View allAll Photos Tagged fortthomas
On the other side of the Ohio River from Cincinnati off the town of Fort Thomas, Kentucky. In Kentucky there is a whole town named after one of three greatest U.S. Generals that led Union efforts against the Confederates, General George Henry Thomas of Virginia.
Built in 1937-1938, and dedicated in 1939, this Romanesque Revival-style church was built to serve the Catholic population living in the central and southern portions of Fort Thomas. The parish has existed since 1902, when the first Saint Thomas church and school was built at the corner of Tremont Avenue and Grand Avenue, a few blocks west of the present church. The first building on the present site, which presently forms the nucleus of St. Thomas Catholic School, was built as a combination church and school in 1920-22 The church features a limestone exterior, a latin cross-shaped footprint with gable ends with gable parapets, a high central nave and lower aisles with shed roofs, roman arched stained glass windows, a front rose window, entry doors with blind arches above featuring decorative reliefs, a front door inside an arched portal with decorative carved stone details and an arched stone relief panel above the door, a blind arched arcade with doric pilasters above the front rose window flanking a central arched niche with a sculpture of Saint Thomas in the middle of the facade, a corner bell tower with a square footprint, pyramidal hipped roof, copper cross atop the roof, and arched louvers, and a semi-circular rear apse. The church today has several additional parish buildings around it, including the buildings of the St. Thomas Catholic School, built in multiple stages between 1920 and the 1960s, a rectory, built in the mid-20th Century, and the Providence Center, also built in the mid-20th Century.
Built circa 1890, this Queen Anne-style building features a low-slope rear shed roof, a circular corner turret, made of wood and clad in faux brick made of pressed metal sheets, topped with a conical slate roof and finial, stone belt coursing at the lintels and sills of the front facade windows, a cornice with decorative dentils, brackets, and panels, replacement windows, arched window openings on the second floor of the front facade with arched panels above the windows and arches consisting of decorative brick and stonework, brick pilasters on the front facade terminating in cornice brackets on the ends and a stone cap in the center, a pilaster on the side next to the turret that terminates in brackets matching the front cornice, a rear ell with simpler exterior detailing, and a first-floor addition with a low-slope hipped roof, decorative pilasters that terminate in brackets, and plate glass storefront windows with transoms. The building is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Commercial Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Built between 1888 and 1892, this Romanesque Revival-style building was constructed as a mess hall for the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The building features a red brick exterior with a hipped roof, hipped roof dormers with vents, arched window openings with six-over-six double-hung windows, stone sills, a rusticated stone base, brick corbeling at the eaves, a front entrance gable with brick corbeling, an arched front door bay with a double doors sidelights, an opaque panel above the front door, pilasters with stone trim, an arched attic vent, and two stone panels flanking the brick arch over the door, side entrances with double doors and transoms, and a gabled rear wing with similar details to the front and circular attic vents, which once housed the mess hall kitchen. The interior of the building features brick walls, a tin ceiling, a tile floor, and large, open rooms, with the front wing of the building being a single large open space, and the rear kitchen wing having several partitions. The building presently serves as a community center for Fort Thomas, after undergoing a rehabilitation in 1981, and sits in the midst of Tower Park, which occupies the land that was once home to the military installation that Fort Thomas is named for. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built between 1890 and 1892, these Queen Anne-style houses and duplexes were constructed as housing for officers at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The houses feature an eclectic mix of Queen Anne elements, with unifying features being typically complex rooflines with multiple gables or hipped sections, stone trim, brick exteriors, rusticated stone bases, offset corner and front porches, stone lintels and sills, double-hung one-over-one and two-over-two windows, and bay windows in one and two story variants. Some of the houses feature more unique elements, including cylindrical turrets with conical roofs, jerkinhead or clipped gable roofs with attic oriel windows on the ends of the gables, clapboard-clad upper portions of the exterior facades, and quarter-circle attic windows. After sitting vacant since 2002, the houses were all rehabilitated between 2018 and 2020, with the addition of one-story basement additions housing garages to the rear of each house, all featuring rooftop decks, a new infill house in a compatible postmodern interpretation of the original house designs, and restoration of all intact character-defining features of the houses. The houses, minus the one built in 2020, are contributing structures in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built in 1888, this Queen Anne-style house was constructed as the Commandant’s Quarters and first building at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964, and sits on a prominent site overlooking the Ohio River at the end of Alexander Circle. The house was first occupied by Commandant Colonel Melville A. Cochran, whom laid out the roads on the military reservation at Fort Thomas and had the house constructed at the most prominent point of the bluff on which the reservation sits. The house features a red brick exterior, rusticated stone base, prominent stair tower on the front facade with rounded corners and a tripartite feature window with an arched transom and stone trim, topped with a balcony featuring a semi-circular roof, wooden columns, and wooden cladding on the low railing, one-over-one double-hung windows, hipped dormers with decorative brackets, stone lintels and sills, a front porch with a hipped roof, open pier foundation, and square columns, a front door with sidelights and a decorative glass transom, a two-story bay window on the side facade facing the Ohio River, a side porch facing the Ohio River with a rusticated stone base, square columns, and a hipped roof, and a rear basement garage addition with a rooftop deck, added in 2020. After sitting vacant since 2002, the was rehabilitated between 2018 and 2020, with the restoration of all intact character-defining features of the house. The house is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
General Philip Sheridan had the U.S. Army build Fort Thomas in 1887. It replaced forts in Newport, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. He named it after his friend General George Henry Thomas the civil war hero. The fort was decommissioned in 1946. Present uses include the city's recreation department, a military hospital, the Army Reserves and the Corp of Engineers. Many buildings remain from the military fort days..the Mess Hall is popular for weddings and other large events.
Built in 1889, this Queen Anne-style house features a side gable roof with a smaller front gable, half-timbering on the gable ends and dormers, dormers with front gables and pointed casement windows, a diamond pane attic window on the front gable, painted brick exterior, large decorative brackets, replacement windows, stone lintels and sills, a second-story balustrade below a feature window, double-hung windows on the side gables with complex mullions, a painted rusticated stone base, a front door with decorative glass sidelights and a decorative glass transom, and a front porch with a hipped roof, square columns, decorative trim, and a complex decorative railing.
Built in the mid-20th Century, this three-story Modern rectory features a low-slope roof with wide overhanging eaves, a buff brick exterior, vertically emphasized window bays at the center of the building’s front facade with recessed stone spandrel panels featuring biblical symbols carved into each one, a one-story three car garage at the east end of the building, and a large concrete deck at the west end of the building. The building presently serves as a rectory for the adjacent St. Thomas Church.
Built between 1890 and 1892, these Queen Anne-style houses and duplexes were constructed as housing for officers at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The houses feature an eclectic mix of Queen Anne elements, with unifying features being typically complex rooflines with multiple gables or hipped sections, stone trim, brick exteriors, rusticated stone bases, offset corner and front porches, stone lintels and sills, double-hung one-over-one and two-over-two windows, and bay windows in one and two story variants. Some of the houses feature more unique elements, including cylindrical turrets with conical roofs, jerkinhead or clipped gable roofs with attic oriel windows on the ends of the gables, clapboard-clad upper portions of the exterior facades, and quarter-circle attic windows. After sitting vacant since 2002, the houses were all rehabilitated between 2018 and 2020, with the addition of one-story basement additions housing garages to the rear of each house, all featuring rooftop decks, a new infill house in a compatible postmodern interpretation of the original house designs, and restoration of all intact character-defining features of the houses. The houses, minus the one built in 2020, are contributing structures in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built in 1890, this stone Romanesque-style water tower was built at the entrance to the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The tower features a rusticated stone exterior, stone corner pilasters, a crenellated top parapet, large stone blocks at the tapered base, arrow slit windows, stone corbeling at the base of the building’s parapet, and an arched entrance door facing Fort Thomas Avenue. The building served as a water tower for the fort, and though it no longer serves that purpose today, still stands as a major local landmark and focal point for the adjacent Tower Park. The tower is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built around the turn of the 20th Century, this Renaissance Revival-style building features a painted brick exterior, front gable roof, angled front facade due to the site sitting at an obtusely angled street corner, a front gable parapet with a decorative stone cap, stone lintels and sills, replacement windows, and a first floor storefront with pilasters featuring alternating rows of recessed and extruded bricks, and a vintage plastic sign advertising the Coffman’s Realty business located within the building. The building is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Commercial Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Built in 1962, this Modern building houses the congregation of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, which was created to serve an area formerly served by various other parishes in more distant locations. The church replaced an earlier building on the same site, which was a small wood-frame chapel ordered from the Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1930. The present church features a fan-shaped layout with a large arcing curtain wall made up of stained glass panels at the clerestory on the front facade, a rusticated stone base on the front facade and red brick on the side and rear facades, a limestone-clad cylindrical tower soaring above the church’s glass front entry vestibule with a sculpture of St. Catherine on the exterior and an Art Deco-style crown atop the tower below the modernist cross, modernist mosaic art inside the semi-circular entry vestibule, Latin words and christian symbols pressed into the metal trim at the top of the building’s front facade, sawtooth elements at the front facade, giving it a more complex and sculptural footprint, and a rear corner addition with a small grotto added around the turn of the millennium to add additional space for the church’s needs. The church continues to serve the surrounding St. Catherine of Siena Parish, and is one of the best examples of modernist church architecture in the Greater Cincinnati area.
Built circa 1890, this Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne-style building features a red brick exterior, rear shed roof, simple cornice that terminates at brick corbels at the corners of the building, finials atop the roof, third floor windows with decorative clinker brick arched panels framed by limestone trim, limestone lintels and sills, a second-story oriel window with dentils and decorative trim on the spandrel panels below the windows, replacement windows, a rusticated stone base, and a first floor retail storefront with cast iron pilasters, plate glass windows, and stained glass transoms. The building is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Commercial Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
I was playing with dolls while the boyFIEND was getting mauled by a bear in the park.
You'll never believe this, but it looks better in lightbox.
Built in 1908-09, this Egyptian Revival and Mediterranean Revival-style masonic building was designed by C. C. Weber for Freemasons living in Fort Thomas. The building features a red tile hipped roof with wide overhanging eaves, a stucco-clad exterior, rusticated stone base, painted brick chimney with a tapered side, an Egyptian-style front entrance vestibule with a flared top, tapered walls, and cartouches flanking the front entrance door, a front double entrance door with a stained glass transom, stained glass windows on the front of the building, and tapered buttresses on the sides of the building. The building continues to serve as the Masonic Lodge for freemasons in Fort Thomas.
Built in 1890, this Romanesque Revival-style armory was constructed as a drill hall, serving as part of the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The building features a front and rear gable roof with a red brick exterior, parapets at the gable ends with terra cotta caps, a rusticated stone base, arched window and door openings with nine-over-nine and six-over-six double hung windows and some window transoms, stone sills, large arched entrance openings on the front and rear facades with a large transom made up of multiple sections above the rear entry door and a front entranceway with concrete block infill, an iron portcullis, and small windows flanking the central solid metal double entry door. The sides of the building feature buttresses, large triple double-hung windows, and stone belt coursing, and the interior features a large open space with a cambered fink truss roof structure and wooden floor measuring ninety feet wide and one hundred feet long. The building served as the drill hall for Fort Thomas during its operation, before becoming a public recreation center upon the closure of the military base in 1964. The building has a connection to the tragic fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club May 28, 1977, with many of the dead being brought to the armory for processing, as it was the largest nearby building where the remains of 162 people who died during the fire could be brought, with three people surviving the fire but dying from their injuries in the following days and months. The building is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Artist: Lucienne Bloch (1909-1999)
Title: General G.H. Thomas and Philip Sheridan (1942)
Venue: U.S. Post Office 41075, Fort Thomas, Kentucky
–
This mural is inside the U.S. Post Office at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, which was named after U.S. General George Henry Thomas. General Thomas is on the left. He's the taller man with the beard. The man on the right with the mustache is General Philip Sheridan, who is looking admiringly at Thomas. Founded in 1890 near the Ohio River, the U.S. Army post has since become a Kentucky city of over 16,000.
General George Henry Thomas is considered among the triumvirate generals of the Civil War– Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and George Henry Thomas. Unfortunately, with time Thomas, who shunned self-publicity, has been forgotten. It is a rare mural of one of the most brilliant but underappreciated and forgotten Civil War generals. He bested Stonewall Jackson at Shenandoah. He helped recruit Kentuckians and trained them at Camp Dick Robinson. Thomas won one of the first U.S. victories in the Civil War at the Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky. He went on to Perryville, Stones River, Battle of Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Dalton, Atlanta, and Nashville.
George Henry Thomas did not toot his own horn. He didn't have political friends such as Grant did. He did not want to be a politician. He did not want to write an autobiography. He did not have a brother as a U.S. Senator such as Sherman did, although Sherman was a close personal friend. Thomas ripped up his letters and notes so they wouldn't be published. On top of that, he was a Virginian, a Southerner, who fought for Union and against slavery so not too many of his fellow Virginians were fans.
After he stopped the collapse of U.S. forces at Chickamauga, Georgia, a grateful President, Abraham Lincoln, said of the brilliance of Thomas: "It is doubtful whether his heroism and skill exhibited last Sunday afternoon has ever been surpassed in the world."*
George Henry Thomas started as a son of a plantation owner who owned slaves. The Virginian boy would evolve to become a West Point grad, a U.S. military officer, and a commander who chose to save the Union and to free blacks. He advocated that black emancipation could be furthered by developing skills and leadership in military service. He became a civil rights advocate during Reconstruction. And he fought to eliminate the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups before he died. He did so at incredible personal costs.
"Thomas is one of the great names of our history, one of the greatest heroes in our war, a rare and noble character," said Ulysses S. Grant about George Henry Thomas.**
—
* Source: to Robert A. Maxwell, Sep 23, 1863
** Grant, Ulysses S.; Young, John Russell. Conversations with General Grant (p. 53). BIG BYTE BOOKS.
Built in 1937-1938, and dedicated in 1939, this Romanesque Revival-style church was built to serve the Catholic population living in the central and southern portions of Fort Thomas. The parish has existed since 1902, when the first Saint Thomas church and school was built at the corner of Tremont Avenue and Grand Avenue, a few blocks west of the present church. The first building on the present site, which presently forms the nucleus of St. Thomas Catholic School, was built as a combination church and school in 1920-22 The church features a limestone exterior, a latin cross-shaped footprint with gable ends with gable parapets, a high central nave and lower aisles with shed roofs, roman arched stained glass windows, a front rose window, entry doors with blind arches above featuring decorative reliefs, a front door inside an arched portal with decorative carved stone details and an arched stone relief panel above the door, a blind arched arcade with doric pilasters above the front rose window flanking a central arched niche with a sculpture of Saint Thomas in the middle of the facade, a corner bell tower with a square footprint, pyramidal hipped roof, copper cross atop the roof, and arched louvers, and a semi-circular rear apse. The church today has several additional parish buildings around it, including the buildings of the St. Thomas Catholic School, built in multiple stages between 1920 and the 1960s, a rectory, built in the mid-20th Century, and the Providence Center, also built in the mid-20th Century.
Built in 1962, this Modern building houses the congregation of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, which was created to serve an area formerly served by various other parishes in more distant locations. The church replaced an earlier building on the same site, which was a small wood-frame chapel ordered from the Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1930. The present church features a fan-shaped layout with a large arcing curtain wall made up of stained glass panels at the clerestory on the front facade, a rusticated stone base on the front facade and red brick on the side and rear facades, a limestone-clad cylindrical tower soaring above the church’s glass front entry vestibule with a sculpture of St. Catherine on the exterior and an Art Deco-style crown atop the tower below the modernist cross, modernist mosaic art inside the semi-circular entry vestibule, Latin words and christian symbols pressed into the metal trim at the top of the building’s front facade, sawtooth elements at the front facade, giving it a more complex and sculptural footprint, and a rear corner addition with a small grotto added around the turn of the millennium to add additional space for the church’s needs. The church continues to serve the surrounding St. Catherine of Siena Parish, and is one of the best examples of modernist church architecture in the Greater Cincinnati area.
This section of unused military housing was sold to the public. The giant flag in the background is on Cincinnati Bell property. It's huge.
Built circa 1890, this Queen Anne-style house features a front and side slate shingle jerkinhead or clipped gable roof, a semi-circular side oriel window clad in shingles with a curved palladian window, half-timbering with gothic motifs on the gable ends and gabled roof dormers, red brick exterior, rusticated stone base a semi-circular two-story front bay window, one-over-one double-hung windows, a front door with decorative glass sidelights and transoms, a two-story side bay window with a chimney, a wrap-around rear porch, and a front porch with decorative octagonal columns and trim, a hipped roof, metal railings, and a rusticated stone base and stone column piers.
Built between 1890 and 1892, these Queen Anne-style houses and duplexes were constructed as housing for officers at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The houses feature an eclectic mix of Queen Anne elements, with unifying features being typically complex rooflines with multiple gables or hipped sections, stone trim, brick exteriors, rusticated stone bases, offset corner and front porches, stone lintels and sills, double-hung one-over-one and two-over-two windows, and bay windows in one and two story variants. Some of the houses feature more unique elements, including cylindrical turrets with conical roofs, jerkinhead or clipped gable roofs with attic oriel windows on the ends of the gables, clapboard-clad upper portions of the exterior facades, and quarter-circle attic windows. After sitting vacant since 2002, the houses were all rehabilitated between 2018 and 2020, with the addition of one-story basement additions housing garages to the rear of each house, all featuring rooftop decks, a new infill house in a compatible postmodern interpretation of the original house designs, and restoration of all intact character-defining features of the houses. The houses, minus the one built in 2020, are contributing structures in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built between 1890 and 1892, these Queen Anne-style houses and duplexes were constructed as housing for officers at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The houses feature an eclectic mix of Queen Anne elements, with unifying features being typically complex rooflines with multiple gables or hipped sections, stone trim, brick exteriors, rusticated stone bases, offset corner and front porches, stone lintels and sills, double-hung one-over-one and two-over-two windows, and bay windows in one and two story variants. Some of the houses feature more unique elements, including cylindrical turrets with conical roofs, jerkinhead or clipped gable roofs with attic oriel windows on the ends of the gables, clapboard-clad upper portions of the exterior facades, and quarter-circle attic windows. After sitting vacant since 2002, the houses were all rehabilitated between 2018 and 2020, with the addition of one-story basement additions housing garages to the rear of each house, all featuring rooftop decks, a new infill house in a compatible postmodern interpretation of the original house designs, and restoration of all intact character-defining features of the houses. The houses, minus the one built in 2020, are contributing structures in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built in 1937-1938, and dedicated in 1939, this Romanesque Revival-style church was built to serve the Catholic population living in the central and southern portions of Fort Thomas. The parish has existed since 1902, when the first Saint Thomas church and school was built at the corner of Tremont Avenue and Grand Avenue, a few blocks west of the present church. The first building on the present site, which presently forms the nucleus of St. Thomas Catholic School, was built as a combination church and school in 1920-22 The church features a limestone exterior, a latin cross-shaped footprint with gable ends with gable parapets, a high central nave and lower aisles with shed roofs, roman arched stained glass windows, a front rose window, entry doors with blind arches above featuring decorative reliefs, a front door inside an arched portal with decorative carved stone details and an arched stone relief panel above the door, a blind arched arcade with doric pilasters above the front rose window flanking a central arched niche with a sculpture of Saint Thomas in the middle of the facade, a corner bell tower with a square footprint, pyramidal hipped roof, copper cross atop the roof, and arched louvers, and a semi-circular rear apse. The church today has several additional parish buildings around it, including the buildings of the St. Thomas Catholic School, built in multiple stages between 1920 and the 1960s, a rectory, built in the mid-20th Century, and the Providence Center, also built in the mid-20th Century.
Built circa 1890, this Queen Anne-style mansion features a steeply pitched hipped roof, gabled dormers with corner pilasters and one-over-one double-hung windows with transoms, a circular corner tower with a conical roof, wood shingle and clapboard cladding, a rusticated stone base, fifteen-over-one, twelve-over-twelve, eight-over-eight, and one-over-one double-hung windows, a curved corner at the north end of the front facade, an enclosed side sun porch with large square columns, a double front door with decorative glass sidelights and a decorative glass transom, a covered second-story front balcony with decorative columns and windows with decorative glass transoms, and a front porch with thick square corner columns, round doric columns, and a rooftop deck
Initially built in the Renaissance Revival style in 1920, this Catholic School saw several Modern additions in the mid-20th Century. The school complex consisted of three buildings, with the oldest building, which last served as the Activity Center, having originally served as a combination church and school before the present church was dedicated in 1939, and saw the addition of six classrooms in 1925. The three-story building featured a buff wire brick exterior, large window openings with mid-20th Century aluminum windows, stone trim, a parapet with a stone cap and curved section over the front entrance, a front entrance that protrudes from the building’s facade with a decorative brick and stone surround at the front entryway, and a concrete base. The building was expanded with a two-story elementary school addition to the east in the mid-20th Century, which features a low-slope hipped roof, vertically emphasized window bays with aluminum windows and recessed stone spandrel panels, a buff brick exterior, stairways on the south facade with tall curtain walls at the entrances and ceramic tile walls interiors, a concrete base, and a one-story wing that connects it to the adjacent older building. A high school building was also constructed north of the original building in the mid-20th Century, which sits alongside Fort Thomas Avenue. The building features one story in the front and two stories in the back, large classroom windows, limestone cladding along the west facade, buff brick cladding elsewhere, a large gymnasium at one end of the building, which features three stone crosses on the exterior at the building’s entrance plaza, a concrete base, and a paved playground behind the building. The parish no longer provides a high school-level education, but continues to provide education between the preschool and junior high school/middle school levels. Sadly, the original 1920 school and church building, as well as the east addition, was demolished in the summer of 2022 to make way for additional parking.
Built in 1915, this Neoclassical-style house features a side gable roof with a large front gable pediment over the two-story front portico, a red brick exterior, rusticated stone base, stone lintels and sills, dentils at the base of the roof of the house, a fanlight transom above a window on the south gable, a metal fire escape attached to the rear facade, a front door with decorative glass sidelights, a decorative glass transom, and a decorative header with brackets and a pediment, replacement windows, and a large two-story ionic front portico with round columns, a cornice and architrave above the columns, and a fanlight attic window in the center of the front pediment.
Built circa 1907, this Prairie-style house was designed by Vernon J. Hall and Guy C. Burroughs for the Mageer family. The house features a low-slope hipped roof with wide overhanging simple eaves, stucco cladding on the second floor, clapboard cladding on the first floor, a rusticated stone chimney, a concrete base, prairie-style double-hung and casement windows, and a corner front porch with a hipped roof, clapboard clad railings and columns, and a concrete floor.
Built in 1892-93, these Queen Anne-style houses and duplexes were constructed as housing for officers at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The houses feature red brick exteriors, stone lintels and sills, two-over-two and one-over-one double-hung windows with storm windows, rusticated stone bases, wooden front porches with simple square columns, hipped roofs, and open pier foundations, brick corbeling, hipped roofs, front gables and front gabled dormers, and front doors with decorative glass transoms. The houses are contributing structures in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built between 1890 and 1894, these Queen Anne-style houses were constructed as housing for non-commissioned officers at the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The houses are relatively simple, with front gable roofs, stone lintels and sills, double-hung windows, originally two-over-two and one-over-one with some vinyl replacements, gabled or shed roofed side ells at the rear of the houses, rusticated stone bases, side porches with wooden columns, some of which have been enclosed, with some houses featuring paired front windows, many of which are arched on the second floor, or side-by-side single windows in two front bays. The houses are contributing structures in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Built in 1937-1938, and dedicated in 1939, this Romanesque Revival-style church was built to serve the Catholic population living in the central and southern portions of Fort Thomas. The parish has existed since 1902, when the first Saint Thomas church and school was built at the corner of Tremont Avenue and Grand Avenue, a few blocks west of the present church. The first building on the present site, which presently forms the nucleus of St. Thomas Catholic School, was built as a combination church and school in 1920-22 The church features a limestone exterior, a latin cross-shaped footprint with gable ends with gable parapets, a high central nave and lower aisles with shed roofs, roman arched stained glass windows, a front rose window, entry doors with blind arches above featuring decorative reliefs, a front door inside an arched portal with decorative carved stone details and an arched stone relief panel above the door, a blind arched arcade with doric pilasters above the front rose window flanking a central arched niche with a sculpture of Saint Thomas in the middle of the facade, a corner bell tower with a square footprint, pyramidal hipped roof, copper cross atop the roof, and arched louvers, and a semi-circular rear apse. The church today has several additional parish buildings around it, including the buildings of the St. Thomas Catholic School, built in multiple stages between 1920 and the 1960s, a rectory, built in the mid-20th Century, and the Providence Center, also built in the mid-20th Century.
Built in 1890, this stone Romanesque-style water tower was built at the entrance to the former US Army base at Fort Thomas, which was active from 1890 until 1964. The tower features a rusticated stone exterior, stone corner pilasters, a crenellated top parapet, large stone blocks at the tapered base, arrow slit windows, stone corbeling at the base of the building’s parapet, and an arched entrance door facing Fort Thomas Avenue. The building served as a water tower for the fort, and though it no longer serves that purpose today, still stands as a major local landmark and focal point for the adjacent Tower Park. The tower is a contributing structure in the Fort Thomas Military Reservation Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Lately I've come to realize I'm happiest by water. Rather it be a lake, ocean, creek, or pool, that's where you'll find me.
Built in 1922, this Swiss Chalet, Prairie, and Arts and Crafts-style house features a front gable roof with large decorative brackets on the gable end, stucco cladding on the exterior of the third floor, a juliet balcony on the third floor at the front window with decorative brackets and a sawn balustrade, a red wire brick exterior on the first and second floors, a rusticated stone base, replacement windows, stone sills, a two-story side bay window, one-story side oriel window with a shed roof clad in stucco, and a front porch with brick corner columns that penetrate the porch’s hipped roof and terminate in two round urns at the top, a brick railing, and a wooden floor.
The grave of Henry Thomas, the first permanent white settler in what is now Bureau County, Illinois. He arrived May 5, 1828. He served under Major Isaiah Stillman during the Blackhawk War in 1832, and his cabin became the site of Fort Thomas.
Built in 1962, this Modern building houses the congregation of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, which was created to serve an area formerly served by various other parishes in more distant locations. The church replaced an earlier building on the same site, which was a small wood-frame chapel ordered from the Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1930. The present church features a fan-shaped layout with a large arcing curtain wall made up of stained glass panels at the clerestory on the front facade, a rusticated stone base on the front facade and red brick on the side and rear facades, a limestone-clad cylindrical tower soaring above the church’s glass front entry vestibule with a sculpture of St. Catherine on the exterior and an Art Deco-style crown atop the tower below the modernist cross, modernist mosaic art inside the semi-circular entry vestibule, Latin words and christian symbols pressed into the metal trim at the top of the building’s front facade, sawtooth elements at the front facade, giving it a more complex and sculptural footprint, and a rear corner addition with a small grotto added around the turn of the millennium to add additional space for the church’s needs. The church continues to serve the surrounding St. Catherine of Siena Parish, and is one of the best examples of modernist church architecture in the Greater Cincinnati area.
Built in 1867 and originally known as the Kinney Mansion, this Second Empire-style stone mansion was designed by architect J. K. Wilson, of Cincinnati, and was the home of Eli Kinney, a banker in Cincinnati. Following Kinney’s death in 1884, the house became known as Bloom’s Castle, and later was sold to the Carmelite Nuns in 1949, becoming the Carmel Manor Nursing Home, which is continues to function as today. The mansion features a rusticated stone exterior, mansard roof, towers with tall roofs topped by crosses, arched windows, an oxeye window over the front entrance, gables on the front and rear of the central wing of the house, modillions at the eaves, a northern wing with a two-story front bay window, a one-story bay window at the north end of the front facade, a porch with a hipped roof, square columns, and a front gable over the front entrance, and a shed dormer on the south slope of the roof of the house. The mansion is surrounded by multiple wings, with the oldest being built in the mid-20th Century in the modern style after the house was converted into a nursing home. The oldest addition features a buff brick exterior, a hipped roof with gables that was added around the turn of the millennium, a large chapel in the front with vertical slit windows, concrete sills and a concrete base, and a stone cross mounted to the front facade of the chapel. The other side of the mansion is the site of several sprawling wings, added in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century, which more closely mimic the exterior of the original house.
This mural is one of the numerous works of art commissioned by the federal government during the New Deal. Like many of the New Deal post office murals, it celebrates it's town's unique historical heritage. Fort Thomas was an important military base in the Civil War. The two men depicted in the foreground are the two generals who were key figures in the fort's establishment: Gen. George Henry Thomas on the left and Gen. Philip Sheridan sporting a stylish mustache on the right.
This is actually a combination water tower/Spanish-American War memorial. I need to get a better picture. This one is slightly skewed, but I was in a hurry.
This is a real-photo postcard showing newly-minted soldiers leaving Fort Thomas, Kentucky for their training assignments. Fort Thomas was a recruit depot, and civilian recruits arrived here for processing and transition to their official training locations. When they arrived, they were in civilian clothes, but as you can see in this photo, when they left, they were in nice new uniforms.
This postcard is, of course, a sepia toned black and white photo, but the caption handstamp on the face is very definitely in purple ink.
The back of the card is cancelled by the Columbia machine cancel of Newport, Kentucky (the town nearest Fort Thomas), dated August 11, 1917. The writer is a soldier who got a position in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. He gives his return address at Fort Thomas, but most soldiers were quickly transferred from this facility.
In the message he states that he is in the 257th Aero Squadron. This unit is listed by the Army as a "training" organization. They went over to France in mid 1918 and served until mid 1919.
Just a note on the date of this postcard: the great majority of First World War letters and cards are seen when the massive numbers of draftees and recruits started to train at the large camps in the U.S. This card dates from before that time period, when the military was taking only recruits. It is harder to find cards and letters from this earlier period of 1917.