About Hamilton

The City of Hamilton is situated in Butler County, located in southwestern Ohio. Hamilton's close proximity relative to the metropolitan areas of Cincinnati (25 miles south) and Dayton (35 miles north) place it at the center of expanding markets and a highly skilled work force.

History of the City

Hamilton first appeared on the Map in 1791 as Fort Hamilton, a frontier outpost on the east bank of the Great Miami River. The fort was named after Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury. The area's first settlers were land speculators and Revolutionary War Veterans.

When Ohio was admitted as a state in 1803, Hamilton was designated the county seat of newly-created Butler County, even though the town had a population of less than 200 people. Because of its river location, Hamilton's first industries, textiles and paper, were directly related to water. However, with the arrival of large numbers of German immigrants in the 1830s and 1840s, the industrial scope of Hamilton expanded rapidly.

Today, Hamilton is the governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural, center of Butler County. With a population of over 65,000, the City offers the cultural amenities and history of a large city in a suburban setting.

Highlights of Hamilton

• The Mosler Safe Company of Hamilton built the vault that protects our nations most valuable documents, The Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights, and The Constitution of the United States.
• Rudolph Theim, a German immigrant, who originally came to Hamilton to hand paint stoves for the Estate Stove Company is responsible for designing and sculpting Billy Yank. Billy Yank is the statue on top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Hamilton. The statue was officially dedicated in 1904.
• Charles F. Ritcher, who is the inventor of the Richter Scale, which is the measurement of an earthquakes intensity, was born in Hamilton.
• Hamilton is hometown for William Dean Howells. He is author of the first biography of Abraham Lincoln and A Boys Town.
• Don V. Siebert, former CEO of J.C. Penney's, was born and raised in Hamilton. He began his retailing career in his father's store which was located on High Street.
• The author of Backstreet, Fannie Hurst, grew up in Hamilton.
• Joe Nuxhall, the youngest player ever in Major League Baseball, was a 9th grade student in Hamilton while he was pitching for the Cincinnati Reds.
• Robert McCloskey, author of many children's books, was born and raised in Hamilton. The children's wing of the Lane Public Library is dedicated to him. When he was a Senior in High School, he did the Freize artwork around the City Building.
• Butler County ranks third in Ohio and 121st in the nation for quality of life in urban counties.
• When the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the center of the blast was a bank. After the war, Mosler received a letter from the President of the bank stating that the vault built by Mosler had withstood the blast and that everything inside was left intact.
• The Hamiltonian Hotel is honored to be included in a publication entitled Elegant Hotels.
• The Mosler Safe Company built the vault that protects the nation's gold in Fort Knox.