Year 2022 will mark a number of significant anniversaries in the Cincinnati area. Some of the events were notable for our local culture. Some were life changing.
As we head into the new year, these significant historic events are worth noting.
‘Freezer Bowl’ – 40 years ago
The pinnacle for the Bengals franchise is the team’s victory in the 1982 AFC Championship Game that sent them to their first Super Bowl. Led by coach Forrest Gregg and MVP quarterback Ken Anderson, the Bengals had won their first playoff game and just needed to beat the San Diego Chargers to be AFC champions.
The temperatures at Riverfront Stadium on Jan. 10, 1982, were subzero – a minus 59-degree wind chill, as it was computed at the time – making the “Freezer Bowl” one of the coldest games in NFL history.
A sell-out crowd witnessed the Bengals’ 27-7 victory, and everyone who was there that day can still feel the numbing cold in their bones. Although the Bengals would fall to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XVI, this game was one for the ages.
1997 flood – 25 years ago
One of the most devastating floods in Cincinnati history was, shockingly, a quarter of a century ago. In March 1997, days of heavy rains led to flash flooding in Adams County, Kentucky. The Licking River reached 52 feet, flooding the towns of Falmouth and Butler.
Then the Ohio River crested at 64.7 feet on March 5. Images of muddy-brown water engulfing the Cincinnati riverfront around Cinergy Field are ingrained in our local memory.
Kentucky and Southern Indiana were the hardest hit, with damage across the region totaling $400 million, according to the National Weather Service. There were five deaths in Ohio, 17 in Kentucky. Even 25 years later, this one still seems fresh.
More:Licking River flooding repairs in Cynthiana are tragic and ceaseless, even 24 years later
Cincinnati chili – 100 years ago
Cincinnati-style chili will celebrate its centennial. The iconic local dish – beloved in the Queen City and the source of some head-scratching nationally – was introduced in 1922 at the Empress Lunch Room by the Kiradjieff brothers, Tom (Athanas) and John (Ivan), from Macedonia.
They served a Greek beef stew that was called saltsa kima back home, but here it was advertised as chili con carne (chili with meat) because the description would familiar to Cincinnatians. They poured the chili over a plate of spaghetti or small coney hotdogs. Just about every local chili parlor derived from the Empress Chili recipe.
Kings Island – 50 years ago
Kings Island will launch its 50th-anniversary celebration with the new season in the spring. The amusement park was born out of the old Coney Island along the Ohio River, which closed in 1971. Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting Co. had been looking for an amusement park to promote its Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, such as Scooby-Doo, and purchased old Coney in 1969, but the frequent flooding in the area prompted Taft to instead build a new $20 million park in Warren County.
Kings Island opened on April 29, 1972. Many of Coney’s carnival-style rides were relocated to the new park, but the owners opted to build a new roller coaster, the twin-track Racer, which debuted on opening day. Taft’s Hollywood connections brought “The Partridge Family” to film at Kings Island that first season, then “The Brady Bunch” the following year.
More:'The most precious available land.' With the rides gone, leaders ponder Coney Island area's future
More:Remembering old Coney Island
WLW on the air – 100 years ago
Powel Crosley Jr. wanted better programming to promote his new Crosley radio, so he launched his own station, WLW, in March 1922. The grand opening broadcast featured classical music and Enquirer news bulletins.
For five years starting in 1934, WLW had the strongest radio signal in the world – 500,000 watts – and could be heard around the globe. Future stars Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney and Andy Williams started on WLW, as did one of the first soap operas, “Ma Perkins.”
Over the years, 700 WLW has been home to Ruth Lyons’ “50-50 Club,” Bill Cunningham and the legendary Reds broadcasting team of Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall.
Cincinnati Royals leave – 50 years ago
Cincinnati’s NBA team, the Royals, spent just 15 years in the Queen City, moving here from Rochester, New York, in 1957. Aided by the territorial draft rules at the time, the Royals had picked up University of Cincinnati star Oscar Robertson and Ohio State’s Jerry Lucas, both future Hall of Famers, but the team could never surpass Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics. At the end of the 1972 season, the Royals left Cincinnati Gardens and became the Kansas City-Omaha Kings. Today, the franchise is the Sacramento Kings.
NBA legends played in Cincinnati: A look at the Royals' best opponents
Inclines – 150 years ago
The incline transport system was Cincinnati’s solution to the problem of scaling the hills and expanding to suburbs. Things had gotten quite cramped and unhealthy in the city basin until the inclines offered a way up and down the hills. The Main Street Incline, a.k.a. the Mount Auburn Incline, opened May 12, 1872.
A powerhouse atop the hill cranked platforms carrying passengers or streetcars up and down along steel cables. The other inclines were Price Hill, Mount Adams, Bellevue and Fairview. To attract riders, each incline had a resort nearby such as the Highland House and Lookout House with live entertainment.
The inclines were vital to the development of Cincinnati in the late 19th century, but once automobiles could get people up the hills, the inclines became a novelty. The Mount Adams Incline, the last, closed in 1948.
Rabbi Sally – 50 years ago
Sally Priesand was ordained by Hebrew Union College at Plum Street Temple on June 3, 1972, to become the first female rabbi in America and only the second in the world in the entire history of Judaism. (Rabbi Regina Jonas was ordained in Berlin in 1935, but was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.)
Rabbi Sally, as she was known, shattered the gender barrier, and since then women have become the majority of rabbinical students. She served as rabbi in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, until her retirement in 2006.
Mayor Ted Berry – 50 years ago
Theodore M. Berry had served on Cincinnati City Council on and off since 1949 when he became the city’s first Black mayor 50 years ago. At that time, the Charter-Democrat Coalition agreement was if the two parties held the majority of City Council, they would share time as mayor. Berry, a Charterite, finally got his turn to step into the mayor’s office on Dec. 1, 1972. He was an inspiration throughout the city, particularly in the area of civil rights during a contentious time.
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