Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001
To add to that, Cincinnati lives and dies by the Ohio River. I'm greatly simplifying this, but essentially, Cincinnati lost out big by failing to capitalize on the switch from riverboats to trains.
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well, i think cincinnati did try, as did st. louis...both places were organically developing just fine and both had a reasonable number of railroads (and importantly...banks)...and then a suffocating torrent of capital opened to practically *only* chicago partially because the other two self-sufficient big transport and banking hubs of the midwest were too close to the south. i'm sure cincinnati had some big railroads planned (and was a larger, richer banking hub early on) and st. louis had a railroad to the pacific planned
very early on...and it's immortalized in the stained glass in union station...it just kept running out of money. chicago, however, was handed a blank check by the east coast.