From "Cincinnati Post," June 14, 1909
Cincinnati’s parks report some remarkable statistics regarding acreage, champion trees, visitor tallies and so on. All but unrecorded are the aphrodisiacal influences of all that greenery and fresh air. No one seems to have ever recorded how many marriages (or births) can be attributed to strolls down our municipal sylvan paths.
Today, the Cincinnati Park system encompasses around 5,000 acres, with eight regional parks, 70 neighborhood parks, 34 preserves and natural areas, plus parkways, hiking trails, street trees, nature centers, scenic overlooks, playgrounds, landscaped gardens, and picnic areas. Most of these resources were adopted in relatively recent decades.
In 1904, by contrast, Cincinnati claimed only six parks, most of them relatively compact. The total inventory included Garfield Park (one acre), Lincoln Park (10 acres), Washington Park (not quite six acres), Hopkins Park in Mount Auburn (one acre), Eden Park (214 acres), and Burnet Woods (163 acres). Inwood Park (almost 20 acres), now municipally owned, was then a private facility. And, my goodness, did those parks witness some amorous behavior!
In 1894, an Elm Street man wondered where his wife had gone to. She had not come home the night before. In the morning newspaper, he noticed that a man whom he suspected of alienating his wife’s affections had been arrested along with a certain “May Wilson” on charges of “improper conduct” in Burnet Woods. He visited the Police Court and learned that the alleged Miss Wilson was, in fact, his wife, hiding behind a pseudonym. Although he announced his intention to divorce, the offended husband paid his wife’s fine so she would not be sentenced to the Workhouse.
In 1892, a man who gave his name as James Brown and also James Young, was arrested in Burnet Woods for indecent behavior after he was reported fondling a young woman within view of several children.
The next year, a “well-dressed young man” and a “stylish-appearing young woman” who claimed to be married were arrested for acting in a disgraceful manner in Burnet Woods. Their true names were never disclosed because the Police Court judge conducted their entire hearing in whispers at the bench on the suggestion of the defense attorney. Rumors about their actual identities (and the bribe to keep the court confidential) kept tongues wagging for days.
Such incidents multiplied after 1895 when the University of Cincinnati moved from the McMicken Street hillside to its new campus on Clifton Avenue. A new course was, in jest, added to the curriculum: Parkology. According to the Cincinnati Post [June 13, 1906]:
“As its name indicates, this branch of learning has to do largely with the park—Burnet Woods Park, where the University is situated. The course can be taken only in April, May and June. While each class consists only of a boy and a girl, there may be any number of classes, and Prof. Cupid, who is in charge of the department, has the work so arranged that the classes never interfere with one another.”
From "Cincinnati Post," May 23, 1919
It was Eden Park that earned the naughtiest reputation among Cincinnati’s parks. A headline in the Cincinnati Post [July 15, 1908], “Hold Orgies In Eden Park” captures the public’s opinion on what was then the city’s largest park. And that stigma was of long standing. As early as 1877, park officer Michael Sweeny arrested a man after repeatedly finding him reclining amid the Eden Park shrubbery with various women.
In 1892, Charles Spencer and Minnie Williams were arrested in Eden Park for “making love in the most passionate manner.” The amorous pair were each fined five dollars and costs.
Challenging Eden Park as a place of disgraceful behavior was the privately-owned Inwood Park along Vine Street. At Inwood Park, the troubles included the park’s own security detail. The Gazette [June 30, 1873] describes how security officer Frank Mulholland, assigned to catch pickpockets at Inwood Park, enjoyed one too many free beers and was roused from bed at a Gano Street brothel. Hauled up on charges, Officer Mulholland protested that he had followed a pickpocket to that address.
The Gazette [July 25, 1874] found itself at a loss for words to report the enormity of the Inwood Park scandals:
“Last Thursday night the demi monde, the gamblers, blacklegs, pimps and prostitutes of Cincinnati, headed by Stofe Moore, Godey Martin, and others of that ilk, held a picnic in Inwood Park. This mere statement contains data enough to form an opinion of the scenes which must have presented themselves to the observer, who would have so far forgotten his self-respect, and neglected common decency, as to attend.”
In 1874, Charles G. Petzsch, proprietor of Inwood Park, was hauled into court to answer charges by neighbors that habitués of that park were out of control. An attorney for residents living on the border of the park asserted that, even with five patrolmen on his security detail, Mr. Petzsch could control his customers.
“We are prepared to prove acts of lewdness, and to bring testimony which will rival in disgustingness anything ever brough out in this court. And after the parties are ready to leave the park, the strumpets and loafers stream out, using language which will disgust decent, or even indecent people.”
From Cincinnati Graphic, July 4, 1885, Volume IV, Number 4, Page 76
As early as 1872, a Cincinnati Parks commissioner asked his colleagues to prohibit the attendance and commercial activity of prostitutes in the city’s parks. While the park board was sympathetic, no one could suggest any feasible measures to achieve such a goal and so the matter was dropped.
By 1912, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union blamed the parks for contributing to a general licentiousness resulting in “public lovemaking.” A committee of the WCTU—all in the service of civic morality of course—held their noses and visited the most sordid venues in Cincinnati including the parks and riverfront beaches. The Cincinnati Post [August 8, 1912] reported:
“For two weeks a special committee of women, headed by Ms. Cora Shoyer, Miss Elizabeth Dwinnel and Miss Susie Remmick, have visited bathing beaches and parks frequented by young folk. Mrs. Shroyer reported that young girls unchaperoned, who looked under 14 years of age, drank intoxicants in the company of older men at summer resorts; that about 11 o’clock she saw girls sitting in the laps of male escorts on river boats, and that in parks she had observed lovemaking going on under the electric lights in view of every one.”
Even more outrageous, the WCTU complained, was the behavior of couples on the street cars leaving the parks at night. They appealed to Cincinnati’s mayor for an ordinance to criminalize “spooning.” You can evaluate the success of that initiative by your own experience, I will wager.
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