Founded as a railroad suburb and temperance community in 1870[1] in northeastern Millcreek Township, it is one of a number of neighborhoods lining the Mill Creek.

[2] Bond Hill began as a commuter suburb connected to Cincinnati via the Marietta-Cincinnati Railroad.

The cooperative initially planned on building in Cumminsville but for unknown reasons, the co-op changed the site of their development to the area, which they renamed Bond Hill.

The change was likely suggested by a founding member of the cooperative, Henry Watkin, an utopian socialist and expatriate English printer.

For at least 11 years after its founding in 1870, the sale of liquor was prohibited in Bond Hill according to the Constitution and By-Laws of the Cooperative.

An oral history transcribed in 1961 by George E. Patmor, one of the village's earliest residents, indicates that the name was first given by visitors to a sawmill operated by a man named Bond: "In these days the people of St. Bernard and Cincinnati would use a footpath through the woods 'for a shortcut from St. Bernard to Bond’s sawmill to work or transact business.'

The environmental degradation and urbanization of the neighborhood presaged the exit of whites from Bond Hill in the 1960s and 1970s.

Realtors and local banks actively encouraged the demographic transition of the neighborhood through redlining, blockbusting, and racial steering.

[2] According to the U.S. Census American Community Survey, for the period 2016-2020 the estimated median annual income for a household in the neighborhood was $39,637.