The building of Eden Park — the reservoir, roads, park amenities and landscaping — have a fascinating history! In this series of articles, you can learn about the technical challenges, financing, role of water for industrialization, and ideas about how to make Cincinnati’s hill tops a desirable place to live. The period after the Civil War (known as Reconstruction) saw some of the most impressive infrastructure projects that characterize our city to the present. While we watch the new playground take shape on the old reservoir in Eden Park, spend some time reading about the history of that monument.
NOTE: Geoff Sutton uses some of this material in a weekly fourth-grade local history class at the Spencer Center. The kids love to learn about how the reservoir was built, especially the experiments demonstrating how thick the walls needed to be to hold the water in. Do you know as much as a fourth-grader?
Building the Reservoir:
- Construction during Reconstruction: Eden Park Reservoir Walls
- Construction during Reconstruction: Eden Park Reservoir Clay Fill and Cement Liner
- Construction during Reconstruction: Front Street Pumping Station
- Construction during Reconstruction: Eden Park Reservoir Influent Pipe
- Construction during Reconstruction: Eden Park Reservoir Effluent Pipe
- Construction during Reconstruction: Eden Park Reservoir Elsinore Gate
- Construction during Reconstruction: Mt. Auburn Reservoir
- Construction After Reconstruction: Eden Park Pump House and Water Tower
Water Quality:
- Construction During Reconstruction: Christian Moerlein and Water Quality at the Eden Park Reservoir
- Deconstructing Construction during Reconstruction: Financing the Reservoir Project
- Avoiding Construction During Reconstruction: Public Health, Sewage and Contaminated Water
- Construction After Reconstruction: Eden Park Filtration Testing
The Park the Reservoir Made Possible