Now, more than ever, Wyoming residents have enjoyed the outdoors to exercise, socialize, or just get out of the house and breathe some fresh air. Luckily, Wyoming’s picturesque neighborhoods provide a welcome relief from the cabin fever that has crept in during this unique time of quarantine. To help you appreciate the city’s charming variety of homes during your outings, What’s Up Wyoming has updated six posts on the significant architecture styles in Wyoming, with suggested walking tours to see specific homes described in each post.
Some residents are challenging themselves to walk every street in the community: there are over 120! You can pick up a large color map of Wyoming, produced in 2014, at the City administrative office on Oak Avenue, and at the Wyoming Rec Center. You can also download a pdf of a simplified map from the City website here.
Use these architecture stories as guides to learn more about the historic progression of Wyoming and the architectural variety here, ranging from the earliest homes of the 1850s to the Mid-Century Modern ranches and split-levels of the 1950s-1970s.
A Walking Tour to See Wyoming’s Oldest Homes
Wyoming’s earliest residents cleared land west of the Mill Creek for farms in the early 1800s. The oldest homes were log cabins, which were replaced with larger homes as the landowners prospered. The oldest remaining homes date to the mid 1800s and are scattered along Springfield Pike and on streets west of the Pike. A two-mile walk will take you past six of the oldest homes in Wyoming. For a map with addresses and directions, click here.
Two of the houses on the walking tour were relocated from their original lots! You can learn more about each house on the walking tour, along with photographs and more detailed architectural discussion in the post “Wyoming’s Long History of Community Appeal: A Look at Wyoming’s Development and Architectural Variety.”
A Walking Tour of Wyoming’s Victorian-Era Homes of the Late 1800s
Wyoming experienced a housing boom after the Civil War. Nearby businesses prospered and families chose the community for its good schools and convenient location to train stations to commute to downtown Cincinnati. The colorful homes with gingerbread trim built during this housing boom are commonly called “Victorians” but Victorian is more accurately a period in history, 1837-1901, when Queen Victoria ruled England. The Industrial Revolution occurred during this period, and building materials were mass-produced and more affordable. Innovations in housing construction led to larger, asymmetrical designs with complex rooflines, gables, porches, and turrets. The most common architectural styles in Wyoming during the peak of Victorian influence include Gothic Revival, Italianate, Stick/Eastlake, Queen Anne, and Shingle Styles.
A 1.6-mile walk in “The Village” will take you through Wyoming’s Historic District, with over 130 homes from the Victorian era. For a map with addresses and directions to see eleven homes that represent a variety of Victorian-era architecture, click here.
You can learn more about each house on the walking tour, along with photographs and more detailed architectural discussion in the post “Long Live the Queen: Wyoming Architecture During the Victorian Era.”
