Identification of Lane Seminary Buildings
The exact identification of which buildings on the Lane Seminary Campus correspond to census records has been challenging. I have found no old map that corresponds to the 1940 census records. This document explains the current (as of July 2025) rationale for how buildings were located on HistoryForge.
History of Lane Seminary buildings:
Most of the buildings date to the 1860’s, with some even older. Until 1932, Lane continued in operation as a seminary. After that, it merged with MacCormick Seminary in Chicago, and the Presbytery of Cincinnati took over ownership. By 1940, several of its buildings were being rented, as seen in the census.
1940 Census, ED 142:
On pages 3B, 4A & 4B, the enumerator identified Buildings 2-6, Anthony Flats, Beecher Apartments and Westminster Flats as the “House Number” for the “Street” Lane Seminary.
Williams Directory, 1940:
On page 1415, the directory lists a house at 2813 Gilbert, then, under Lane Seminary Grounds, units 1 through 5 (with Presbytery offices before the units. After that, we find 6 apartments in Anthony Flats, 6 in Beecher Flats, and 27 in Westminster Flats.
Sanborn, 1930:
Sanborn has Kemper Lane running south-north from Yale to Chapel, with addresses from 2801 to 2842. Those addresses don’t exist in Williams 1940. Kemper jogs west on Yale and becomes Monfort after Chapel. Sanborn has no building identification to match either 1940 census or 1940 Williams, except Westminster Flats to the east of “Kemper Lane.”
Obviously, the 3 sources make it difficult to identify with certainty the location of the Lane Seminary entries in the census. In order to locate the census records for Lane Seminary in a way that will make it easy to re-locate when new information comes available, I have assigned building names to the Sanborn buildings (see Figure 1). If in the future, we find (e.g.) that Building 1 was really the north west faculty residence, we can simply move that building marker to the correct location on Sanborn.
1940 Census, 91-142, pp. 3B-4B
1930 Sanborn Map
1940 Williams Directory for Cincinnati