy about the subject. I build models.

"I've had a lifelong interest in transportation issues, but I also collect old machinery and old tools. At Miami, I teach the history of technology."

Still standing in 1950

But right now, he's more interested in dodging the wind whipping around him in Clifton's Bellevue Park at the end of Ohio Avenue.

"Over there, that was the Elm Street incline. ... And here, this was the site of Bellevue House, built way out over the hillside. It burned in 1901."

The incline itself lasted until 1926, when it began its lingering death throes: "Locals were still riding it, but no one else, so it was losing money. The company closed it for `repairs' and it never reopened. Slowly, they began dismantling it, but there were still parts of it standing in 1950. It took that long."

Other inclines died earlier: "The Main Street line started the trend. It was the first opened, that was 1872, and the first to close in 1898. It went from Elm to a spot right behind what's now Christ Hospital.

"People don't know this, but Cincinnati is the only city that had open platforms to carry streetcars. The Price Hill incline had fixed seating, but on the rest they just pulled the streetcar on and took off."

Back to Clifton, this time at the end of the Fairview incline. "It began right in the middle of what's now the Western Hills Viaduct and ended here, at the end of Fairview Avenue. There are no remnants that I can find.''

"I would love to see the inclines come back as a tourist attraction - all of them ended on a hill and all offered spectacular views. The problem, of course, would be money."

Heaven knows, there's no shortage of hills. "Don't even go there," he says when asked exactly, which are Cincinnati's seven hills. "I know I use `seven hills' in the title, but it's a misnomer. I wrote an article on the hills awhile back and identified 30 separate hills. Not seven.

He's glad to be back

"I find things by haunting the stacks at Miami University and Cincinnati's library. I talk to private collectors and I visit the Cincinnati Historical Society a lot. I'm not sure, but I think I may be the longest-standing member - ever since high school, including when I was in D.C."

Right. So why come back to Cincinnati after 30 years? "I was born in this city and could never get it out of my blood. The whole time I was in D.C., I always thought of Cincinnati as home. I'm glad to be back."

Even without the inclines?

"Well, that would be nice."

Cincinnati, City of Seven Hills and Five Inclines is $34.95 at area hobby shops and bookstores, or from the Cincinnati Railroad Club; e-mail traincarr@yahoo.com.

E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com.