Over the weekend I was introduced to the best view of Cincinnati from the top of Mt. Echo Park in Price Hill. It’s an amazing view that encompasses the entire bend in the river from Ludlow, Kentucky all the way up to Clifton and East Walnut Hills. How I had never been here is beyond comprehension. There’s a near duplicate pavilion as the one in Mt. Alms Park up the street from me.

At the overlook is an historic sign with descriptions of early Price Hill sites. It describes one: “A popular beer garden once occupied the northeast corner of Glenway and Rutledge Avenues (in West Price Hill). One of Haberstumpf Gardens’ most popular features was the shooting park in the rear, where marksman strove for title “King of the Schuetzenfest.”

I thought it was interesting for several reasons. The first was that this weekend is Schutzenfest at Kolping Grove in Springfield Township, a festival dating back over 100 years through the Cincinnati Schutzenverein. The second was that I had heard of Haberstumpf’s before in talking to Drew Rath, owner of Tuba Baking Company. It was the business of his great great grandfather, John H. Haberstumpf who operated it , with help from his son Andrew, from about the mid 1880s to its closure in 1928.

John Haberstumpf immigrated from Germany in the 1870s, married and got his feet wet operating a café in downtown Cincinnati in the 1000 block of Main Street. Then in the late 1880s, he sold the elegant bar fixtures, and his inventory of wines, liquor and cigars and moved to a larger lot at the end of the Warsaw Avenue streetcar line – which came up from the Price Hill Incline – and Rutledge. His resort included a bar and café with three bowling alleys, a dance hall, a beer garden – where many fraternal organizations and families held picnics, and an outdoor shooting range, whose gardens are still there, according to Google maps. Elaborate Sunday concerts were led by German cornetist Herman Belstedt.

Price Hill was home to three shooting societies at the time – the Forester Shooting Club, and Price Hill Shooting Clubs 1, 2, and 3, that all competed against many other neighborhood shooting clubs around the turn of the last century. So, in addition to the coveted Koenig of Schuetzenfest at the Cincinnati Schutzenverein, there was the same prestigious title at Haberstumpf’s Shooting Range.

German Kegel or nine pin bowling was also a popular sport at Haberstumpf’s. Teams like the All Rights, Rough Riders, and the Independents of Haberstumpf’s competed against teams like the Westwood Silver Stars.

Bowlers from Haberstumpf’s competed for medals like the Highest Average Bowler in Hamilton County.

Last but certainly not least was the good German food served at Haberstumpf’s. Many families and professional societies held their picnics here. The small Serbian community of Cincinnati in the 1910s held their annual Jagnyetiji Rucsak, or sheep barbecue there. Haberstumpf’s advertised their famous steak and chicken dinners, as well as their schmierkase or schmier cheese, a type of spreadable cheese similar to German quark, a cream cheese with the texture of ricotta. It falls into what I’m finding is a growing historical lexicon of the German cheese dips of the West Side – like the huttenkase mit schnitlock at Klawitter’s in Delhi.