History of Mt. Healthy

Mt. Healthy began its life in 1817 as a small settlement called Mt. Pleasant.  Situated approximately halfway between Cincinnati in the south and Fort Hamilton in the north, Mt. Pleasant saw many travelers along its main street, which later became Hamilton Avenue.  This road became so well-traveled that in 1840, it was converted into a toll road; the accompanying toll house now belongs to the Mt. Healthy Historical Society, which uses it as a museum.

When the cholera epidemic struck Cincinnati in 1849, many residents fled north to Mt. Pleasant, which had proven to be a sanctuary from the disease, undoubtedly due to the lack of urban crowding and distance from the Ohio River, which had allowed the disease to spread so disastrously in Cincinnati.  For this reason (and due to some confusion over another small Ohio town named Mt. Pleasant), Mt. Pleasant was renamed to Mt. Healthy.

During the Civil War, many homes in Mt. Healthy served as stations on the Underground Railroad, and the city generally was quite involved in seeking freedom for all men.  This caused the population to grow, as many freed slaves came to live here due to the city’s strong abolitionist sentiment.  Mt. Healthy was eventually incorporated as a village in 1893, and, due to its still-growing population, became a city in 1951, when the population finally exceeded 5,000.