From Proceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science, June 17, 1892
The Green Day concert at Great American Ballpark on August 22 last year included some unscheduled interplanetary fireworks. The crowd was treated to a meteor flashing through the atmosphere over Cincinnati on its way to disintegration or landfall somewhere south of here. The Queen City dodged a celestial bullet—and not for the first or last time.
The Ohio Geological Survey tallies 14 confirmed meteorites recovered from Ohio, with three of them discovered in the Greater Cincinnati region—one from a quarry in Fairfield, one from the Turner Mounds in Anderson Township and one from within the Cincinnati city limits. The Kentucky Geological Survey records 26 meteorite finds in the Bluegrass State.
One of Kentucky’s bigger space rocks landed near the town of Piner in the far southern reaches of Kenton County. That’s what Steven J. Cornelius told Harry L. Preston, a mineralogist on the staff at Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, when he came to visit in 1892. According to Mr. Cornelius, at about 3:00 p.m. on 7 July 1873, he heard a great rumbling in the heavens, followed by a “quivering of the earth.” Other residents of Piner corroborated this information. Half a mile away from Mr. Cornelius’ location when the earth quivered, his brother, George Washington Cornelius, endeavored in 1889 to clear out a spring on his farm.
George struck something with his hoe and discovered a large metallic lump buried three feet underground, ensnared in the roots of an ash tree. George’s find proved to be a meteorite weighing nearly 360 pounds and measuring nearly two feet in length. George sold the meteorite to Ward’s. The company sold replicas of the Piner meteorite, but sawed the original into thin sections and sold it by the slice like so much bologna. A chemically identical meteorite was found in 1892 in nearby Williamstown in Grant County and is believed to be a 150-pound fragment of the Kenton County meteorite.
Perhaps the biggest meteorite to rattle Cincinnati passed overhead at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, January 12, 1916. It was big, brilliant, loud and—by most accounts —zipping through at a nerve-rackingly low altitude. The Enquirer headline [January 13, 1916] announced “Meteor Cause of Terror in Many Ohio Valley Cities.” Despite a heavy fog that morning, thousands of Cincinnatians saw it and generally agreed that the bolide changed colors and made a sizzling sound as it hurled overhead. There were reports from as far eastward as West Virginia, as far north as Columbus, as far south as Lexington and as far west as Louisville. Most reports suggested a flight path from the northeast to the southwest. The Cincinnati Times-Star [January 12, 1916] gave a vivid account:
“For a few seconds the earth was bathed in a greenish-blue light of dazzling brilliancy, that resembled the pyrotechnic display of a mass of fallen live wires, only that the light which was shed from the heavens was of a thousand-fold greater intensity.”
From "Cincinnati Times-Star," January 12, 1916
That celestial glow really freaked out the folks in Vevay, Indiana. The Cincinnati Times-Star told the tale:
“A peculiar illumination in the sky at 6 o’clock caused uneasiness among those who witnessed it and superstitious persons believed the world was coming to an end. The glow lasted two minutes and is believed to have been caused by a meteor.”
Flashing radiance and heavenly glows were consistent themes in descriptions of the 1916 fireball. Henry Petrosky of Madisonville told the Times-Star that he was walking with his young son when it flew overhead:
“I saw the ball of fire shoot through the air and it seemed as though it would strike us. When it passed closest it seemed only half a block away, and it cracked and spit out flashes of flame. Later we heard the rumbling and explosion.”
Cincinnati pharmaceutical magnate John Uri Lloyd told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the alien invader had, based on his own back-of-the-napkin calculations, exploded somewhere near Georgetown or Sadieville, Kentucky. The Enquirer telephoned some folks in Georgetown who agreed they had been bombarded.
“Citizens of that city confirmed Dr. Lloyd’s opinion by saying that during the explosion heavy objects, supposed to be meteoric fragments, had fallen on their houses with a sound resembling the tumbling of bricks.”
Alas, while it was foggy in Cincinnati, a deluge drenched Georgetown that morning and no one hankered to swim outside to hunt for shooting star shrapnel.
From "Cincinnati Post," January 12, 1916
Although the biggest, the 1916 bolide was far from the only meteor to threaten the Cincinnati region. The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [Jun 7, 1904] reported a meteor plunging into the sidewalk at First and Meigs streets in Dayton, leaving a twelve-inch crater and three fragments that were scooped up and sent to the state geologist.
The Cincinnati Post [November 17, 1902] heard from residents of Erlanger, who said a meteor fell on their town with a boom as loud as a cannon.
Hamilton recorded a meteor “the size of a bushel basket” plummeting to earth northeast of the city in 1930. A local magistrate attested to the veracity of the report.
The steam packet Buckeye State was narrowly missed by a meteor as it passed Ripley, Ohio. According to the Cincinnati Commercial [August 1, 1879]:
“The mass exploded within a few feet of the water, and formed a beautiful sight of but a few moments duration.”
A Price Hill resident, Joseph Mayhew, told the Commercial Tribune [September 7, 1913] that he remembered a large meteorite falling on his family’s farm in the 1860s:
“It was about dusk one evening when a farmhand named George Sands, who was working for us, rushed into the house and told how he had seen an immense ball of fire fall through the air and strike the ground with terrific force. We rushed to the outside of the house and ran in the direction in which the frightened farm hand pointed. Where Vincent avenue now is we came upon the meteor, which can be seen today.”
Although never recovered, a blazingly bright meteor fell on or exploded over Glendale, Ohio, in 1896. The Commercial Tribune [October 10, 1896] described it appearing in the southwest as a ball of green fire “hurled with terrific velocity toward the earth.” Because of its radiance, no one could determine exactly where it fell.
“The village was brilliantly illuminated for a period of ten seconds with a bright green light. The phenomenon was witnessed at Wyoming and Lockland, where it was seen speeding through the air at a wonderful rate and attracted much attention.”
Today, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office tracks some of the larger rocks sailing around our planet, but they don’t pay attention to anything much smaller than a school bus. Meanwhile, Cincinnati awaits the next round of planetary pinball.
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