Staff report
The riverfront City of Ludlow and the railroad have a shared history dating back to to the 1870s, when the city began as a small town built on the back of the Cincinnati Southern Railway.
The Ludlow railway began after the Civil War as part of a much larger project, when the city of Cincinnati, looking for new markets to the South, opted for a route to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The city-owned project was a huge undertaking, requiring a vast financial investment, clearance from three states, engineering expertise, and contruction crews. The project would be funded through the sale of municipal bonds, and include the hiring of engineers and experts in the building of bridges and tunnels, as well as hundreds of German and Irish immigrant laborers.
Ludlow figured prominently in planning the route across the Ohio River and the offered several options for placement of the structure. The final placement was ultimately determined by the generosity of the Ludlow Family, who owned much of the land along the Kentucky side of the river in the 1870s…