ILLUSTRATION BY LARS LEETARU
Iam not a doctor, but I play one in this magazine. I’m a specialist in the treatment of ACC (Acute Cincinnati Curiosity), a recurring condition that’s incurable, although it can be managed with proper care. The Doctor cares and shares every patient’s passion for finding answers to Cincinnati’s most elusive questions. With the publication of this month’s Dr. Know column, I have now occupied this esteemed position for 10 years. It’s time for a performance review.
Dr. Know was created in 2008 by Albert Pyle, who apparently wasn’t busy enough as executive director of the venerable Mercantile Library. He realized that our town lacked an authoritative source for answers to the public’s tiniest questions. Not the big questions that perplex everyone, like, “Why does every third parking meter in Cincinnati have an unreadable display?” No, the Doctor would instead solve the smaller mysteries that perplex almost no one, such as, “How many York Peppermint Patties per day does Skyline Chili sell at their checkout counters?” If a book called 2,000 Things to Know About Cincinnati existed that was successful enough to have sequels, the Dr. Know-type items would show up in Volume 4.
I was honored to inherit Pyle’s inbox when he retired, and I proudly began moving items to the outbox: Skyline unloads as many as 29,400 patties per day (from the October 2014 column). Pyle established the formality of third-person “the Doctor” usage, which I have continued. I think it helps the reader visualize me as better-dressed than I actually am.
Your submissions are sometimes surprising, but the majority are fairly typical, such as, “A relative/friend tells me that X was once a thing in Cincinnati. Is that true?” Usually it is. Yes, we actually had a downtown store in the 1920s called Ku Klux Klothes (May 2021). Yes, we briefly had a professional football team calling itself the Cincinnati Reds (November 2015). Yes, super-prudish Cincinnati really did have a local nudist colony for over 40 years that was never once raided by the cops (July 2023).
Sometimes we receive legal questions, which launch me into asking the Cincinnati Police about what will or won’t get citizens in trouble. It is perfectly legal, for instance, to ride your horse down local streets as long as you and the horse observe all traffic regulations (March 2021). Sometimes a question deserves hours of research simply because it’s so charmingly pointless: Cincinnati’s oldest continuously operating telephone number at its original address is the number 717, installed in 1895; later becoming Main 717; then MA1-0717; then 621-0717; and now (513) 621-0717. Thank you for calling the Mercantile Library, Albert Pyle’s alma mater (November 2020). No, he didn’t send me that question.
Afew minor Cincinnati myths have been debunked by the Doctor, to the consternation of those who prefer the legend. Sorry, but the gigantic bell at St. Francis de Sales church in Walnut Hills did not shatter windows for blocks around in 1895 when it was first rung (May 2019). Bogart’s didn’t open in 1895 as a burlesque/vaudeville house; it premiered in 1910 as a nickelodeon (August 2015). Movie cowboy Roy Rogers was not born anywhere near the future second base of Riverfront Stadium (October 2023). The bronze plaque on Government Square commemorating a 1962 speech by President John F. Kennedy has the date wrong (August 2014).
In my Decade of Doctordom I have received a handful of questions that failed to find answers, but I am proud to announce here that I’ve revisited and solved some. The Starbucks at Fourth and Vine downtown is in a 19th century building displaying the words “German National Bank” above the main entrance. Those words were suddenly covered by a “Lincoln National Bank” sign in 1917, when World War I inspired Cincinnati to pretend we weren’t German anymore. A reader wanted to know (March 2016) when the original name was allowed to show again. Various signs had covered it for many decades, but the Doctor couldn’t determine when it was liberated. Deeper research has now confirmed it happened in November 1995.
Hey, this stuff matters to people! When you submit your own dumbass question, the Doctor will fight for you like an ambulance-chasing attorney! You pay nothing until your mystery is solved, at which time you also get nothing.
There was one time I solved a weird mystery but stumbled on an even weirder one. A reader wanted help finding out what had happened to his great-uncle Arthur, who seemed to have vanished after he moved from his Walnut Hills home in 1947. Well, I found him, but this is what I also found (August 2022): Uncle Arthur hadn’t moved at all; he lived right there in the same house until his death in 1954. The city of Cincinnati had simply declared in 1947 that the alley behind Arthur’s house was now his official street, that his back door was now his front door, and that his entire block now lived a block away.
Other unknowns have remained unknown. We’re still scratching our heads about the origin of the term “Cincinnati Sling,” which describes a heavily cushioned strap used for extricating victims from car crashes and other disasters. The name seems to exist only in Australia and the UK, and we can’t find anyone locally or globally who knows where it came from (January 2018).
A few additional questions still await answers: Sandy Koufax’s uniform number from the one 1954 season he pitched baseball for UC (March 2018) and why Google Street View doesn’t let you “drive” on Braddock Street near Anderson Ferry to see Pete Rose’s boyhood home (April 2019).
The Doctor’s readers include a small volunteer army of schoolmarms who gleefully tattle on misspellers. The sign at Riverhills Neuroscience in Norwood said “Nueroscience” for months until we outed them (May 2017). The street sign at the corner of 15th and Republic Streets in Over-the-Rhine said “Repulic”—there wasn’t even an empty space for the “b,” which must have een terrily emarrassing—until we got it fixed (December 2014). Nobody seems to know why Birney Lane in Anderson Township calls itself Burney Lane in some places (October 2017). And there’s nothing anybody can do about Teresa Brewer’s 1950 recording of “Cincinnati Dancing Pig,” on which the city’s name is spelled out with two T’s by the background singers (June 2016).
Speaking of errors, the Doctor has owned up to his over the years. I wrote (December 2014) that on most seasons of The Andy Griffith Show the map of Mayberry behind Andy’s desk was actually a map of Cincinnati. That part was true, but I foolishly added that nobody on the show had ever looked at or referred to the map. That’s wrong, said a disturbing number of local Andy Griffith experts. The Doctor confessed that in Season 4 Episode 7 Andy and Barney faced the map and pointed directly to Burnet Woods, which apparently is downtown Mayberry (March 2017). I’ve received other angry reactions about the accuracy of a topic, but that one seemed to be the most important.
Most submissions to the Doctor’s desk are odd and cute, but now and then we brush up against seriousness. A reader’s young grandson learned about the time when U.S. newspapers specified “whites only” in their classified ads for jobs and housing, and she wanted to know when Cincinnati papers stopped doing it (September 2023). The 1964 Civil Rights Act ended the practice most everywhere, although I found that our local papers took another year slowing to a complete stop. Other columns addressed Cincinnati media silence as the city dragged its feet in desegregating amusement parks and pools (July 2021). Our city has a lot to be proud of, including being able to acknowledge the things we’re not proud of.
In my first decade as Dr. Know, there has only been one time I found the answer to a question but politely declined to publish it (December 2015): Carl Lindner’s final resting place. He was Cincinnati’s wealthiest and most powerful businessman, and his charitable contributions to the city were huge, as were his many political activities that generated controversy. When he died in 2011, Lindner’s hometown of Norwood held an enormous parade and public tribute, but his funeral and burial were private and his gravesite’s location has never been disclosed. When asked to reveal it, I replied, “Lindner gave us much; let’s give him this.”
I absolutely love this job. Cincinnati’s crawl spaces are fascinating, as are the people I’ve met who show them to me. Albert Pyle passed away in 2022, but the bow-tied character he created affords me endless opportunities to flaunt my vocabulary. And cracking a tough mystery, even if it’s a pointless one—especially if it’s a pointless one—makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes.
If you care to join in the fun, submit your questions about the city’s peculiarities here.
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