As you walk the steep hills of one-way streets in Mount Adams, an eclectic neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, you can’t miss the beautiful mural on Gregory Street.
Adorning the full side of a two-story building, The Roots of Vision pays tribute to five important figures in Mount Adams history:
- Nicholas Longworth, 18th century millionaire and innovative horticulturalist, once known as the “Father of the American Wine Industry”
- Maria Longworth Storer, Rookwood Pottery founder, first female internationally known entrepreneur in Cincinnati, granddaughter of Nicholas Longworth
- John Baptist Purcell, Cincinnati’s first Catholic Archbishop who built the Immaculata Church
- Ormsby M. Mitchell, builder of the first observatory in the United States, named after President John Quincy Adams
- Ida Martin, legend has it that she was a washerwoman who lived in a sycamore tree. Mount Adams was originally known as Mount Ida, named after her
I looked closely at the mural, the five portraits were compelling, but there was something different about it.
And then I discovered what it was! The mural wasn’t only created with paint, it incorporated tiles from Cincinnati’s own Rookwood Pottery.
The same pottery that created the trophy for the Cincinnati Open, also known as the Western and Southern Open tennis tournament.
Now located in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati, Rockwood Pottery was once located in Mount Adams. And the founder of Rookwood Pottery, Maria Longworth Storer, is one of the people honored in the mural!
The Roots of Vision
Part of Cincinnati’s ArtWorks mural program, The Roots of Vision mural was created in 2012 by a team of local teenagers to honor “the visionaries that founded, lived in and helped Mount Adams grow….”
Volunteers were invited to help with finishing the mural, making it a project where everyone in the community participated.
