ABOUT THIS SERIES
The Journal-News is highlighting Hamilton’s 17 unique neighborhoods in conjunction with the city’s 17Strong Initiative. The Journal-News will highlight a different Hamilton neighborhood’s history and current community on the Thursday Hamilton page once a month. Your stories, memories, and photographs are welcome. Email items to vivienne.machi@coxinc.com.
Highland Park resident Cris Crowthers is excited to revive the neighborhood tradition of Christmas Eve luminarias glowing throughout the neighborhood on Hamilton’s west side.
Hamilton residents visited Highland Park annually for years to see the visual path of glowing candles in white paper bags that covered the whole neighborhood, but luminarias haven’t been placed neighborhood-wide since 2006. Now that community involvement has grown thanks to almost 80 residents joining the Highland Park group on Nextdoor.com, Crowthers and fellow resident Bill Brunner hope to see the twinkling lights stretch across the blocks once more beginning at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“To come home at 11 p.m. at night after going to church or being with family and see all those lights out is so peaceful,” Crowthers said.
The neighborhood of Highland Park dates back to at least 1919, when the Miami Land Syndicate and the Callahan-Reed Development company advertised lots in a planned neighborhood on the west side of Hamilton, according to lifelong resident and neighborhood historian Dave Duricy.
“Callahan-Reed’s advertising called Highland Park ‘The Place for a Real Home,’” he said. “This was the place where a successful Hamiltonian could build his dream house.”
The neighborhood, which was traditionally a grid two blocks wide and eight streets deep running east and west between Highland and Cereal avenues, has spread over the years to include the former Lawn Park, Lawn View and Elm Park subdivisions.
The original residents were probably bankers, businessmen and attorneys, said Brunner, who remembered when “there was always a waiting list for homes.”
“People were disappointed if a house sold and they didn’t know about it,” he said. Though he did not grow up in Highland Park, Brunner raised three children there and plans to live out his days in the neighborhood.
Because of their style and build, Highland Park homes quickly became part of the social engine that made Hamilton a busy place, said Duricy. Local architects George Barkman — who designed the Journal-News Building — and Frederick Mueller — who designed the Municipal Building at 20 High St. that now houses Heritage Hall and the Hamilton Mill — both built several neighborhood homes.
The charm and aesthetic of Highland Park’s homes are drawing younger families to the area as well.
Cody Smallwood, 24, was born in Hamilton, but said that he and his wife weren’t planning on settling in the city as both work outside its borders.
“Highway access was our main goal,” he said, but the character and history of the Highland Park homes eventually won them over, and they moved into the neighborhood this past January.
“We fell in love with the curved archways of the homes, and felt extremely at home here,” he said.
Eric Beadle, 26, grew up in Fairfield, but he and his wife Elizabeth spent the past two years living in the Washington, D.C., area.
“We knew we wanted to move back to Hamilton, but weren’t expecting for it to happen so soon,” he said. But like Smallwood, Highland Park’s signature homes and friendly community sealed the deal.
“We always wanted one of those old character homes, and we happened to Google homes in Hamilton and this one (on Dick Avenue) just called to us,” he said.
He added that he had originally been reluctant to move back to the area.
“A lot of people had that stigma tied to Hamilton,” he said, but the efforts to improve downtown Hamilton make him proud to be a resident, he said.
Neither Beadle nor Smallwood have children yet, but said Highland Park’s family-friendly atmosphere was a big factor in their choice to move to the neighborhood.
Seeing new families settle down in her neighborhood helps convince Crowthers that Highland Park has come full circle as the “place to be” in Hamilton.
“The people in Highland Park want that to be as true today as when Highland Park was first built, — that safe, well-maintained, neighborly community in and of itself,” she said.
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