The first Cincinnati Turners club was formed on November 21, 1848 in a small building at the corner of Plum and Canal Streets in Over-the-Rhine.  By 1850 a gymnasium was constructed, but the membership grew so rapidly that the building was replaced with a much larger one.  The buildings not only housed gyms and bowling alleys, but meeting rooms as well.  They were, in effect, community halls in which a variety of Cincinnati political and civic groups met on a regular basis.

An 1865 Cincinnati Turner festival at Parker’s Grove (now Cincinnati’s Coney Island amusement park).	A Cincinnati Turner festival held on the riverfront, 1889.
The Central Turner’s Hall on Walnut Street in Cincinnati, ca. 1909.	The Nord Cincinnati Turnhalle in the neighborhood of Corryville.