Local History & Genealogy

The Lane Public Library System has two separate historical/genealogical collections. The Smith Library holdings are located at the Smith Library of Regional History in Oxford and the Cummins Room holdings are located at the Main Lane Public Library in downtown Hamilton.

Smith Library Holdings

Cummins Room Holdings

Ohio Historic Inventory for Butler County (added 8/29/2006)
This collection of PDF forms is the work of the Ohio Historic Preservation Office of the Ohio Historic Society. Records for buildings and sites of historical interest for Butler County are indexed here. The Ohio Historic Inventory Form consists of a single page, two-sided questionnaire that gives a complete but succinct description and history of a building, site, structure, or object. The form is divided into six basic categories: Identification, Location, Background, Architectural Data, Additional Information, and Photographic Documentation.

Hamilton company profiles circa 1890 (added 6/2/2000)

Fairfield History Photographs

Greater Cincinnati Memory Project
A database of over 6000 historical images, including 350 images from our Smith Library of Regional History photograph collection.

Clyde Bowden Digital Postcard Collection (Smith Library of Regional History)

Walking Tour of Oxford’s University Historic District

Walking Tour of the Uptown Oxford Historic District

External links to sites related to Butler County history and genealogy:

Butler County Chapter, Ohio Genealogical Society

Butler County GenWeb

Butler County Historical Society's Virtual Community
Includes over 550 historical images and condensed virtual tours of Hamilton, Middletown, Oxford, Shandon and Trenton.

Butler County Records Center and Archives

CHAPS (Citizens for Historic and Preservation Services)
CHAPS strives to educate the public on the value of saving significant buildings and structures from neglect and modernization (that destroy the integrity of the building), and demolition. CHAPS records and communicates news about preservation efforts in Butler County.

The Frank Snyder Photograph Collection
Frank R. Snyder was the leading Oxford, Ohio, photographer during the early twentieth century. He also worked for Miami University during this period, taking many of the photographs that were used in University publications. Before his death, Snyder gave most of his surviving collection of over 4000 negatives to Miami University. In addition to providing a pictorial record of the community and citizens of Oxford, Ohio, the Snyder Collection chronicles buildings, organizations, students, and events at Miami University; Oxford College, which merged with Miami in 1928; and Western College, which merged with Miami in 1973. The Collection spans the years from 1897 to 1955, with the bulk dating from between 1900 and 1930. Many of these early 20th-century views of Oxford are also held in the Lane's Smith Library of Regional History.

Local Author Mary Shuler Heimburger
"Let's take a look at a box of Gold Rush letters in Grandma's attic...your great-grandfather was a Forty Niner." With these words, Mary Shuler Heimburger's father Frank Shuler introduced her to a legacy of family history, which was to lead to the book Two Brothers--Paths West and East. The author's historical research and the letters, notebooks, and documents, which she collected, create a fascinating story of an odyssey from the Pennsylvania Dutch Village of Powder Valley, Pennsylvania, to the Gold Rush mines of Old California. Her book gives an unforgettable glimpse into the daily lives, struggles for survival, and dreams of American pioneers.
[See Asa Shuler's notebook, journal, journal notes, photocopy of journal ]

Michael J. Colligan History Project
The principal goal of the Project is to make the appreciation and study of history accessible and enriching for all members of the university, the schools, and the community at large. To that end, the Project offers a wide variety of programs, series, projects, and symposia that present a broad and diverse perspective on the people and events of the past.

Morgan Township Historical Society
Morgan Township Historical Society collects and preserves historic records of the Township in order to educate and promote an appreciation of local history. Its 1858 Township House Museum is in Okeana.

Ohio Memory Project
An online scrapbook of Ohio History

Paddy's Run Old Welsh Cemetery
Headstone markings of Paddy's Run Old Welsh Cemetery in Shandon, Ohio

Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument

Southwest Butler County Genealogical Society

Transportation timelines created by the Cincinnati Regional Transportation History Committee

125th Anniversary United Presbyterian Church, 1816-1941 [1941]

80 years of Excellence: A Commemorative History 1907-1987 (Hamilton Caster Mfg. Co.)
6 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Butler County Biographies [2001] by Jim Blount
13 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Butler County's Greatest Weather Disaster: Flood, 1913 [2002] by Jim Blount
10 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Frontiers Past Sixty in Hamilton, Ohio: A Study of Hamilton's Center for Older People [Adventures in Learning] [1961]
4 parts: 1 2 3 4

Hamilton Caster Story: The First 100 years
6 parts (2mb-4mb each): 1 2 3 4 5 6 Entire book (18mb)

Historic Indian Creek Church [1963]
3 parts: 1 2 3

In Memoriam William Beckett Born March 17, 1821, Died November 27, 1895 [1896]
3 parts: 1 2 3

Index of Stella Weiler Taylor's Rosemary [1982]
7 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Indian Creek Pioneer Burial Ground and Church [1985]
3 parts: 1 2 3

Lane Free Library Catalogue No. 2 [1897] (scan in progress)

Our City: Hamilton, Ohio [1935]
12 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Pictorial Review Souvenir Industrial Hamilton [1919]
10 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Railroads of Butler County by Jim Blount [1999]
18 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Rossville Historic District Walking Tour [1995?]
2 parts: 1 2

Rossville, Hamilton's West Bank: Its People, Ghosts,Places, Bridges and Businesses [1994] by Jim Blount
14 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Rural Directory, Butler County [1932-1934]
6 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Sesqui-Centennial Celebration: Official Souvenir Historical Program [1941]
9 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Sixty-Fifth Anniversary of West Side Baptist Church [1929]
7 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

St. Joseph Church, Hamilton Ohio Centennial Year [1967]
11 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

The First Century 1848-1948: Souvenir Book Commemorating One Hundred Years, St. Mary's Church, Hamilton, Ohio [1948]
4 parts: 1 2 3 4

The Home Federal Tradition of Excellence Began 75 years Ago [1948]

The Story of Estate: Another Chapter of The Romance of Business in the Land of Opportunity by Melodia and Walter S. Rowe [1937]
3 parts: 1 2 3

This is Your City: Hamilton, Ohio [1955]
5 parts: 1 2 3 4 5

Walking Tours of Hamilton, Ohio [1995?]
3 parts: 1 2 3

West Side Saga: The Story of the Founding and Growth of The West Side Federal Savings & Loan Association of Hamilton, Ohio, Published on the Occasion of the Opening of Its New Building in the Month of April, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-One [1951] by Walter S. Rowe
2 parts: 1 2

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