In a 1953 guide to Cincinnati’s parks, John Travers Moore described Mount Airy Forest as “the colossus of the Cincinnati parks.”
That’s a fair assessment: At 1,459 acres, the urban forest just west of Colerain Avenue constitutes nearly 30 percent of the total acreage run by the Cincinnati Board of Park Commissioners, and the rest is spread across 140 other locations. Its closest siblings, the great hilltop parks envisioned a century ago as places to which the dense population of the city’s basin could escape, top out at just over 200 acres. Even Eden Park, home to such large-scale facilities as the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Krohn Conservatory and Seasongood Pavilion, comprises just 186 acres.
While parks officials are rightly proud of Mount Airy Forest, one thing it cannot claim is to be the biggest of its kind among other U.S. cities. Many cities, even within a few hundred miles’ radius, can lay claim to municipal parks at least as large. The nation’s largest U.S. city park lies out west, just south of Phoenix, where not just the sky is big. Recent additions to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Ariz., have expanded it to nearly 28,000 acres, now surpassing South Mountain Park in Phoenix, which at 16,280 acres was No. 1 for many years.
Closer to home, Louisville’s Jefferson Memorial Forest, at 6,500 acres, claims to be the largest U.S. “urban forest,” while Otter Creek Park covers 2,600 acres. Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis can claim nearly 5,000 acres, too, although more than a quarter of that is water. In Ohio, both the Brecksville and Mill Stream Run reservations, operated by Cleveland Metroparks, are bigger (3,000 and 2,200 acres, respectively), but they’re split across more than one municipality.
On the East Coast, Central Park in New York City may be the country’s most famous urban park, but Manhattan’s oasis includes only 843 acres. In fact, it’s not even New York’s biggest; that honor goes to Pelham Bay Park, at 2,765 acres.
Not to be outdone, Philadelphia can boast that its Fairmount Park checks in at more than 4,100 acres — up to 9,200 acres, if one includes its entire system of properties.
Even in the Tri-State, Mount Airy Forest isn’t top dog. Hamilton County’s Great Parks system includes four parks bigger than Mount Airy Forest. The biggest, Miami-Whitewater Forest, mostly in Crosby Township, covers 4,438 acres, according to the Great Parks website.
Across the Ohio River, Covington’s Devou Park is No. 1. It checks in at a respectable 704 acres.
Though it’s not the biggest by most measures, Mount Airy Forest stands as a pioneering effort both in municipal recreation and reforestation. At the turn of the 20th century, its land — bordered roughly by Colerain Avenue, West Fork Road and Westwood Northern Boulevard — was covered by small farms that were becoming less and less viable because of deforestation and the erosion that came with it.
The 1988 reprint of the park board’s 1953 guide quotes a 1914 Cincinnati Times-Star editorial, in which a farmer is reported to have said his farm had started out well, but “since he had cleared off the trees, it had slid down the [West Fork] creek and was to be found somewhere in the neighborhood of New Orleans.”
The idea for the forest came from George Kessler, author of the visionary 1907 master plan which led to the creation of dozens of parks across the city, particularly atop the city’s hills, and the development of a new system of spacious, green parkways, including Central, Columbia and Victory parkways, to ease traffic congestion and improve roadway aesthetics.
George Kessler’s vision
In the “1913 Cincinnati Park Board Annual Report,” George Kessler described the need for Mount Airy Forest:
“[I]n every large city the out-door recreation and opportunity it gives for healthful enjoyment, the System, as a whole, becomes incomplete, unless one or more great outlying properties are acquired. These properties should be large enough to receive a very large portion of the population at any one time without overcrowding and really bring the country within easy reach of the great urban population. …[I]n Cincinnati, the gradual acquisition of the properties — now known as Mt. Airy Forest — would supply … one of the finest forests … that could be established in about any city in the country.”
The first parcel of what would become Mount Airy Forest — 168 acres — was purchased in 1911, and, within the next 10 years, more than 1,000 acres had been assembled. Reforestation efforts began almost immediately; eventually more than 1 million trees were planted on what was the first municipal forest in the United States.
Suggested plan for a beer garden in Mount Airy Forest. Mayor John Cranley has backed the plan publicly. (Using a desktop? Click to enlarge.)
Among its many features, the park includes miles of hiking and horse trails, gazebos, a dog park, treehouse and a disc golf course. About 30 acres of the park are dedicated to the Mount Airy Arboretum, which was started in 1930. Besides growing more than 1,600 species of trees and shrubs, the arboretum is an educational resource for students and adult groups.
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley caused controversy in 2014 when he proposed building a beer garden in Mount Airy Forest near the arboretum. He cited Munich’s Englischer Garten (English Garden) as inspiration and said the addition would bring new energy to the park and make it an engine for revitalization of the city’s West Side neighborhoods.
Top 9 parks in Hamilton County
Of the largest parks in Hamilton County, only Mount Airy Forest is not part of the Great Parks of Hamilton County system:
- Miami-Whitewater Forest (mostly in Crosby Township): 4,438 acres
- Shawnee Lookout (Miami Township): 2,430
- Winton Woods (surrounding Greenhills): 2,555
- Mitchell Memorial Forest (Miami Township): 1,473
- Mount Airy Forest (Cincinnati): 1,459
- Woodland Mound (mostly Anderson Township): 1,067
- Sharon Woods (Sharonville): 730
- Little Miami Golf Center (Anderson Township): 620
- Glenwood Gardens (Woodlawn): 335
Sources: GreatParks.org, CincinnatiParks.com
