CINCINNATI FIRSTS
•First city in which a concrete high-rise building was erected, 1902 (Ingalls Building, Fourth and
Vine Streets).
•First city to produce Catawba wine, 1828.
•First air mail (lifted in 1835 by hot air balloon).
•First city in nation to hold a municipal song festival, or Saengerfest, 1849.
•First city in nation to publish greeting cards, 1850 (Gibson Greeting Cards).
•First city in nation to establish a Jewish Hospital, 1850, and Jewish theological college, 1875
(Hebrew Union College).
•First practical steam fire engine, 1853, and first city to establish a municipal fire department.
First firemen’s pole.
•First professional baseball team, 1869, and first to play night game under lights, 1935.
•First city to establish a weather bureau, 1869.
•First city to hold annual industrial expositions, 1870’s.
•First city in nation to establish a municipal university, 1870 (University of Cincinnati), and the
first university to offer cooperative education. 1906.
•First and only city to build (1880) and own a major railroad (Track to Chattanooga, TN., now
leased to Southern Railway System). The real Chattanooga Choo-Choo ran from Cincinnati.
•First city in which a woman began and operated a sizeable manufacturing operation
(Rookwood Pottery, Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, 1880).
•First heart-lung machine (developed at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 1952. This made
open-heart surgery feasible).
•First city to have a licensed Public TV station, WCET-TV, 1954.
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