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Distributed for University of Cincinnati Press

Bicycling Through Paradise

Historical Tours Around Cincinnati

Bicycling Through Paradise is a collection of twenty historically themed cycling tours broken into 10-mile segments centered around Cincinnati, Ohio. Written by two longtime cyclists—one a professor of history and one an architect—the book is an affectionate, intimate, and provocative reading of the local landscape and history from the perspectives of cycling and Cincinnati enthusiasts. Tours, navigated by Smythe and Hanlon, take cyclers past Native American sites, early settler homesteads, and locations made know through recent Ohio change-makers as navigated by the authors. With extensive details on routes and sites along the way, tours between 20 and 80 miles in length are designed for all levels of cyclists, and even the armchair explorer.

Riders and readers will visit towns called Edenton, Loveland, Felicity, and Utopia. Along the journey, they’ll encounter an abandoned Shaker village near the Whitewater Forest and a tiny dairy house called “Harmony Hill,” the oldest standing structure in Clermont County, Ohio. They’ll also take in the view from the top of a 2,000-year-old, 75-foot tall, conical Indian mound at Miamisburg. Riders can follow the Little Miami Scenic Trail and take a detour to a castle on the banks of the Little Miami River. Other sights include a full-scale replica of the tomb of Jesus in Northern Kentucky and the small pleasures of public parks, covered bridges, tree-lined streets, riverside travel, and one-room schoolhouses. And if all this isn’t exactly Paradise, well, it’s pretty close.


350 pages | 30 halftones | 5 x 8 | © 2025

Thinking About Ohio

History: American History, Urban History

Sport and Recreation


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Table of Contents

Introduction        
Cycling Advice 
Part I: Waterways                                                        
1.     Path Dependency: Layers of History along the Mill Creek                                                       
        Northside, Ivorydale, Elmwood Place, and Lockland 
2.     William Henry Harrison and the Shawnee Nation                         
        The Ohio River Valley West to Harrison’s Tomb, Shawnee Lookout, and Indiana
3.      Visions and Dreams on the Little Miami Scenic Trail                    
         From Milford to Xenia via Loveland Castle, Kings’ Mills, and George Barrett’s Concrete House 
4.      Floodplains and Hilltops
         Eden and Ault Parks, Cincinnati Observatory, Pioneer Settlement and Lunken Airport 
5.     Following the River: The Story of Mary Ingles
         Alexandria and Bellevue, Kentucky
 6.     Swimming Pools, Parks, and the Integration of Coney Island
7.      The Whitewater Canal Route                                                                 
          Indiana from West Harrison to Cedar Grove, Brookville, and Metamora 
Part II: Paradise
8.      Bicycling Through Paradise                                                                   
         Mariemont, Perintown, Harmony Hill, Felicity, and Utopia
9.     The Party Tour: Breweries and Inclines                                                        
         Amusements Past and Present in Over-The-Rhine
10.    Town and Country                                                                                               
         Mt. Airy Forest, Winton Woods, Greenhills, Glendale and Sharon Woods 
11.    A Holy City: Churches, synagogues, and Shrines
        Northern Kentucky, Downtown Cincinnati, Walnut Hills and Evanston
12.  Immortality and its Consequences                                                      
       Spring Grove, College Hill, Fernald Preserve, and Whitewater Shaker Village 
13.   Immortality, Continued                                                   
        Hamilton, the Hollow Earth Monument, Chrisholm Farmstead, and Miamisburg Mound 
Part III: Big Ideas
14.     Homeland Insecurity                                                                             
          Military Installations from Fort Washington to Newport Barracks to Fort Thomas, Kentucky 
15.      People, Animals, Water, and Salt                                                                               
           Anderson Ferry, Burlington, Kentucky, Rabbit Hash and Big Bone Lick 
16.      Building a Nation’s Soil: The Civilian Conservation Corps                                          
          Big Bone Lick and Walton, Kentucky 
 17.     Black Community Leadership in Madisonville                                                                             
18.      Crosstown Missions                                                                                           
           Xavier University, University of Cincinnati, and Hebrew Union College 
19.      Art Deco Architecture                                                                           
           Lunken Airport, Downtown, Union Terminal, and the Mt. Washington Water Tower 
20.      Industry, Rustbelt, and Re-development                                                   
           Norwood, Oakley, and Madisonville 
 

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