Tour of Madisonville
Up until the time of the Civil War, Madisonville was a rural and mostly-white community. Immediately after the Civil War, however, Madisonville became home to an influx of African Americans, at first coming mostly from Kentucky. Since that time, Madisonville has had a strong tradition of racial integration.
Amy Avenue
The only trace of Douglass Park
To get to Amy Avenue, you drive to the eastern edge of Madisonville, to 6835 East Fork Avenue. Then look north. A street sign saying “Amy Avenue” is still in place. There’s a chain across the old road, and a “no trespassing” sign.
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Benna’s Barbershop
A former Black-owned business in the heart of Madisonville
At the northwest corner of Madison Road and Whetsel Avenue is a two-story brick-and-limestone commercial building. It was built in the 1920’s as a bank, and it is now a microbrewery. But for many years, it was Benna’s Barbershop – one of the most visible Black-owned businesses in Madisonville.
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The Dunbar Community
A lost African American community
The Dunbar neighborhood – also known as Corsica Hollow – was an African American community on the west edge of Madisonville. In the 1990’s, the City of Cincinnati used the right of eminent domain to seize all of the land, tear down the houses, and re-zone the area for industrial use.
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Duck Creek Camp Meeting
Early, annual Methodist gathering with both white and Black participants
Sometime in the early 1840’s, Cincinnati’s Methodists began conducting large, annual camp meetings just south of Madisonville, on Duck Creek. These meetings were attended by as many as 3,000 people and would last for a week or more. Many of the attendees were Black.
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Dunbar Incinerator Site
Site of environmental injustice in Madisonville
On the west side of Madisonville, there was at one time an African American enclave called Corsica Hollow, or Dunbar. In 1931, this area got a new employer, and a major headache, when the City of Cincinnati built a large garbage incinerator.
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Home of Braxton and Reber Cann
An African American power couple from the 1930’s to the 1970’s
In 1933, Braxton F. Cann became the first African-American physician on the general staff of Cincinnati General Hospital, now the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. He and his spouse Reber Simpkins Cann were both active in the struggle for Civil Rights.
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Home of Phoebe Boots Allen
Pioneering Evangelist, Suffragist, and Social Worker
Born into slavery in Kentucky in 1856, Phoebe Boots Allen became an evangelist, women’s suffragist, and social worker. Her obituary, in the Cincinnati Enquirer for November 24, 1926, calls her "one of the most widely known negro social workers in the Middle West."
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Homesite of Henry B. Whetsel
Underground Railroad agent and Civil War officer
Many people have driven down Whetsel Avenue in Madisonville without realizing that the street was named for Henry B. Whetsel, an agent on the Underground Railroad.
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Jerry C. Maxey, founder of Maxey Funeral Home
Black leadership in labor organizing and in business
Jerry C. Maxey was a born leader. Around 1940, when he was in his mid-20’s, he became a union organizer for aviation workers at the new Wright Aeronautical plant in Lockland (later GE Aviation). The workers came to be represented by Local 647 of the United Auto Workers – the UAW.
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The Hut Café
Onetime Madisonville business run by Mildred H. Orr
At 5110 Whetsel Avenue, there is a handsome building of red, orange, and yellow brick, built around 1930 as a police substation. For 43 years, beginning in 1953, the main downstairs space was the Hut Café – a cornerstone Black-owned business of Madisonville.
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Madisonville High School
Workplace of school principal Jennie Moore Bryan
In 1905, the Ohio State Commissioner of Education reported on the high school at Madisonville: Principal Jennie M. Bryan had four teachers, 140 students, a good library, and excellent teaching apparatus. This is remarkable because Jennie Bryan was Black, while her teachers and most of her students were white.
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Trinity Missionary Baptist Church
Earliest-known public building by architect Edward E. Birch
In Madisonville, at the northeast corner of Chandler Street and Glenshade Court, there is a brick church building. This is Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, which has a Black congregation. The building, completed in 1941, was designed by an important Black architect, Edward E. Birch.
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United American Cemetery
Historic African American burial ground
The United American Cemetery, in Madisonville, was originally called the Colored American Cemetery. It was dedicated in 1883, but it includes many older tombstones, going back to the 1840’s and 1850’s. That’s because the cemetery was originally in another location, but it was forced to move.
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