There are questions where the answer is lost in the mists of time. There are questions where no one bothered to write down the answer because it didn't seem like a big deal at the time. And that's where our feature OKI Wanna Know comes in. This week, WVXU's Bill Rinehart tracks down another railroad connection to our past.
Catherine Tebben of Oakley lives on Wasson Road, near Wasson Way, a trail she loves.
鈥淚鈥檓 interested in how Wasson Road and Wasson Way got their names. There are many streets in Cincinnati that appear to be named for somebody but I have never heard anything about Wasson.鈥�
The road stretches from Marburg in the east to Edwards in the west. The trail goes a bit further than that. Sean McGrory is a board member of the Wasson Way Organization.
鈥淭he Wasson Way Organization is a group that got started to convert an old rail line on the east side of Cincinnati into a bike and pedestrian trail,鈥� McGrory says. 鈥淎nd it now stretches from Xavier University to Ault Park.鈥�
He says the trail takes its name from Wasson Road.
鈥淲e named it Wasson Way, instead of Wasson Trail. We used 'way' as in the Apian Way, for those of you who remember your Roman history,鈥� McGrory says. 鈥淏esides, we like the alliteration of 'Wasson' and 'Wasson Way.' 鈥�
The trail was named for the road, which parallels the trail, which used to be a rail line. Did the name Wasson come from the railroad that was there in the 1800s?
鈥淚t was Norfolk and Western at the time. I think it may be even before Norfolk and Western it was a Cincinnati Eastern Railroad or something like that. It was one of the short-line railroads.鈥�
So, no obvious connection there. McGrory says digging a little deeper into the history books turned up an answer, if only a partial answer.
鈥淎s best we can tell, Wasson was just the name of the landowner,鈥� he says. 鈥淟ike so many things, it just derived its name from the landowner.鈥�
An 1869 Titus Atlas from confirms there was an landowner named Wasson. His plot was near what is now the intersection of Paxton and Wasson.
An 1895 book about the Queen City mentions a Barton Warren Wasson. He was vice president of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, and upon his death in 1915, the chamber formed a committee to 鈥渄raw up a suitable resolution in memory of Mr. Wasson.鈥�
Did the city name Wasson Road after B.W. Wasson? No, says Joe Groh. He鈥檚 the vice president of the Oakley Community Council and found the answer by asking amateur historians on the Oakley Facebook page.
"It actually was named after a person called Jacob Wasson," Groh says. "He owned a big parcel there, and at the time the only way to get to that property was from a street coming from Madison, and when he bought it, it switched over to be Wasson Road."
Wasson's road ran east to the modern day Hyde Park Plaza, and for a while, it went northeast, on what is now Paxton Avenue.
But a realignment expanded Wasson, and Paxton continued going generally north.
"Seems like in 1921, Wasson then was continued between that intersection going over to Marburg," Groh says. "One thing that people don't know is that the middle of Wasson Road designates the neighborhood border between Oakley and Hyde Park."
Jacob Wasson was a farmer who bought the land in 1864 from Henry Morton Junior. Groh points out there is a Morton Street in nearby Norwood.
"Apparently when Morton sold off his property, Mr. Kilgour bought a bunch," he says. "So, of course now there's Kilgour School, and Kilgour Street. You see the names and it's always interesting, 'Oh, that's how that street got named.' "
Around Madisonville, Ayres L. Bramble owned several plots of land, and today there's a Bramble Avenue, and Bramble Elementary, next door to his home. Smith Road in Norwood runs through land that was owned by Hiram Smith. And the Titus map also shows where Samuel Langdon had his farm, near Pleasant Ridge, and today's Langdon Farm Road.
Not every street in or around Oakley is named after a nearby landowner.
"We were annexed in 1913. The city of Cincinnati had this policy that if the area that was being annexed had a street that had the same name as an existing street in Cincinnati, they had to change it," Groh says.
He says that's why Williams in Norwood turns into Markbreit when it enters Oakley.
Read more:
