An old African proverb states, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” That was literally true in a dispute among some of Cincinnati’s wealthiest men in 1877. Their dispute led to the creation of a most bizarre, if temporary, landmark, planted amid a downtown lawn.
The first combatant was James R. Gilmore (1814-1897). Mr. Gilmore was a very private man. He regularly visited his Masonic lodge and the Mercantile Library, but otherwise rarely left his office or his house, both located on the north side of Fourth Street between Vine and Race streets.
With various partners, Mr. Gilmore operated a commercial bank and brokerage firm, the front door of which faced Fourth Street. He lived in a comparatively modest house located in the middle of the block, just outside the back door of his business. With tall office buildings sprouting throughout the downtown area, and with the nearby intersection of Fifth and Vine streets decaying into its reputation as the “Nasty Corner,” Mr. Gilmore maintained a little pastoral retreat here, tending a lawn and garden adjacent to his house that was variously described as “ample” and “commodious.”
From Cincinnati Enquirer September 6, 1908 (John) From Cincinnati Enquirer January 17, 1906 (Thomas)
Into this garden in 1877 crept two titans of Cincinnati real estate, the brothers Emery, Thomas and John. Sons of Thomas Emery Sr., who built a fortune transforming Cincinnati’s abundant pig fat into candles and lamp oil, the brothers became Cincinnati’s most acquisitive landowners. The Cincinnati Enquirer [January 17, 1906] described them as “the largest taxpayers and probably the most extensive holders of paying real estate in Ohio.”
“Their tax bill for the past six months in Cincinnati alone was more than $55,000. Many of the most valuable business blocks and hundreds of houses in Chicago, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Toledo, San Francisco and Denver belong to the Emerys and, while it is not possible to give a correct estimate of the amount of their wealth, it can safely be estimated at from $25,000,000 to $35,000,000.”
The Emery family would eventually build Cincinnati’s iconic Carew Tower, but in 1877 the brothers’ interests were somewhat more modest. They planned to build a hotel with its entrance located in a skylit arcade running across the entire block housing dozens of little shops. Kenny’s 1893 “Illustrated Cincinnati” describes this landmark addition to Cincinnati’s mercantile environment:
From “Illustrated Guide to Cincinnati” by D.J. Kenny (1893)
“The Emery Arcade is a covered passage-way, leading from Vine to Race streets, at a point about midway between Fourth and Fifth streets. There are numerous small stores at each side, filled with notions, trinkets, laces and nick-nacks of various kinds. The roof is of glass, supported upon light, iron girders, and is about forty feet from the pavement, thus affording two stories. The upper rooms, called the Arcade Chambers, are devoted to offices. The passage-way is about fifteen feet in width, and at night is illuminated by gas lamps suspended from the centre of the roof. The restaurant, and entrance to the Arcade Hotel fronts on the Vine street end of the Arcade, and is generally ornamented with evergreens in tubs, presenting a very pleasing effect.”
For the next 50 years, the Emery Arcade was a must-see attraction in Cincinnati, but in 1877, it was a nuisance to Mr. Gilmore. Not only did the six-story Emery project dominate his lawn and garden, but the Emerys had the affrontery to puncture their invading wall with an array of round windows like portholes to provide light and ventilation into the hotel and arcade. These so-called “bullseye” windows irritated Mr. Gilmore to no end and he invested enormous effort into searching for a way to banish the Emery Brothers forever.
To no avail, Mr. Gilmore claimed that the offending bullseyes allowed tenants of the Emery property to spy upon his private lawn. The Emerys responded that the bullseyes were seven feet above the floor and accessible only by stepladder. Mr. Gilmore then hypothesized that burglars could rent space in the hotel and scramble through the bullseyes to burgle his bank. In response, the Emerys offered to install iron bars on the bullseyes, but Mr. Gilmore remained unsatisfied.
Mr. Gilmore got enormously good news when a survey he commissioned determined that the Emerys, in building their new hotel, had infringed upon his property by an inch and a half. He immediately set to work, hiring contractors to construct a stone tower to cover up the offending bullseyes. According to the Cincinnati Commercial [April 8, 1877]:
“The Gilmore Tower, as our picture shows, is quite an ornamental affair, finished off with regular battlement. It is about ten feet in diameter at the base and nearly forty feet high, and is really rather an ornament to the back yard. It has become such an attraction that there are advertisements telling of the points from which it may be seen to advantage. It is Mr. Gilmore’s purpose to have it covered with ivy, when it will be the most picturesque object in the back yard of any gentleman in Cincinnati.”
From Cincinnati Commercial April 8, 1877
The kerfuffle garnered national attention and was featured in the April 21, 1877 edition of The American Architect and Building News, which reported the saucy details with relish.
The Emerys fumed and consulted attorneys and announced to the local newspapers that they would file suit to recover some $20,000 in damages inflicted by removal of light and air circulation from their new construction. It appears that resolution was achieved via nonjudicial methods, and the Gilmore Tower was dismantled within a year or so. At least one newspaper opined that Mr. Gilmore and the Emery Brothers were entirely missing the point. The Cincinnati Commercial [April 8, 1877] suggested:
“The only thing surprising about this is, that neither the Emerys nor Mr. Gilmore look upon the structure in its relations to the adornment of the city, or from the humorous point of view.”
In 1878, Mr. Gilmore sold his bank and brokerage to the National Bank of Commerce. His property on Fourth Street was leased to the H.S. Pogue dry goods store. Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore spent much of their retirement in Europe. Mary Ann Gilmore died in Florence, Italy, in 1891; James Gilmore in Tyrol, Austria, in 1897. Both are buried in Spring Grove Cemetery where, as fate would have it, the brothers Emery also slumber through eternity.
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