Lost: Ohio Archaeologist's House
By Tricia McCarter-Joseph | Online Only | Nov. 13, 2009
Cincinnati's Metz House had been vacant for at least eight years.
Credit: Madisonville Community Council
Preservationists in Cincinnati, Ohio, are reeling from the loss of a deteriorating house once owned by the archaeologist responsible for unearthing one of the state's most important Native American sites.
Earlier this month, the city razed the former home and office of Dr. Charles Metz in the Madisonville neighborhood. The city condemned the Metz House this fall, after neighbors complained about its poor condition.
Robert Mendlein, president of the Madisonville Community Council, says he heard about the house just days before it was scheduled to be demolished. After a tour of the one-story structure, he determined that restoration would be too costly.
"The house was in a severely dilapidated state, and had been vacant for about eight years," Mendlein says. "The aluminum siding was torn off, the back doors were open, and the basement windows were [gone]."
Mendlein says that although he was willing to try to stop demolition, he understands neighbors' frustration and eagerness to see the empty house torn down, since it attracted vagrants and stray dogs. Despite its appearance, some say the Metz House was an asset to the area.
"It's a loss to the neighborhood because of the historical background," says Margo Warminski, preservation director at the Cincinnati Preservation Association. "Cincinnati doesn't have a lot of early, simple, vernacular resources left."
Metz, a physician and amateur archaeologist, purchased the house in the 1860s. In 1879, after gaining permission from the landowner, he began excavating what is now known as the Madisonville Site. The National Register-listed site contains the remnants of a Native American village that thrived from 1400 and 1670.
Metz's efforts caught the attention of Harvard's Peabody Museum, which later funded a large-scale excavation of the site that lasted three decades. Artifacts from the Madisonville Site are housed at the Peabody, the Smithsonian, and New Zealand's Whanganui Museum.
Now Mendlein is trying to save another Victorian house nearby, which Metz moved into in 1890. According to Mendlein, Metz's descendants are stepping in to help save it. That house is currently for sale.
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