An eccentric motel, a giant purple bull, a notorious bookmaker, a mother who kept showing up at sheriff's sales, and the man who turned his own name into a Cincinnati landmark.
If you enjoyed my investigation into Anna Ritter and her mysterious house, you're going to love Rankin Harrison.
Buckle up, because this one is a ride.
And a long one.
There is so much to unpack here that I strongly recommend grabbing your beverage of choice, getting comfortable, and perhaps clearing your schedule. Personally, I recommend coffee, considering the original version of this investigation was being written at approximately 3:15 in the morning.
If you've been following my historical rabbit holes, you already know that I have a slight problem.
I start with one perfectly reasonable question. Then I find a deed, followed by a newspaper article, followed by another deed, and suddenly it's three o'clock in the morning and I'm emotionally invested in the financial decisions of someone who died thirty years ago.
That's pretty much how I met Rankin Harrison.
This particular investigation began when a friend on Facebook, Dawn Singleton, asked whether I'd look into the history of El Rancho Rankin, the wonderfully bizarre old motel that once stood along Beechmont Avenue.
Sure. Why not?
I figured I'd find out when it opened, identify the owners, locate a few photographs and advertisements, and call it a day.
That was adorable.
Because you cannot research El Rancho Rankin without eventually realizing that the motel itself is only half the story.
The other half is the man behind it.
Rankin Harrison.
And Rankin Harrison, as I would soon discover, was not a man who did anything quietly.
What I thought would be the history of an old Cincinnati motel became a century-spanning investigation involving census records, property deeds, court cases, family money, foreclosures, lawsuits, veterans, politicians, gambling, a mysterious son, Cadillacs, horses, a giant purple bull, a vacuum-powered baldness machine, and one of the most spectacular exercises in personal branding I've ever encountered.
Somewhere along the way, I realized something.
Rankin didn't just build El Rancho.
He built Rankin Harrison.
And to understand how he did that, we have to go back much farther than the motel.
Before Rankin Was Rankin
In 1920, the Harrison family was living in Bridgeport, Alabama, just across the state line from Tennessee.
Garrett and Anna Harrison lived there with their young son, William R. Harrison, the boy Cincinnati would eventually know simply as Rankin.
Years later, Rankin told a Cincinnati reporter that he'd been selling newspapers on the streets of Chattanooga since he was six years old. According to his own account, he was the toughest newsboy in the city.
Because of course he was.
Rankin claimed to have left school after the eighth grade. He described a young life that included selling newspapers, teaching dancing and boxing, working around hotels, moving to Cincinnati, and eventually attending barber school.
Now, some of those details come from Rankin himself, recounted decades after the fact.
And as we're going to discover, Rankin Harrison was exceptionally good at telling the story of Rankin Harrison.
Fortunately for us, he left behind something considerably less interested in self-promotion.
Records.
Lots and lots of records.
By the late 1920s, the Harrisons were appearing in Cincinnati directories. Garrett Harrison was listed in the city by 1927–1928, and within a few years, Rankin began leaving his own paper trail.
On March 31, 1930, Rankin received a diploma from Rothenberg Night School.
By 1932–1933, the Cincinnati city directory identified him as a barber working at 747 East McMillan Street and living with his parents. The following year, his barber shop appeared a few doors away at 750 East McMillan.
And in February 1934, Rankin got married.
The Barber and His Bride
His bride was Esther Corn, a 21-year-old woman living at 4116 Hamilton Avenue.
Rankin was 22, identified himself as a barber, and listed his address as 750 East McMillan Street.
They married on February 8, 1934.
Ten days later, a newspaper announcement reported that the newlyweds were at home at 750 East McMillan.
So yes.
Rankin apparently lived at the barber shop.
Or barbered at the house.
Either way, 750 East McMillan was doing a remarkable amount of work.
At this point, Rankin's story could have followed a fairly ordinary path. A young couple starting their lives together, a barber building his business, and a family establishing itself in Cincinnati.
But Rankin Harrison wasn't particularly interested in ordinary.
And somewhere around his barber years comes one of my favorite pieces of Rankin lore.
The Baldness Vacuum
Later accounts of Rankin's life describe an attempt to sell a machine intended to help bald men regrow their hair.
The machine appears to have been the Crosley Xervac.
And friends, I need you to understand something.
This device was supposed to combat baldness using suction.
Yes.
Suction.
The Xervac was an actual hair-treatment apparatus marketed during the 1930s. It involved placing a device over the head and applying vacuum pressure, supposedly to encourage hair growth.
If you're picturing some kind of helmet attached to a vacuum system, you're getting warmer.
I encourage you to look at photographs of this magnificent piece of questionable medical ingenuity.
And remember, we're still in the 1930s.
I couldn't locate contemporary evidence directly connecting Rankin to the Xervac, nor did I find anything suggesting he invented it. The connection comes from later profiles describing his efforts to sell a hair-growing machine.
So no, Rankin Harrison did not invent the baldness vacuum.
Please don't put that on Wikipedia. I will somehow feel responsible.
But the fact that a Cincinnati barber reportedly tried selling bald men a suction-powered hair treatment?
That's a pretty remarkable introduction to the man who would eventually build El Rancho Rankin.
And we're only getting started.
Something Was Happening With Esther
As I continued tracing the Harrison family through property records, I discovered something much more serious.
In May 1938, a woman named Rose Schwein transferred the McMillan Street property to Esther M. Harrison.
Not Rankin.
Esther.
That distinction matters.
The following year, a lawsuit involving construction at the property identified Esther as its owner. Rankin was described as her custodian, and the construction was reportedly being completed under his direction to prepare the building for a barber shop and beauty parlor.
At first glance, the word custodian might simply suggest that Rankin was handling his wife's business affairs.
Except later court records were considerably more explicit.
By 1941–1942, Rankin appeared in legal proceedings as the guardian of Esther M. Harrison, who had been legally declared incompetent.
And suddenly, this investigation became something more complicated than a story about an eccentric businessman.
I couldn't establish exactly what happened to Esther.
The online records I located did not identify the circumstances that led to the guardianship, her medical condition, or precisely when she entered institutional care.
Historically, women could be subjected to institutionalization under circumstances that deserve serious scrutiny. But that broader history doesn't establish what happened in Esther's particular case.
I'm not going to diagnose a woman who died decades ago based on scattered court notices.
What I can document is the progression.
In 1938, Esther owned the McMillan Street property. By 1939, Rankin was publicly described as her custodian. By the early 1940s, he was formally identified as her guardian, and probate notices continued to list him in that capacity in 1946.
When Rankin filed for divorce in 1947, Esther was living at Longview Hospital.
There was also a child.
We'll come back to him, because that becomes a story of its own.
But first, we need to talk about Rankin's mother.
Because while Rankin was preparing to create one of Cincinnati's strangest roadside landmarks, Anna Harrison was busy rescuing family property from foreclosure.
And this is where I started developing some very strong opinions about Rankin Harrison.
Mom, I Need You to Buy My House
In 1941, Tri-State Savings & Loan initiated a foreclosure action involving Rankin, Esther, and Rankin in his capacity as Esther's guardian.
The property went to sheriff's sale.
And the winning bidder?
Anna Harrison.
Rankin's mother.
She purchased the property for $3,335, and the sheriff's deed was issued to her in March 1942.
Now, hold onto that date.
Because while existing Harrison property was going through foreclosure, Rankin was simultaneously launching a new venture along Beechmont Avenue.
His father, Garrett Harrison, had acquired the core Beechmont tract in November 1940.
By March 31, 1942, Rankin was operating the Rankin Rancho Trailer Court.
Let's appreciate what's happening here.
Rankin is developing what will eventually become El Rancho Rankin.
His father owns the land.
His mother is purchasing family property at sheriff's sale.
And Rankin already has a creditor attempting to place his brand-new trailer court into receivership.
We are in 1942.
The giant purple bull hasn't even arrived yet.
RANKIN!
And apparently one maternal foreclosure rescue wasn't enough.
Another foreclosure followed in 1943–1944, this time involving Evanston Building & Loan.
The judgment exceeded $7,600.
The property went to sheriff's sale.
On January 13, 1944, the highest bidder appeared.
You already know who it was.
Anna.
Again.
This time, she bid $10,100.
Years later, Rankin would tell a reporter that everything he possessed, he'd earned himself.
Sir.
YOUR MOTHER IS AT THE COURTHOUSE AGAIN.
I have nothing against ambition, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone receiving help from their family. But Rankin's later self-made narrative becomes considerably more interesting when you follow the actual property records.
And those records reveal that his parents' involvement didn't stop at purchasing property.
The Harrison Family Business
On April 13, 1944, the Harrison family executed a series of property transfers.
Garrett transferred the core Beechmont property into Rankin Harrison, Inc.
Anna transferred properties under her control into the corporation as well, including land associated with Rankin's earlier McMillan Street operation.
So while Rankin unquestionably supplied the personality, promotional energy, and considerable effort behind El Rancho, the deeds tell a more complicated story than the mythology he later preferred.
His parents were helping hold the pieces together.
Garrett acquired the Beechmont land.
Anna stepped in when Harrison properties went through foreclosure.
Then properties controlled by both parents flowed into Rankin's corporation.
I don't want to diminish Rankin's entrepreneurial accomplishments. He clearly possessed enormous determination and a talent for promotion.
But there's a difference between building a business and building one entirely without help.
And the records don't support treating his parents as minor characters in this story.
Meanwhile, Rankin was charging forward.
Trailer court.
Tavern.
Resort ambitions.
Expansion.
Whether El Rancho was Rankin's grand entrepreneurial vision or simply an idea that kept getting bigger every time someone told him no, the deed books unfortunately decline to answer.
But the newspapers certainly give us a few clues.
The Rancho Tavern Gets Interesting
By 1943, Rankin was operating the Rancho Tavern along Beechmont Avenue.
On October 24 of that year, things got lively.
According to contemporary newspaper accounts, trouble began after Rankin refused to sell someone a bottle of liquor.
A woman reportedly attempted to go behind the bar.
A fight followed.
During the disturbance, Clyde A. Bell allegedly struck Anna Harrison with a beer bottle and caused approximately $150 in damage to the café.
Bell was later indicted on charges connected with the incident.
Then, in December, a grand-jury list included Rankin Harrison and Anna Harrison on assault-and-battery charges.
Were those charges connected to the same incident?
Possibly.
Could I establish that from the records I located?
No.
So that goes into my increasingly large file titled:
Things Rankin Harrison Has Made Me Want to Know That the Surviving Records Refuse to Explain.
And then came the shopping bag.
Oh, friends.
The shopping bag.
The Shopping Bag That Ate Rankin's Dance Permit
Before we discuss Rankin's efforts to operate a dance hall, we need to meet a gentleman named Ike Hyams.
And describing Ike Hyams simply as a bookmaker would be underselling him.
Hyams was a prominent figure in Cincinnati's illegal bookmaking world and local political history. He'd been involved in the business for decades and would later be remembered as a king of the bookies.
In September 1944, Hyams lost a shopping bag.
Or had it stolen.
Depending on which version of the story you prefer.
Hyams reported that the bag had been taken from his automobile near Ninth and Linn Streets. Detectives Floyd Niswonger and Paul Steuer accompanied him as he looked for possible suspects.
But the circumstances became increasingly strange.
Hyams reportedly didn't want to file a formal complaint and wasn't interested in prosecuting anyone.
He advertised for the bag's return and offered a substantial reward.
Eventually, two youths discovered a discarded shopping bag beneath the Western Hills Viaduct.
And this was not a bag containing someone's lunch.
Among the contents were 40 checks totaling $2,005, keys, material related to horse racing, and slips police described as containing handbook or payoff notations.
In other words, paperwork apparently associated with bookmaking.
The police handling of the bag became controversial, particularly after some of its contents were returned.
But buried in this wonderfully messy Cincinnati gambling story was something that would become extremely inconvenient for Rankin Harrison.
Correspondence from Rankin to Ike Hyams.
And according to contemporary reports, Rankin had asked Hyams for advice about opening a “book” at El Rancho.
Now, please remember who we're discussing.
Not a bookseller.
Not a librarian.
Not the nice gentleman who maintains the neighborhood Little Free Library.
Ike Hyams.
The bookmaker.
And Rankin Harrison wanted a dance permit.
The Library Book Defense
In December 1944, Rankin applied for permission to operate a public dance hall at Rancho Rankin.
Neighbors and community organizations from the Mount Washington and Anderson Township area opposed the proposal.
And that unfortunate correspondence with Hyams became an issue.
Why, authorities wanted to know, had a man seeking permission to operate a public entertainment venue been writing to a prominent bookmaker about opening a book?
Rankin had an explanation.
Obviously.
He meant a library.
I'm sorry.
A library?
According to Rankin, when he'd written to Ike Hyams about a book, he had been referring to a library book.
Perhaps Rancho Rankin needed a reading room.
Perhaps Ike Hyams had particularly strong opinions about the Dewey Decimal System.
The surviving records unfortunately do not elaborate.
And thus was born what I will forever refer to as:
THE LIBRARY BOOK DEFENSE.
It was not successful.
On January 26, 1945, Rankin's dance permit was denied.
And Rankin responded with the calm restraint we've come to expect from him.
Fine.
If the neighbors didn't want his resort there, they could buy it.
Rankin said he'd invested approximately $50,000 in developing the 24-acre property and intended eventually to employ 24 returning veterans year-round.
But if his neighbors were determined to oppose him, he'd sell the entire place.
Then he'd go West and start a dude ranch.
RANKIN!
We've gone from:
May I please have a dance permit?
To:
Fine. Buy my entire resort. I'm moving West and becoming a cowboy.
And apparently he did leave Cincinnati for a while.
He went to Florida.
Close enough, I suppose.
By February, he was back and renewing the beer and wine permit.
And by this point, the business had undergone another identity change.
The Rankin Rancho Trailer Court of 1942 had become the Rancho Tavern, then Rancho Rankin, and was now being called El Rancho Rankin.
And Rankin still wanted dancing.
So he tried again.
In June 1945, his application was denied again.
The court remained concerned about the correspondence with Hyams.
And Rankin continued insisting he'd meant a library book.
Months had passed.
Two applications.
Neighborhood protests.
Hearings.
A missing bookmaker's shopping bag.
A letter.
A threatened sale.
A proposed dude ranch.
A Florida intermission.
And Rankin Harrison was still essentially saying:
I SAID LIBRARY.
At this point, I almost admire the commitment.
Fine. Would You Like a Veterans Hospital?
Being told no rarely seemed to make Rankin's plans smaller.
Usually, it made them bigger.
World War II was ending, servicemen were returning home, and housing shortages were a serious concern.
Rankin had land.
And Rankin knew trailers.
In late 1945, he offered Hamilton County the rent-free use of 100 surplus government trailers on his 24-acre property to house veterans and their families.
The county declined.
So Rankin escalated.
In January 1946, he offered 15 acres of El Rancho Rankin to the Veterans Administration for a permanent veterans hospital.
But he wasn't simply offering land.
He pledged another $10,000 toward landscaping and proposed a three-acre lake.
Because apparently, if Rankin Harrison was going to donate land for a veterans hospital, the hospital was going to have curb appeal.
Then he sent the proposal to General Omar Bradley, who headed the Veterans Administration.
Let's review.
Less than a year earlier, Rankin had threatened to move West because Cincinnati wouldn't let him operate a dance hall.
He went to Florida.
He came back.
And now he was corresponding with one of America's most prominent World War II generals about building a veterans hospital at El Rancho Rankin.
RANKIN!
I can't tell you precisely what motivated these proposals. There may have been genuine charitable intentions, business considerations, publicity opportunities, or some combination of all three.
What I can establish is that the proposals were reported at the time.
And they reveal something we'd see repeatedly throughout Rankin's life.
He didn't seem particularly interested in thinking small.
Meanwhile, About That Dancing...
In 1946, the dance-hall saga took another turn.
The court still wouldn't issue the permit to Rankin himself.
But someone renting the property from him could potentially obtain one.
Oh.
So after all of this, the problem wasn't necessarily dancing.
The problem was Rankin.
The Marriott Haywood Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars subsequently pursued permission to operate dances at the property.
After two years of fighting, Cincinnati might finally allow people to dance at Rankin's resort.
Just not because Rankin Harrison asked.
Spectacular.
Meanwhile, the property continued evolving.
In April 1946, Rankin Harrison, Inc. transferred a small portion of the Beechmont property to the Morris-Bradford Company. Contemporary coverage described property that had operated as the El Rancho Rankin Country Club.
Another identity.
Trailer court.
Tavern.
Rancho.
Country club.
By 1948, advertisements were calling it the El Rancho Rankin Tourist Court.
The tourist court would become a motel.
And the motel would become a place Cincinnati wouldn't forget.
But before we reach El Rancho's glory years, we need to return to the Harrison family.
Because remember Esther?
Remember the child?
Well, I found him.
Baby Rankin
When Rankin filed for divorce from Esther in October 1947, he sought custody of their eight-year-old son.
That places the boy's birth around 1938 or 1939, the same general period when records began identifying Rankin as Esther's custodian.
Then I found the 1950 Census.
Garrett and Anna Harrison were living with an eleven-year-old boy named Rankin Harrison.
His relationship to Garrett was listed as:
Grandson.
There he was.
Baby Rankin.
By 1950, Rankin Sr.'s son was living with his grandparents rather than his father.
The same Garrett and Anna who had already become so important to El Rancho's history.
Garrett had acquired the original Beechmont property.
Anna had repeatedly purchased property at foreclosure sales.
Both had transferred property into Rankin's corporation.
And now, while their son was building El Rancho, they were also providing a home for their grandson.
The census doesn't tell us why the arrangement existed, and I'm not going to invent an explanation.
But it adds another layer to a family story that was already considerably more complicated than Rankin's later public persona suggested.
Then Baby Rankin becomes difficult to follow through the records.
Until 1962.
Who Is Rankin Floyd Harrison?
In 1962, Garrett Harrison appeared in a property transaction involving a man named Rankin Floyd Harrison.
Who is this?
I pulled the actual deed.
And buried in the legal language was the answer.
Rankin Floyd Harrison was transferring his interest in property to his grandfather, Garrett M. Harrison.
Gotcha.
Baby Rankin had a middle name.
Even more interesting, the deed had been signed and notarized on July 25, 1962, in New York County, New York.
Hello.
Now, that proves only that Rankin Floyd Harrison was physically in Manhattan when he signed the document.
It doesn't establish that he lived there.
But decades later, his father gave us a fascinating clue.
In a 1981 interview, Rankin Sr. refused even to say his son's name.
He said he hadn't seen him in years.
And then he explained that his son had wanted to become an actor and had traveled extensively pursuing that ambition.
Oh.
OH.
Baby Rankin wanted to be an actor.
He'd traveled in pursuit of that dream.
And at approximately 23 years old, he turns up in Manhattan.
You know I went looking.
Newspapers.
Directories.
Theater records.
Acting databases.
Genealogical records.
Every reasonable variation of Rankin Floyd Harrison.
Nothing conclusive.
Maybe the acting dream never developed into a career.
Maybe he eventually chose a completely ordinary life far away from El Rancho.
Or perhaps he used a stage name, leaving us with the intriguing possibility that he appeared in some production without leaving an obvious connection to the Harrison family name.
I couldn't establish that, so it remains speculation.
But we do know something about how his father eventually spoke of him.
Rankin expressed disapproval of people who didn't earn their own living and made a particularly harsh remark suggesting that having his son had been a mistake.
Oof.
Especially coming from a man whose own parents had repeatedly provided financial and practical support during his early business years.
When Rankin Sr. died in 1995, his obituary nevertheless listed a surviving son, Rankin Harrison Jr.
Whatever happened between father and son, the family relationship remained part of the public record.
And that's where I'm going to leave Baby Rankin.
The records tell us there was a story.
They don't give us the right to invent the ending.
Peak Rankin: The Roadside Empire
Meanwhile, El Rancho was becoming an increasingly elaborate operation.
By 1960, a restaurant profile described the property as having more than 100 rooms.
In 1961, advertisements promoted it as a half-million-dollar, block-long resort.
By 1966?
A million-dollar, block-long resort.
I'm not auditing Rankin's advertising.
I'm simply reporting the escalation.
Rankin wasn't selling merely somewhere to sleep.
He was selling a destination.
Food.
Entertainment.
Dancing.
Motel rooms.
Roadside spectacle.
And eventually, decorations that made the place look as though several completely unrelated businesses had collided at high speed.
This was roadside America at full volume.
And Rankin understood something modern marketing departments spend millions trying to manufacture.
People remember weird.
El Rancho Rankin was certainly memorable.
Its eclectic appearance, oversized roadside features, and increasingly theatrical promotion turned an ordinary motel concept into something far more distinctive.
And somewhere along the way, a giant purple bull became part of the spectacle.
Because why wouldn't it?
Enter Grace
By 1949, property records identified Rankin's wife as Grace A. Harrison.
She would remain beside him for approximately thirty years, through the period when El Rancho became the place many Cincinnatians remember.
After her death in 1979, Rankin described Grace as his whole world.
He remembered her as a beauty queen, spoke about buying her diamonds, and said she had been buried wearing a mink coat.
Of course she was.
Even grief at El Rancho Rankin apparently came dressed for dinner.
But beneath the extravagant details, Rankin's affection for Grace seemed genuine in the interviews I located.
And her death would eventually become an important dividing line in the story of both the man and the motel.
Before we get there, however, Rankin still had several ideas to unleash upon Cincinnati.
Rankin Harrison, Nonprofit Executive
In August 1960, Rankin announced another project.
He was identified as president and director of the El Rancho Rankin Senior Citizens Foundation, with plans to eventually convert the motel into a nonprofit home for senior citizens.
Naturally, I went looking for the foundation.
I searched Ohio business and nonprofit records.
I found unrelated organizations.
I found records connected with later El Rancho businesses.
What I didn't locate was evidence establishing that the proposed foundation actually became the functioning nonprofit described in the newspaper.
That doesn't prove the organization never existed or that records weren't maintained elsewhere.
It simply means I couldn't substantiate its later operation through the sources available to me.
Rankin announced it.
And then the paper trail essentially shrugged.
Which, after spending this much time with Rankin Harrison, felt strangely appropriate.
From Trailers to Cadillacs
Trailers remained a recurring theme throughout Rankin's life.
He began with a trailer court.
In 1945, he proposed using 100 trailers to house veterans.
In 1958, he advertised a 21-foot Cabin Cruiser travel trailer for sale.
Then came 1964.
Rankin placed an advertisement offering his 1961 Chevrolet Greenbrier camper, a twelve-passenger vehicle.
Why was he selling it?
Financial trouble?
A change in travel plans?
Perhaps he simply no longer needed it?
No.
He was selling it because he was buying a new Cadillac limousine.
There are moments when a single classified advertisement tells you more about a person than an entire census record.
This was one of them.
The man who began with a trailer court had officially entered the Cadillac limousine phase of his life.
And trailers eventually came back, too.
Later photographs and records showed Cadillacs towing Airstreams, while a 1987 insurance advertisement listed two Airstream trailers and an Argosy motor home.
Rankin apparently spent decades continually upgrading the same basic idea:
What if I went somewhere, but extravagantly?
And if you think the Cadillac was excessive, wait until you hear what he wanted Cincinnati to do with its new stadium.
Rankin Has Some Notes About Cincinnati's Stadium
In 1965, Cincinnati was promoting the construction of a new riverfront stadium.
The Cincinnati Enquirer had its own campaign encouraging support for the project.
Rankin joined the broader civic push with newspaper advertising encouraging interest in reserved season boxes and parking.
That seems almost restrained.
Don't worry.
It passes.
On March 8, 1966, a newspaper article appeared under the headline “Mobile Stage Proposed.”
Rankin had written to the Stadium Committee, Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, Convention Bureau, and Downtown Business Men's Association.
He had suggestions.
First, a mobile stage.
Heated.
And air-conditioned.
That way, the Cincinnati Symphony and opera organizations could use the stadium year-round.
Okay.
Actually kind of creative.
Anything else?
Yes.
A tri-county fair.
Anything else, Rankin?
Oh, yes.
A special strip around the inside of the stadium for trotting races, midget auto racing, motorcycle racing, and bicycle racing.
...
RANKIN!
Sir.
They're trying to build a football and baseball stadium.
Apparently, professional sports weren't enough programming for one building.
Rankin essentially looked at Cincinnati's future stadium and said:
What if it were also a concert hall, opera house, county fairgrounds, harness track, motorcycle course, velodrome, and tiny-car racetrack?
This is the same man who looked at a trailer court and eventually produced a block-long resort.
Rankin didn't merely have ideas.
He had ideas that had eaten other ideas.
Colonel Rankin Harrison
Around this same period, another part of Rankin's public persona became increasingly visible.
Colonel.
By 1967, newspaper advertisements were encouraging readers to call Colonel Rankin Harrison.
Eventually, even Garrett Harrison's 1972 obituary identified his son using that title.
Now, I couldn't establish that Rankin's use of Colonel reflected a military commission, and I'm not going to invent a military career the records don't support.
What I did find was that Rankin organized a group called the Honorable Order of Ohio Colonels, intended to recognize people who contributed to their communities.
By 1981, Rankin was styling himself National Commander of the organization.
Because apparently, simply being a Colonel was insufficient.
Rankin needed to be in management.
The title stuck.
The young man who said he'd sold newspapers on the streets of Chattanooga...
The night-school student...
The barber...
The businessman whose mother repeatedly appeared at sheriff's sales...
Was now the owner of a lavish roadside resort, driving Cadillacs and signing advertisements:
Col. Rankin Harrison.
He had built El Rancho.
But just as importantly, Rankin had built Rankin.
The Organ Years
By the 1970s, Rankin had the resort, the Cadillacs, and the Colonel title.
What was missing?
Obviously, an enormous electronic organ.
In 1973, advertisements promoted dancing at El Rancho accompanied by a Lowrey organ.
Then Rankin escalated.
By 1975, he was advertising a Lowrey Symphonic Theatre Organ, which he described as the largest and most expensive organ installation in Greater Cincinnati.
Was it?
I have no idea.
After this much time with Rankin Harrison, I've learned that the safest way to handle his superlatives is to place them lovingly inside quotation marks and continue walking.
But the organ was real.
And so was the advertisement.
Which brings me to perhaps my favorite accidental newspaper layout in this entire investigation.
I found Rankin's advertisement for his spectacular organ among the obituaries.
Columns of death notices.
Funeral arrangements.
Bereaved families.
And then, essentially:
COME HEAR THE BIGGEST ORGAN IN CINCINNATI!
I know Rankin didn't personally decide where the newspaper placed his advertisement.
I know.
But spiritually?
Perfect.
By 1980, Rankin was circulating an enormous folding promotional business card covered in photographs.
Rankin with horses.
Rankin with Cadillacs.
Rankin promoting El Rancho.
Rankin promoting the organ.
At some point, you stop asking what business the card was advertising and realize:
The business was Rankin Harrison.
Subtlety was not among his preferred marketing strategies.
When Grace Died
On May 18, 1979, Grace Harrison died.
Two years later, Rankin was interviewed for a profile titled “The Colonel and the Bull.”
Much of his flamboyance remained.
But when he spoke about Grace, the tone changed.
He described her as irreplaceable and spoke of her as the center of his world.
After decades of following his increasingly outrageous business ventures, I found those moments particularly striking.
For all the self-promotion, extravagant possessions, and seemingly endless ambition, there was clearly a deeply personal loss behind the public persona.
Grace's death feels like an important dividing line.
Because the El Rancho Rankin of the 1980s and 1990s would not be quite the El Rancho of Rankin and Grace's glory years.
And neither, apparently, was Rankin.
When El Rancho Stopped Being a Vacation
Only months after Grace's death, trouble arrived.
In August 1979, an armed robber entered the El Rancho Rankin Motel around 8:35 in the morning, pointed a revolver at the clerk, ordered the clerk and two employees onto the floor, and escaped with cash.
Approximately three weeks later, a sheriff's deputy noticed a suspicious automobile in the motel parking lot around 4:30 a.m., with its engine running and lights off.
Two men were later accused of attempting to rob an El Rancho resident of $20.
Those incidents are interesting when considered together.
In the first, El Rancho itself was the victim of a robbery.
In the second, the victim was someone living there.
That distinction becomes increasingly important.
Over the following decade, El Rancho gradually became less of a roadside tourist destination and more of a place where people lived.
The aging property was transitioning away from the glamorous resort Rankin had spent decades promoting.
And by 1990, it was beginning to appear in newspapers for reasons he probably wouldn't have included on one of his enormous promotional business cards.
The 1990 Fire
On December 27, 1990, a fire broke out in Apartment 122 at El Rancho Rankin.
The alarm came in at 3:26 p.m.
Four apartments sustained heavy damage, while two additional units suffered smoke and water damage.
Two residents of Apartment 122 received minor burns and were treated at Mercy Hospital Anderson.
The estimated damage was approximately $150,000.
Investigators believed the fire was electrical in origin, with a faulty extension cord considered a possible source.
Firefighters encountered additional difficulties because false dropped ceilings allowed the fire to spread into concealed spaces and made it harder to extinguish.
Fortunately, no one died.
But the incident is an important marker in the property's history.
By this point, El Rancho was an aging building increasingly used as residential housing, and its physical condition could complicate emergency response.
Later records surrounding the property's closure would become much more explicit about dangerous conditions and code problems.
Those later allegations don't establish that management knew about the specific electrical problem associated with the 1990 fire.
But they do show that El Rancho's decline didn't begin the day Rankin Harrison died.
The property had been aging for years.
Home, Not Motel
By 1991, a health clinic was operating at El Rancho.
The old tourist court was serving a population very different from the travelers Rankin had spent decades courting.
These weren't simply overnight guests.
For many people, El Rancho was home.
And I think that's important to remember when discussing the property's later reputation.
Ask Cincinnatians about late-era El Rancho and you'll hear stories.
Drugs.
Prostitution.
Shootings.
Violence.
I went looking for them.
And historical research can be inconvenient when the facts don't cooperate with a popular story.
I searched contemporary newspaper coverage for prostitution associated with El Rancho.
I couldn't find substantive documentation.
Drug raids and narcotics arrests?
Again, nothing substantial that established the stories I'd heard.
Shootings?
I couldn't verify those accounts either.
That doesn't prove such incidents never happened. Newspapers don't document every police call or criminal investigation.
But I'm also not going to turn neighborhood folklore into established historical fact simply because it makes a better story.
El Rancho doesn't need the help.
Because what I could document was serious enough.
The Woman Handcuffed to the Refrigerator
In 1992, El Rancho employees summoned law enforcement to the room of a resident named Michael Jones, who was 34 years old.
When a Hamilton County sheriff's deputy entered, authorities reported finding Jones standing over a woman who had been handcuffed to a refrigerator.
The woman had cuts and bruises on her head.
She told police she'd been held in the room since approximately 12:30 the previous afternoon.
Jones was charged with rape and kidnapping and jailed in lieu of $100,000 bond.
I couldn't establish the ultimate disposition of those charges through the records I located, so I'm leaving them exactly where the contemporary reporting leaves them: allegations and criminal charges, not a documented conviction.
There's another detail here that deserves attention.
El Rancho employees summoned police.
That doesn't fit neatly into a simplistic narrative of management tolerating everything that occurred on the property.
According to the reporting, staff became aware of a serious situation and contacted law enforcement.
The reality was more complicated than the legend.
And three years later, El Rancho would be the scene of a documented homicide.
The Murder of Arthur Baker
In October 1995, 64-year-old Arthur W. Baker was found dead in his room at El Rancho Rankin.
Baker had reportedly lived there for approximately a year.
Another resident discovered his body.
Authorities determined that he'd been strangled.
The person charged was another El Rancho tenant, 18-year-old Rex Allen Foreman.
Foreman had been living at the motel with family members while they saved money for a house.
Police later located him in Covington.
Investigators reported that Foreman confessed to strangling Baker during an argument using a sock.
Foreman's family subsequently described a different, more complicated account of what Foreman had told them, involving an alleged sexual advance by Baker.
That was the family's account, not something I could independently establish as fact.
What we can document is the court outcome.
Foreman was originally charged with murder.
He later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
In February 1996, he was sentenced to eight to twenty-five years in prison.
So yes.
There really was a homicide at El Rancho Rankin.
There really was serious violence during the property's later years.
But that's different from casually claiming the motel was full of shootings, drugs, and prostitution without evidence.
The documented story is more complicated.
And frankly, more human.
Because by the 1990s, this wasn't simply a decaying roadside attraction.
It was a place where people lived, worked, struggled, and sometimes experienced terrible things.
Rankin Wasn't There to See the End
Rankin Harrison had died only a couple of months before Arthur Baker's death.
In August 1995, following a stroke the previous month, Colonel Rankin Harrison died at Mercy Hospital Anderson.
He was 85 years old.
The man who'd spent more than half a century promoting El Rancho was gone.
And the place didn't last much longer without him.
By May 1996, approximately 200 people were reportedly living at El Rancho.
Then came orders requiring the property to be vacated amid serious building, health, and fire-code concerns.
Later litigation alleged that those responsible for the property had been aware of dangerous conditions.
Those were allegations in legal proceedings, and they should be understood as such.
But the reported conditions were serious enough that the residents were being forced to leave.
During those final days, journalist Laura Pulfer visited the property and described an almost surreal scene.
The giant purple bull was still there.
The motel was nearly empty.
And the people who'd made the aging roadside resort their home were being displaced.
Think about how far we've traveled.
The land Garrett Harrison acquired in 1940.
Anna at the sheriff's sales.
The trailer court.
The tavern brawl.
Ike Hyams's shopping bag.
The library.
The dance permits.
The veterans.
The proposed hospital.
The lake.
The tourist court.
The million-dollar resort.
The Cadillac limousine.
The stadium racetrack.
The Colonel.
The organ.
The giant animals.
And now...
An evacuation.
The place Rankin had spent decades building was coming to an end.
What Happened to El Rancho Rankin?
Following Rankin's death and the motel's closure, the property moved toward redevelopment.
In August 1997, the Harrison estate sold the El Rancho property to interests involving Mayerson/Anderson Development Co. Ltd. and Skytop Properties Ltd.
Township officials welcomed the redevelopment of what had become a badly deteriorated property.
Eventually, the physical El Rancho Rankin disappeared.
The motel rooms came down.
The restaurant disappeared.
The signs disappeared.
The giant roadside spectacle disappeared.
And the land became part of the modern commercial landscape.
Which brings me back to why stories like this fascinate me in the first place.
A friend on Facebook asked me to research an old motel.
That's it.
That's how this started.
I thought I was researching a building.
Instead, I found Rankin Harrison.
And once I started following Rankin, I discovered something I've encountered repeatedly while researching Cincinnati's old properties.
The intensely local places aren't just disappearing physically.
They're disappearing from memory.
What Used to Be Here?
Drive around Cincinnati today and you'll see names you could find almost anywhere.
Chain restaurants.
Retail developments.
Corporate storefronts.
Perfectly ordinary buildings serving perfectly ordinary purposes.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
Cities change.
Businesses close.
Families sell.
Roads widen.
Buildings become obsolete.
Sometimes a deteriorated property genuinely needs to come down.
I'm certainly not arguing that every crumbling motel should be preserved forever simply because somebody once put a giant purple bull in front of it.
But something is lost when a place disappears so completely that nobody remembers to ask:
What used to be here?
Because sometimes the answer is extraordinary.
A family that came north from the Tennessee-Alabama border.
A young man who finished night school and became a barber.
A woman named Esther whose story survives primarily through property and guardianship records.
A mother named Anna who repeatedly appeared at sheriff's sales when her son's property investments went sideways.
A father named Garrett who acquired land along Beechmont Avenue.
A little boy named Rankin Floyd who dreamed of becoming an actor.
A bookmaker named Ike Hyams who lost the world's most inconvenient shopping bag.
A library.
A threatened dude ranch.
One hundred trailers for veterans.
A proposed veterans hospital.
A three-acre lake.
A Cadillac limousine.
A stadium with opera, motorcycles, and midget cars.
A giant Lowrey organ.
A purple bull.
And one extraordinarily complicated man who spent most of his adult life making sure Cincinnati knew his name.
Colonel Rankin Harrison.
The Man Behind the Empire
After spending an absolutely unreasonable amount of time studying Rankin Harrison, I still don't know that I particularly like the man.
He could be generous.
He could be difficult.
He was relentlessly ambitious.
His accounts of his own life didn't always tell the entire story.
His treatment of his son, at least as reflected in the interviews I located, is difficult to reconcile with the extraordinary help he himself received from his parents.
And some of the events associated with El Rancho's later years are neither charming nor funny.
But there is something undeniably fascinating about Rankin.
He was a man who seemed to believe that if one idea was good, ten more ideas would be better.
He didn't want a trailer court.
He wanted a resort.
He didn't want a modest entertainment venue.
He wanted a destination.
He didn't want to suggest a concert at the stadium.
He wanted opera, motorcycles, trotting races, and an entire county fair.
He didn't simply become a Colonel.
He became National Commander.
And when someone questioned his correspondence with a notorious bookmaker, he apparently decided that the best defense was to insist he was discussing a library.
For months.
RANKIN!
But underneath all that eccentricity was a businessman who understood something important.
He knew how to make people remember him.
He built an entire destination around his name, filled it with memorable attractions, and promoted it with such enthusiasm that decades after the buildings disappeared, Cincinnatians still remember El Rancho Rankin.
And perhaps the most interesting contradiction of all is how he presented himself as entirely self-made while the deeds document the substantial role his parents played in the property's early history.
It's interesting to consider how someone facing foreclosure could simultaneously be building such an ambitious business empire, with financial help from his parents and correspondence with a notorious bookmaker about a supposed library.
You can draw your own conclusions about Rankin's personality and motivations.
I certainly have my theories.
But theories aren't facts, and I've tried to let the historical record speak for itself.
What I will say is that Rankin Harrison was complicated, sometimes difficult to admire, occasionally astonishing, and entirely uninterested in being ordinary.
For better or worse, he presented himself to the world on his own terms.
And he left behind a legacy that was impossible to ignore.
The buildings are gone.
The bull is gone.
El Rancho is gone.
But after spending all this time in deed books, court indexes, census records, and old newspapers, I think I finally understand what Rankin actually built.
It wasn't just a motel.
It wasn't even El Rancho.
Rankin Harrison built Rankin Harrison.
And all these years later, here we are...
Still talking about him.
Until the next historical rabbit hole, stay curious.
Written and researched by Ashley Yoder | Homes With History — Corporate House Takeover
Research note: This article draws on historical newspaper reporting, census records, city directories, property deeds, court records, advertisements, and other archival material. Personal accounts and promotional claims are attributed where appropriate. Criminal allegations are distinguished from documented court outcomes, and unresolved family and property questions have not been presented as established fact.