Paul McKibben reports:
Where an early 19th century stagecoach stop once stood, a gas station will now stand in its place.
The Twenty Mile House in Warren County was demolished Tuesday, ending a 2-year-old struggle to preserve the building that was built in 1822 as a stagecoach stop. Over the years the building has also hosted a restaurant and tavern. Its last occupant was the Red Rock Tavern which closed at least two years ago.
A Big Mike’s Gas n Go fuel station and convenience store is expected to replace it. Another 1,200-square foot structure could also be built at the site. Jennifer Mooney, a representative for new owner Bunnell Hill Development, said it would be speculation to say when the gas station might open.
Mooney said the Twenty Mile House has been functionally demolished for a long time and hasn’t had working facilities inside.
“There is not an obvious section or part of that which is the original structure,” she said. “It’s been modified (and) changed et cetera so many times over the years that there is not the ability to work in there and say ‘this is the room. This was the place.’”
The demolition work started at 9:05 a.m. Tuesday. Ten people were gathered at the site at the corner of Columbia and Montgomery roads.
“I’m very sad and I’m very disappointed that there wasn’t more imagination and interest on the part of the past owner and the future owner,” said Steve Link, president of Friends of Twenty Mile House, which tried to save the building.
Warren County businessman Jeff Black, who sold the property last week, said he was glad to see the building go down. He did not attend the demolition.
“Nobody came up with any money to preserve it,” he said. “We were willing to work with anybody to keep it (and) preserve it.”
Last Thursday, Black’s CJMKC Realty Co. LLC sold the property to Bunnell Hill Development for $679,150, according to the Warren County Auditor’s Office. That’s $358,350 less than what CJMKC paid for the property in 2004.
Speedway LLC had plans to buy the property in 2011 for $800,000, pending the company getting governmental approval for a gas station and store. But Speedway never received the approval and the deal fell through.
HISTORY LESSON
Twenty Mile House was a nearly 200-year-old former stagecoach stop and restaurant at the corner of Columbia Road and Montgomery Road in Deerfield Township. It has been vacant for more than two years. Its last occupant was the Red Rock Tavern.
The original structure was built in 1822 in the crossroads hamlet of Twenty Mile Stand. The community dates to 1798, when settler Benjamin Morris was the first person to get a deed for property in the area. The state of Ohio in 1804 constructed a turnpike connecting Cincinnati to Chillicothe, the state capital from 1803 to 1810. The Twenty Mile Stand community developed around the building, which was also a post office. The name Twenty Mile Stand developed because it is about 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati.
