Before the Symmes Purchase of the 1780s, the area of Price Hill was sparsely populated Indian territory. The remains of Indian burial mounds and lookout posts have been found in the region. Most of Price Hill was once part of Delhi Township.Cincinnati became heavily populated in the 19th century, due to steamboat traffic and hog packing, and some of the city’s wealthier residents settled in the nearly inaccessible hill country to the west. This region was high enough and far enough away to escape the pollution and crowdedness of the inner city. One such resident was General Rees E. Price, who purchased and developed large parts of the hill. The area was then called “Price’s Hill”, later shortened to “Price Hill”. A funicular called locally “the Incline” or “the Incline Plane” was built to help make the region more accessible. With its base on the corner of 8th Street and Glenway Avenue, the Incline climbed 350 feet over the top of the hill. Thanks to the Incline, by the 1870s there were thousands of residents. Most of the residents were Irish or German, and Catholic. The Eighth Street Viaduct was built by the end of the century, and the more accessible region became a thriving upper-middle-class suburb, with a commercial center along Glenway Avenue. Many of the houses that still stand in the district were built in the early years of the 20th century.Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West was first established on a 10-acre site at the northwest corner of Grand and Warsaw Avenues. The site was converted to a Catholic school devoted to the care and training of orphaned, dependent, and underprivileged girls. Holy Family Parish was also located on this site. Seton High School was founded as Mount St. Vincent Academy, Cedar Grove in 1854 by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. Union Baptist Cemetery was founded in 1864, it is the oldest Baptist African-American cemetery in Cincinnati. When Cincinnati was plagued by tuberculosis in the early 20th century, Price Hill housed the Cincinnati Tubercular Hospital, one of the nation’s leading centers for treatment and research. The hospital has since been converted into the Arts Center at Dunham, which boasts an Art Deco theater. A Carnegie library was built in Price Hill in 1909. The Covedale Theater was built in 1947.