Many of Cincinnati’s old neighborhoods have faded into history. Perhaps the most colorful such environ was Shantytown, located out in the far West End where the Mill Creek Runs into the Ohio River. Beginning about 1890, shacks, shanties and houseboats congregated there, in the shadow of the Cincinnati Southern railroad bridge.

Shantytown was always filled with flamboyant folks. There was “Duke” (any other names unknown) who gained his noble title because he somehow managed to acquire a new derby hat every year. There was “Captain” Charles Richmond, known as the richest man in Shantytown because he owned a Victrola and 100 records.

Among other claims to fame, Shantytown seemed to have nine lives, like a cat. In 1901, Charles Glandorf, a contractor who held the lease to five acres of land occupied by this rag-tag community announced that he would force all the squatters to move. Apparently, Shantytown did not get the message because, in 1907, the Pittsburgh Coal Company announced plans for a facility in Shantytown, forcing the eviction of 500 residents. According to the Cincinnati Post [22 January 1907]:

“Some of the River denizens are getting ready to move, but where? They do not know. Others will fight. One of these is Wm. Ford. ‘The river belongs to Uncle Sam,’ he said, ‘and until he orders me to move my boat will not budge. As long as we are in the water we cannot be forced to go.’

It could be that nobody moved, because they were still there in 1913 when the Cincinnati Health Department burned the whole place down. The city took advantage of a recent flood, relocated all the inhabitants, photographed the shacks, doused them with gasoline and lit a match. Not quite 10 years later, however, the newspapers reported that Shantytown was still around, and making a comeback.

Over the years, Cincinnati displayed a real ambivalence about Shantytown. On the one hand, it was not only a high-crime area, but a refuge for actual criminals. On the other hand, almost every newspaper report about Shantytown stressed that life among the shacks was romantic and relaxed. Shantytown was featured in two promotional books about Cincinnati, George W. Engelhardt’s “Cincinnati The Queen City” (published in 1901 by the Chamber of Commerce), and an 1898 guidebook titled “Kraemer’s Picturesque Cincinnati.”

Tourists visited Shantytown to get a taste of Cincinnati’s “low-life,” and newspapers regularly sent reporters out to get a little local color. Shantytown stories often involve dogs, like this one from the Cincinnati Post [10 July 1897]:

“A dog was poisoned in Shantytown some time ago and Mary Lally and Minnie Smith made things very unpleasant for Mary Connelly, whom they accused of the deed. Mary Connelly came to the City Hall to get them placed under a peace bond, but did not succeed. They threw bricks, tin cans and all sorts of things at her. Mary swore out a warrant for them Thursday for assault and battery.”

Cincinnati Police Officers James D. Mount and John T. Pettit located Mary Lally and were about to arrest her when she ran down to the river, hopped in a johnboat and rowed out into the middle of the Ohio River which, of course, belongs to Kentucky. Officers Mount and Petit sat on the Ohio bank for three hours waiting for their fugitive to row back to shore but all she did before rowing downriver was hurl insults. The paper reported that Mary Lally was known as the “Belle of Shantytown.”

Newspaper reports of Shantytown children read like rough drafts for an “Our Gang” comedy. Here is the Post [14 July 1904]:

“All the boys have slugshots, with which they are experts. They can hit a dog, their favorite target, at almost every shot at long distance. Little ‘Bud’ Collins, one of the leaders of Shantytown’s juvenile population, is the proud possessor of an air gun, and when he brings that weapon out he is the idol of them all.”

The Cincinnati Police saw Shantytown quite differently. G.M. Roe’s 1890 book, “Our Police” had this to say:

“The most notable ‘tough’ sections are the Mill creek bottoms and notorious ‘Shanty Town,’ where the shanty-boats are located. These boats swarming with women and men of the worst types, line the Ohio in this district. They are usually the especial care of the police, inasmuch as many of their inhabitants, called ‘river gypsies,’ are like their land prototypes, slow to recognize the difference between what is other people’s property and what is their own.”

As early as 1891, the Cincinnati Post editorialized against Shantytown because of robbers who assaulted pedestrians walking from downtown to Sedamsville. There were even some murders, but of the maudlin, domestic sort as reported by the Post [13 April 1901]:

“Josephine McInany, the Shantytown Queen, now in the County jail for killing her husband, James McInany, is making a piteous plea to attend the funeral of the husband. She says she loved him, though she killed him, and she fell on her knees and kissed him after she had shot him down.”

Shantytown was ripe for redemption, and a local missionary society opened a 200-seat chapel equipped with an organ to reach out to the “river gypsies.” It appears this chapel got flooded out and subsequent missions took place on flatboats to the amusement of the youngsters:

“In answer to inquiries about the missions, Johnny Cheeks volunteered information. ‘Gee! You ought to hear them preach and sing,’ he said. ‘They make noise enough to scare the fish. They only get about five or six people in the boat there, but we sit out here and listen. It’s lots of fun.”

Today, hardly anyone traveling the Sixth Street Viaduct gives a thought to Shantytown as they pass its erstwhile locale. The Post [26 September 1922] predicted:

“A new generation in other parts of Cincinnati has arisen. To them, Shantytown is only a name that brings impressions of frontier habits. Many of these youngsters have wished they had lived to know the men and deeds of old Shantytown.”

