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Lock and Dam 10, completed in 1915, was part of a slack-water navigation system built for the Ohio River. The site included a brick powerhouse and two lockkeeper houses. The lock and dam was replaced when Pike Island Dam was completed in 1965. The buildings were demolished in 1975. Remnants include two sets of steps, a 600-foot ramp, the lock esplanade and wall, and a recess at the east end where the lock gate once retracted. The first part of this system was the Davis Island Dam near Pittsburgh, completed in 1885. By 1929, a nine-foot pool had been completed along the entire length of the Ohio, culminating with Lock and Dam 53 at Grand Chain, Illinois. Built by the Pittsburgh District of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, this system resulted in a more navigable Ohio River with increased depth and diminished current.
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Built in 1846, the Tremont House was opened by Loel and Samuel B. Chandler to serve stagecoach traffic on the Maumee Pike (U.S. Route 20). Briefly a hotel, this Bellevue landmark has housed grocery and hardware stores, a pharmacy, and even a cigar factory. The third floor ballroom hosted community events and fraternal organizations such as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). The building’s west side is on the western boundary of the Firelands region of the Connecticut Western Reserve. An example of Greek Revival architecture, the Tremont House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
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This Little Red Schoolhouse served children from Berea, Brookpark, and Middleburg township. The first mayor and council of Middleburgh Heights were elected here. During its colorful history, the schoolhouse has been a City Hall where town meetings were held, a speak-easy, a railroad way station, and a private residence.
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The Ridgewood neighborhood, platted in 1914, was one of the first fully planned and restricted suburbs in the United States. Its innovative developer, Springfield native Harry S. Kissell, was among a small group of nationally-acclaimed real estate developers who, in the early twentieth century, created the modern suburb as we know it today. Their developments offered spacious lots in park-like settings; curvilinear, paved roads; utilities, and sewers. They also ushered in the practice of deed restrictions, which were both protective and exclusionary. Harry Kissell went on to become president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards in 1931. During his tenure, he conceived the idea for the Federal Home Loan Banking system, which, during the Great Depression, saved millioins of Americans from foreclosure and permanently opened up the possibility of home ownership to the middle class.
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Betsey Mix Cowles dedicated her life to fighting slavery and improving the status of women. Her desire for a formal education led her to Oberlin College, where she completed two years of study in 1840. An advocate of immediate abolition, Cowles lectured on the moral depravity of slavery, opened her home, at this site, to fugitive slaves. Opposed to expansion of slavery into the West, Cowles protested the Mexican War. Cowles served as president of Ohio’s first women’s rights convention (in Salem) in 1850, and the following year wrote a treatise on equal pay for working urban women. She served as the first dean of women at Grand River Institute, and later became one of the first women public school superintendents in Ohio.
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Wyandot County’s third and current courthouse was constructed from 1899-1900. Designed by the firm of Yost & Packard, the architects of courthouses in Wood, Harrison, and other counties, the building is a wonderful example of Beaux-Arts Classicism. The third floor courtroom was featured in the 1994 motion picture “The Shawshank Redemption,” based on a Stephen King novella. Director-screenwriter Frank Darabont chose the courtroom for the opening scenes of the movie, which features Academy Award-winning actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Many courtroom “extras” were Wyandot County residents. A time capsule inside Lady Justice, atop the dome, contains a copy of the movie, commemorating ‘Shawshank’ enthusiasts who supported the statue’s 2009 restoration. A restoration of the building was completed in 2015. The courthouse and adjacent jail were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
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This site, at the head of the Great Rapids of the Maumee, has been a major river crossing for centuries. The village was platted in 1833 as Gilead but was overshadowed by rival Providence during the canal era. In 1868 the name Grand Rapids was adopted, and the town prospered with the arrival of the railroad in 1877. Fires ravished the village in the late 1890s and spring floods have remained a threat. Restoration of the Victorian architecture began in 1975 and has helped revitalize this village along the historic Maumee.
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The Noble County Jail and Sheriff’s Office is a fine example of Late Victorian architecture designed by a prominent Ohio architect and built by important nineteenth century Noble County builders. Designed by Columbus architect Joseph Warren Yost, it was constructed 1881-1882 by Mills & Summers and cost $9,477.55. The building is made of orange-red bricks from the Ava Brick Company and features horizontal sandstone banding and a detailed gable end with brackets and finials. The Queen Anne design includes an asymmetrical façade with two distinct entrances to the Sheriff’s Office and Residence. The office and residence face courthouse square while the jail cells are at the rear. There are four first-floor individual cells and two larger men’s and women’s cells above with concrete barrel-vaulted ceilings. (Continued on other side)