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South Fairmount, Cincinnati — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Lick Run runs in daylight again through South Fairmount, a Cincinnati neighborhood held in one narrow valley along Queen City Avenue.
About South Fairmount
Where to stay in South Fairmount
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
South Fairmount runs no hotel row. Book in Downtown Cincinnati or Queensgate, then drive out west on Queen City Avenue and come back east on Westwood Avenue, the one-way pair that has carried this valley since the 1970s. You come for the Lick Run Greenway, for the mile and a half of path beside the open channel, and for the five-story Lunkenheimer Valve Company Historic District, which sits on Beekman Street astride the North Fairmount line.
Half a day covers it.
About South Fairmount
What are the main landmarks in South Fairmount?
The Lick Run Greenway is what there is to see here: a mile and a half of open creek and path, two shelters, a spray park and an event stage, all of it laid where the stream used to run buried in a sewer. St. Francis Hospital opened at 1860 Queen City Avenue in January 1889, Queen Anne work by George W. Rapp, and went onto the National Register in 1984. Immanuel United Church of Christ keeps its own corner of the same street.
The West Hills Theatre ran at 1625 Queen City Avenue and the Valley Theater at 1526 Harrison Avenue. Neither shows films.
What is the history of South Fairmount?
Fairmount began as farm homes in the early 1800s, and factories came once the Mill Creek bed was spanned and the flats below the hill were built on. Two breweries worked the valley: Herancourt from 1847, the Fairmount Brewing Company from 1885. Prohibition shut both in 1919.
Italians followed the Germans, and the place was called Cincinnati's little Italy; San Antonio Church is credited with inspiring LaRosa's, the pizza chain Buddy LaRosa started in 1954. Lunkenheimer Valve Co. employed 2,000 here in the 1950s and made a fitting for the Spirit of St. Louis. The works closed in 1968.
Where is South Fairmount?
South Fairmount runs the Lick Run valley, with North Fairmount over the north rim, Price Hill along the south, Westwood at the head and Queensgate at the Mill Creek end.
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Updated September 2026