{"nrhp_refnum":"12000835","name":"St. Aloysius Orphanage","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"4721 Reading Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cincinnati","county":"Hamilton County","state":"OH","lat":39.171454363000066,"lon":-84.46937220399997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2012-09-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A former Catholic orphanage complex at 4721 Reading Road in Cincinnati, Ohio, on a 7-acre parcel. It has four contributing buildings: a main building begun in 1856 with later additions, a 1910 infirmary, a 1923 chapel, two 1930 gymnasiums and a mid-19th-century privy/tool house.","why_significant":"The orphanage is locally significant under Criterion A in Social History. It represents how a private, originally church-supported institution cared for orphaned, abandoned and poor children in the 19th and 20th centuries. Founded in 1837 as the first Cincinnati institution focused on German-speaking Catholic children, it is the only comparable institution there to have preserved and adapted its mid- to late-19th-century buildings.","narrative":"St. Aloysius Orphanage occupies a 7-acre site on Reading Road at the southern edge of Bond Hill in Cincinnati. The complex centers on a cross-shaped main building begun in 1856, with additions through 1901, showing Italianate and Second Empire features such as a mansard roof and a copper dome. Later buildings include a 1910 infirmary, a Gothic-inspired limestone chapel finished in 1923, two Tudor Revival gymnasiums from 1930, and a brick privy later used as a tool house. Anthony Kunz Jr. designed the chapel and gymnasiums. The institution was founded in 1837 to care for German-speaking Catholic children and later served children of all races and religions in need. It operated as a traditional residential orphanage until about 1960, longer than most similar institutions, before becoming a lay-based treatment center. It is the only such Cincinnati institution to keep and adapt its 19th-century buildings, which is the basis for its local significance in social history.","period_of_significance":"1856-1960","architect_builder":"Kunz, Anthony Jr. (Kunz & Beck for the 1923 chapel)","architectural_style":"Late Victorian: Italianate, Second Empire; Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals: Late Gothic Revival, Tudor Revival","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Current functions listed as institutional housing, religious structure (chapel) and clinic; the complex now houses offices and classrooms for a treatment center. All four buildings retain their major design features.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:06.882381-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/12000835.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12000835/a3aa14a06b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12000835/a3aa14a06b-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Warren LeMay from Cincinnati, OH, United States","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Aloysius_Orphanage,_Bond_Hill,_Cincinnati,_OH_(46456199265).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Warren LeMay from Cincinnati, OH, United States</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Aloysius_Orphanage,_Bond_Hill,_Cincinnati,_OH_(46456199265).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71989251","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138350692"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/hamilton-county/st-aloysius-orphanage-12000835/"}