Every Cincinnatian Has A Union Terminal Story
If you are from Cincinnati, you are literally connected by bus line to the Union Terminal. The Cincinnati bus would literally take you into the Union Terminal, and out of the Union Terminal through tunnels on either side that performed a quarter-turn downward circle to the train platform for drop-off and pick-up.
If you moved here, you may have arrived by train, entering the Union Terminal as your first experience of Cincinnati.
Most of the American soldiers in the European theater had a layover in Union Terminal. " Lovely place, Cincinnati," was the response soldiers from Cincinnati received when informing their co-patriots where they're from. All the soldiers in Europe would say they had been to Cincinnati bc the likely lay over at Union Terminal on the way to the East Coast.
Build and Maintain Union Terminal
We have our Union Terminal Stories: Grandpa Joe Haworth and his Father, "Timer" Haworth, my great-grandpa, worked at the Union Terminal for many, many years.
Great Grandpa "Timer" was a master upholsterer, a point of pride when we view the best remaining picture of the Concourse clock, showing the leather-bound waiting seats riveted in an exquisite, comfortable design.
My great-grandfather helped make and repair the seating at Union Terminal, and he likely got his son, Joe Haworth, on the track gang when Joe was around 14. Playing baseball on the farm in North Dakota, growing up, Joe played catcher; on the crew building the train bridge over the Ohio River, his position was to sit in a holster, swinging off the steel bridge over the Ohio River. Joe Haworth caught hot rivets being dropped down from the fire to be shoved into place for a riveter, likely also hanging, would drive the red hot rivet into the metal holes. The rivet would cool and create a great bond between two pieces of steel. connecting the steel beams of the >>>> bridge.
This bridge:
Family: Joe & Timer Haworth & The Union Terminal
Joe Haworth is the Grandpa to all Cincinnatians, he is one of the greatest member of The Greatest Generation.
With paintings his sister painted of Joe Morgan & Johnny Bench in his air-conditioned basement in St. Bernard, he watched every Reds game ever played, even watched other teams from other cities play baseball, he was that kind of baseball fan.
Our family loves that his name, Joe Haworth, is inscribed on a brick at Great American Ball Park, butted up against the statue of his favorite player, Johnny Bench. We don't visit Joe Haworth's grave, we visit the brick inscribed with his name butted up against the Johnny Bench Statue at Great American Ball Park.
The Men Who Tended The Union Terminal
Joe Haworth first got on at the Union Terminal as a teenager on the rail crew pounding in steel nails laying and repairing tracks. His Father, "Timer" worked at The Union Terminal as a Master Upholster.
Hanging off steel bridges
Catching Fire Hot Rivets
Joe Haworth helped build the bridge the train runs over leaving and entering the Union Terminal. Joe, the baseballer he was, a catcher, would hanging from the steel above the Ohio River and catch hot rivets tossed down to him, then hold them in place while another worker hanging from the bridge drilled the rivet into the steel.
Celebrate Our Maker History
Joe & "Pres" Took Care Of the Union Terminal
When Joe Haworth and his co-worker "Press" (Real Name="Preston") "Got Back" from "The War", the Union Terminal had a skeleton crew to maintain the train station, so a lot of maintenance, alot, was differed. The old-timers who had been on skeleton crews told the young men now filling their ranks again, picking up their old jobs, or joining the crew fresh, of ongoing maintenance problems that have existed for several years since they had been gone at war.
Joe & Press held The Union Terminal Together as a Maintenance Carpenters until 1955 when Joe Haworth got on at Proctor & Gamble.
An Interview with Joe Haworth
Listen below as Joe Haworth tells of how when he got back from the war returning to their jobs at The Union Terminal in the Spring of 1946, he and a co-worker fixed the leaking roof of the Union Terminal clock that had been leaking at that point for two years.
While the Union Terminal was important to the war effort and was one of the only train stations that received funding for repairs during the war years, Maintenance was on a skeleton crew. Heck, everyone was off fighting the war, like Joe Haworth.
IMAGE INSIDE THE CUT CLOCK
The following interview of Joe Haworth was recorded around 1995, nearly 50 years since Joe and his co-worker fixed the Union Terminal Clock's Roof.
State of the Terminal upon returning from the war
Joe is recalling the state that the terminal was in when they returned from the war. Particularly, how the administrators of the Union Terminal were looking at having to pay between $5,000 and $10,000 ( $156,000 adjusted for inflation) to erect scaffolding on the outside of the Terminal to access and fix the leak in the roof of the Union Terminal clock.
A Real Solution
Instead, two men from the Greatest Generation did the following to fix the leaking roof of the Cincinnati Union Terminal Clock in one and a half days with no additional cost to the Terminal. No need for scaffolding outside the building.
Hear his tale from 1946 of how he and his coworker, Press, made the decision, got materials, and built a scaffold inside on top of the glass catwalk behind the Union Terminal's East-facing glass windows and famous art deco clock in order to reglaze the roof above the clock. But "the windows were all rusted shut and had to be taken apart and oiled first."
Warning: Curse words, his color commentary gets quite vivid sometimes. It should be noted that during the interview the Cincinnati Bengals are playing on the TV, so more, many more curse words will be heard.
Classic Joe Haworth at 11:17. A man who gave everything to others, life, his Country & The Church, only after giving so much could one elicit classic Joe Haworth humor...
This interview is given to the Public and Cincinnati Union Terminal for historical purposes from the Kathy Haworth Stegman Family in Cincinnati.
Images of 1940's Cincinnati, Color Commentary Highlighting the Tale.
We learn from the interview that the Union Terminal was in bad shape in 1946. It was because the maintenance crew was diminished during WW2? We learn from long-time Cincinnati Rail Club member Patrick Rose that The Terminal did go short-staffed and deferred some maintenance during the war.
As the story goes, during the war when men from Cincinnati would tell other soldiers where they're from everyone there would say "Oh yeah, I've been there. Lovely Place." because almost all of the soldiers had stopped in Cincinnati Union Terminal on the way East to the ports of Europe.
We hear how Joe and his buddy Press, in order to reach the roof of the clock, barrow a sturdy beam from a maintenance janitor who works for a railroad, and not the Union Terminal. They had to make sure they did not share, or report sharing, resources between the different companies who worked out of The Union Terminal's expansive hallways.
Joe Haworth worked at the Union Terminal starting on the tracks gang in or around 1940 at the age of 17. There he would have pounded steel nails into train tresses, and there he would have hung from the Southern bridge catching the red hot rivets and holding them in place while a riveter drove them into the bridge while hanging over the Ohio River. A baseball catcher who grew up on a farm playing baseball, he was well suited.
Joe joined the Marines in 1941. Unable to be a bomber gunner due to his eyesight, he was a hydraulics mechanic on the ground in the Pacific throughout the entire war. He was brought home to prepare for the mainland invasion of Japan; the soldiers actually left on a boat to assemble when shortly after their departure they were turned around and brought home not told why. Only later to learn the war was over.
Joe Haworth once said that the best view of opening day at Crosley Field was from sitting atop the Cincinnati Union Terminal Clock.
The Work Ethic of The Greatest Generation
Joe and Press re-grouted the entire exterior of the Union Terminal, twice! It took them three weeks each time. He brags about how fast they were in doing so. One would move down the outside of the CUT (secured - sliding under control? who knows!) cleaning out the loose concrete while the next would come right behind filling with concrete. They made their own caulking gun out of a bag filled with mortar; a novel invention at the time.
Celebrate the City of Makers
-The Cincinnati Union Terminal Watch is Dedicated To Joe Haworth (1923 - 1997), and his father (my daughter's great-great-grandfather) "Timer", and the men and women who made The Union Terminal what it is today.
We are forever grateful. Thank you!
