Our final day at the Western and Southern Open was supposed to be a travel day. But we had just enough time before our flight to squeeze in one adventure.
One possibility was to drive through Cincinnati and actually see some of the city the tournament is named after. But ultimately, the cry of nature lured us towards open spaces.
Without much forethought we made our destination a point on the map named Shawnee Lookout. I figured we had time to stop, take in a view and be on our way. As a bonus, we'd be awfully close to the tripoint of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, most likely seeing all three states from one vantage point.
Alas, we never did make it to Shawnee Lookout, though we did make it to the park in the area. We hiked a bit of the Miami Fort Trail and got surprisingly close to Miami Fort Power Station. Its massive cooling tower has strong Simpsons vibes.
It would have been glorious if we could have hiked more in the area and found Shawnee Lookout. But yeah, missing our flight wasn't an option. If we return to the tournament, I'll definitely carve out time to fully explore the area.
While doing research for this post, I found a number of historic maps of the area. It's fascinating to see what has and hasn't changed. The maps also explain the relatively strange name of the area we hiked: Miami Fort, versus say Fort Miami. A fort is noted in an 1856 survey, and the area is noted again as Fort Hill in 1915. So what do you call a fort that's not named? Well, it's clearly near the Miami River, so it seems reasonable to call it Miami Fort.
One mystery I'm still puzzling over is what to make of the annotations like F.R.1 and T.1. They must be significant as all four historic maps make mention of them and do so in large print. Any ideas what these markings mean?
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