Probably the first was Stephen S. L'Hommedieu, the first president of the Cincinnati, Hamilton, & Dayton railroad, who predicted a "continuous village" would grow up along the railroad between the terminal cities.

 

This was before the Civil War.

 

More recently, in 1970, this article appeared in the Dayton Journal-Herald, about how OH 741 would grow.

 

 

..and enlargment of the map and key:

 

 

Some of this stuff is questionable.  They list an ODOT office.  So what?  But I did think that reference to the "Taft-Coney Island Amusement Park" is interesting.  I didn't know the Taft family was behind Kings Island. 

 

And number 11 was a good idea that was never executed...a highway connecting I-70 and I-75.

 

 

 

 

Taft, as in Taft Broadcasting.

 

Interesting piece of history on that piece of paper.  Thanks!

^

not the same family?

 

I should say that by 1970 I don't think this area was really that rural anymore, as just driving the country roads one can see 1950s-1960s ribbon development, and I know Springboro already was a subdivision or two  added to the original village part.

 

...and Im trying to figure out that 500 acre plot purchased by NCR south of Springboro.  I knew they had property near the Dayton mall right off 741, but wasn't aware of the southern parcel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taft Broadcasting was the original owner of Kings Island. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft_Broadcasting - you can see from this article that they were a significant media company in their time. Yes, the same Taft as President William H. Taft. Taft is sort of one of the "First Families" of this part of Ohio.

 

Certain Dayton area manufacturers were in the suburban land business in this area, kind of how Walmart now has a major commercial real estate holding division. GM used to own a recreation center on Byers Road, south of 725, nearby - I went with my parents there several years when I was a kid, to company picnics and fish fries.

 

It wasn't that long ago that 741 was a purely rural highway - a drive to the Southland 75 Drive-In to watch the latest chain saw murder film in the late 60s was basically a short trip out to the middle of nowhere. Now that's Cub Food's turf.

 

And number 11 was a good idea that was never executed...a highway connecting I-70 and I-75.

 

The article says "extension of 741 to I-71." That indeed exists and did happen in the 70s. That is the segment of 741 that extends south from the light at Rt 42, goes south about a mile, and turns left to become Kings Mills Road. 741 used to dead end at Rt 42, with a stop sign if I recall. It really improves access to Kings Island from the north because the only other access from that direction was through the city of Mason.

Taft Broadcasting comes from the Charles Phelps Taft side of the family rather than the Robert A. Taft side. They tended to be more progressive though still Republican. The Cincinnati Times-Star was their newspaper until the mid-60s when it was taken over by the Post.

 

One could even argue that had steel production at Middletown not dwindled and had Hamilton continued to grow, that could have united Cincy and Dayton even quicker.

And number 11 was a good idea that was never executed...a highway connecting I-70 and I-75.

 

The article says "extension of 741 to I-71." That indeed exists and did happen in the 70s. That is the segment of 741 that extends south from the light at Rt 42, goes south about a mile, and turns left to become Kings Mills Road. 741 used to dead end at Rt 42, with a stop sign if I recall. It really improves access to Kings Island from the north because the only other access from that direction was through the city of Mason.

 

There was a plan when they built 129 to Hamilton to have that connect all the way through to I-71.  Mason was on board with the idea until they were against it.  That eventually blocked the connection that would have been very nice.

Cincinnati, Hamilton, Middletown, and Dayton were historically well connected by the Miami and Erie canal, which was probably the most successful inland canal in North America after the Erie Canal in New York. The canal and the chain of towns that grew up alongside of it set the tone for subsequent transportation routes, including I-75 which more or less follows the canal route from Cincinnati to Toledo - in fact, in some places the highway overlays the former canal itself.

Go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_and_Erie_Canal for more pics and other things about the canal.

Number 11 did happen, that's 741 from US42/Bethany Road Area NE of Mason to Kings Mill Road at Kroger then to I-71

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=mason+OH&ll=39.363435,-84.275179&spn=0.024022,0.040255&z=15

 

(It looks like it was pointing to the dotted double line, but it wasn't)

 

edit: Didn't see the post with this info already :-(

Cincinnati, Hamilton, Middletown, and Dayton were historically well connected by the Miami and Erie canal, which was probably the most successful inland canal in North America after the Erie Canal in New York.

 

 

that depends on how you look at success. the earlier ohio-erie canal was suscessful as well for a time before the miami-erie was constructed. in fact unlike cincinnati, cleveland probably wouldn't exist as it does (or did in its industrial heyday) without it having existed.

 

 

The Miami Canal had a really interesting city-formation effect.

 

The canal was built sort of in stages, then stopped for awhile.  The first stage was to Dayton (1829-30). The second stage took it to Piqua, where it again stopped for a bit.

 

During these hiatus periods (in Dayton it was around +/- 10 years) the terminal city became like the neck of funnel for trade, a break-in-bulk point, leading to a development and economic boom.  That is one reason Dayton had a regional advantage for a bit, and why Piqua ended up larger than Troy.  This boom also lead to early industrialization, at least in Dayton (though i know Piqua has an industrial history too).

 

This population and development boost gave Dayton a sort of first-mover advantage, which is why Xenia and Springfield remained smaller, even though they had better early railroad connections.

 

 

Anywhoo..I thought that was an interesting article.  One can see a similar case maybe for Cin-Day road as a parallel "local access" to interstate-influenced development. 

 

 

And number 11 was a good idea that was never executed...a highway connecting I-70 and I-75.

 

Believe it or not, I believe that somewhere in ODOT they are still trying to do something like that. However, the new plan would be to simply widen Bethany Road and Mason-Morrow-Milgrove road to a massive 8 lanes or so and install an I-71 and Mason-Morrow-Milgrove road interchange. So, the interchange would also connect South Lebanon into all of this as well. I'm sure the plan has been scrapped if there ever was one, since this was only a rumor, but it may be a doable project in the near future.

 

I think that Mr. Sparkle was half-right that 741 was connected to I-71, but I-71 and I-75 were never connected.