Cincinnati tourist information
Formerly known as Losantiville, the city was renamed Cincinnati by the first governor of the Northwest Territory, Arthur St. Clair, in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, a society named after Roman consul Cincinnatus and founded at the end of the Revolutionary War. Many members of the Society were prominent men in the early years of the United States.
The city's early economy was based on the pork industry, and this was celebrated in the summer of 2000 with the Big Pig Gig, during which large flying pig statues took up residence along the city's main thoroughfares. Many of these pig statues later found homes downtown in offices, parks and even private residences. The Miami and Erie canal was completed in the 1840s, and was used to transport hogs and butchered pork products to Cincinnati from much of western Ohio.
Cincinnati also has a charming riverboat heritage that dates back to the days when large, steam and paddle-wheel driven vessels were used to transport locally produced pork products. In recognition of this tradition, the city plays host to the Tall Stacks Festival every four years, during which time the river front is transformed into a mass of color, with river boats of all shapes and sizes jostling for positions along the river banks. Baseball is another Cincinnati tradition, and the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team in the United States; in deference to that, Opening Day is always a home game for the Reds, held at Great American Ball Park.
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"Please?"
No, Cincinnatians are not correcting your manners. Cincinnati's linguistic claim to fame is the distinctive expression its residents use when other English-speaking Americans might say "What?" or "Could you repeat that?" Cincinnati was built by German immigrants, whose native expression was "Bitte?", which translates most directly into English as... "Please?"
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Cincinnati has a thriving local industrial economy and is home to many businesses ranging from manufacturing to services, including General Electric, Procter and Gamble, Fifth Third Bank, Milacron, Chiquita, Kroger, Federated Department Stores, and the American Financial Group. In World Wars I and II, Cincinnati's local machine tool companies, such as LeBlond (now Makino) and the Cincinnati Screw and Tap Company (now Milacron), played an important role, providing what is commonly considered the best machine tool technology in the world for its time.
Recently, Cincinnati has seen some large scale "revitalization" projects, such as the construction of Great American Ball Park and Paul Brown Stadium, the reconstruction of Fountain Square, and the beginnings of restoration of Over-The-Rhine through the "Gateway Quarter". Despite the progress, county officials, city government, and area residents remain flabbergasted that other large scale projects like "The Banks" ? a finally under construction site for an upscale hotel, shopping and dining center ? were undeveloped for over 10 years, while the smaller cities of Newport and Covington, across the Ohio River, continue to develop their riverfronts and draw visitors away from Cincinnati.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Cincinnati
