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The Marion Steam Shovel Company built the primary tools for America’s civil engineering for more than 100 years. Founded in 1884 by Henry M. Barnhart, George W. King, and Edward Huber, the company’s patent steam shovels helped revolutionize railway and road construction, and were used in the building of the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, and the Holland Tunnel. “The Shovel” also built ditchers, log loaders, dredges, and draglines, including some of the largest land vehicles ever built. The first electric machine was built in 1915, but it was not until 1946 that the name was changed to Marion Power Shovel. In the mid-twentieth century, “The Shovel” employed 2,500 workers. In the 1960s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration selected Marion to build the crawlers that transport spacecraft to their launch pads. Hundred-year rival Bucyrus International acquired and closed the company in 1997.
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First known as the Webster House, later as the New England House, and finally as the Old Tavern, this inn has served travelers on the old Cleveland-Buffalo Road (now State Route 84) since before Ohio became a state. As traffic on the old Indian trail increased and it became a post and stage road, the two original log cabins, built in 1798 and later, were converted to this two-and-a-half story inn between 1815 and 1820. While the tavern was the scene of Civil War-era parties and dances in the second-floor ballroom, local tradition suggests it offered much more clandestine hospitality to escaping slaves as a station on the Underground Railroad. The Unionville Tavern was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1973.
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Construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal, beginning in Cleveland and running south to Portsmouth, began in 1825. As a means to pay for debts on the community’s 5,500 acres of Tuscarawas County land, members of the Society of Separatists of Zoar contracted to construct this portion of the canal. They received $21,000 for this work, which was completed in 1827. Surplus goods were transported on Society owned and operated canal boats to outside markets via the Ohio and Erie Canal, which also brought manufactured items into Zoar. (continued on other side)
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Reverend John Jay Shipherd and Philo Penfield Stewart envisioned an educational institution and colony dedicated to the glory of God and named in honor of John Frederick Oberlin, a pastor in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. Early colonists signed a covenant pledging themselves to the plainest living and highest thinking. Oberlin (known as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute until 1850 when it was renamed Oberlin College) was the first coeducational institution to grant bachelor’s degrees to women and historically has been a leader in the education of African Americans. In fact, African American and white children studied together in the town’s one-room schoolhouse, in defiance of Ohio’s “Black laws” forbidding this practice. The schoolhouse, built 1836-1837, is part of the Oberlin Heritage Center.
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Stone Arch at Howard, Ohio. The arch at Howard, built in 1874, is a bridge for U.S. Route 36 over the old Cleveland, Mt. Vernon, and Delaware Railroad bed, a part of the Kokosing Gap Trail. Samuel Israel, Sr. (1810-1889) sold the right to quarry nearby stone for the arch to Robert S. McKay (1813-1885) and his son William (1845-1892). R.S. McKay & Son employed local stone masons, shown here, to build the arch according to the contract with the railroad. (Continued on other side)
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The Hotel Ashtabula was built in 1920 during an economic boom that lasted most of that decade. Architecturally, it represents a combination of Second Renaissance Revival and Georgian Revival styles. The H.L. Stevens and Company of Chicago and New York designed and built the hotel and others like it in Cleveland, Dayton, and Warren, Ohio and throughout the Midwest. The building included a ball room accommodating 300, a dining room that could seat 125, and club meeting and social rooms. A prominent structure of this downtown street, the Hotel Ashtabula was a hub for social activity. (Continued other side)
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In 1810, early settlers here were Major Amos Spafford (1753-1818), his wife Olive (1756-1823), and their children Samuel, Aurora , Chloe (Mrs. Almon Gibbs), and Anna (Mrs. Richard Craw). In 1796, Spafford, a native of Connecticut, was a surveyor for the Connecticut Land Company. He drew the first map laying out Cleveland and named the city. He left there in 1810 following appointment as custom’s collector and postmaster for the new port at the foot of the Maumee River rapids, Port Miami of Lake Erie. Spafford was granted a 160 acre land patent on River Tracts #64 and #65 in Waynesfield township, signed by President James Monroe and was able to purchase it following the 1817 Treaty of the Rapids that extinguished Native American claim. Two years later, 67 families lived in the area, but most fled at the outbreak of the War of 1812.
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Michael Uhrich, Sr. founded Uhrich’s Mill on this site in 1806. Uhrich emigrated from Pennsylvania in 1804 and became one of the first County Commissioners upon the formation of Tuscarawas County in February 1808. In 1833, the same year Mill Township was organized, Michael Uhrich, Jr. platted the town named Waterford, which became Uhrichsville approximately six years later. During the Ohio-Erie Canal period, Uhrich’s Mill – consisting of four wheels (one for sawing wood, one for wheat, and two for grinding corn) – became the focal point for nearly all grain produced in the Stillwater Valley and shipped to Cleveland markets via the canal.