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Among the first in America, Cincinnati’s public library dates from March 14, 1853. A public reading room opened in 1856, but funding remained a problem until 1867, when local school board president Rufus King II secured legislation for a renamed Cincinnati Public Library. In 1869, King lured leading librarian William Frederick Poole to organize Cincinnati as a national model for the growing public library movement. Poole designed 19th century America’s most advanced library at 629 Vine Street, which fully opened in 1874. Becoming a countywide system in 1898, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was a pioneer in the 20th century with special services for the blind and for children, bookmobile services, and circulation of audiovisual materials. (continued on other side)
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William E. Telling (1869-1938) was one of ten children born in a farmhouse on this property. As a boy he sold strawberries and milk door-to-door and worked in a local sandstone quarry until at age 23 he purchased a milk route. He and four brothers formed the Telling Brothers Ice Cream Company in 1895 with William as president. A merger in 1915 formed the Telling Belle Vernon Dairy Company that was the first local distributor of pasteurized, glass-bottled milk. Their unique bacteriological laboratory (later Sealtest Laboratories) developed the baby food S.M.A. His recipe for success was “just work and work and work some more; do the work of two and draw the pay of one.”
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The first full-size glass door oven was invented and manufactured here by Ernst H. Huenefeld of The Huenefeld Company in 1909. Specially designed and patented sheet metal frames in the door allowed for expansion and contraction of the glass. The large window, guaranteed against steaming up or breaking from heat, allowed users to view their baking without opening the oven door. Huenefeld had acquired this property in 1903 for a new factory. The Huenefeld Company, established in 1872 on Pearl Street, moved its manufacturing here in 1904 from its downtown Cincinnati locations. The company, in operation until its sale in 1966, was widely known as a manufacturer of ranges, stoves, ovens, heaters, furnaces, refrigerators, washing machines, and other household products. A standard feature in homes today, the glass door oven was a technological breakthrough in 1909.
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A team of Battelle researchers played a major role in developing one of the 20th century’s most innovative and commercially successful ideas–xerography. In 1944, Battelle recognized the merits of a crude experiment in electrophotography demonstrated by an independent inventor. A licensing agreement with Haloid, later renamed Xerox, moved this basic technology to the marketplace in a fully automated office copier machine. Xerography forged a new way to manage information and improve global communication and, at the same time created a multi-billion dollar industry.
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In 1886, thirty-six members from Toledo’s downtown Lutheran church, St. Paul’s, met to form a German-speaking Lutheran congregation for immigrants from Pommern, Mecklenburg and Hanover. Initially worshipping at St. Stephen’s at the corner of Harrison and Oliver Street, the congregation built a frame church on this site in 1887. That same year St. Lucas pioneered an early form of health insurance, The Mutual Sick Benefit Society, that later became a larger fraternal organization called The Mutual Sick Benefit Society for Ohio and Other States. In 1999, after joining a program called Reconciling in Christ, St. Lucas became the first Lutheran congregation in northern Ohio to publicaly welcome the LGBT communities. Named after Saint Luke, the patron saint of physicians, the church’s history is one of healing.
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Edward Drummond Libbey High School . Edward Drummond Libbey High School – “the castle on the hill” – opened in 1923 to serve the growing number of students in Toledo Public Schools. The school offered a curriculum of manual and academic training, reflecting a progressive movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to democratize education. Libbey High School was named for Edward D. Libbey (1854-1925), a local businessman, civic leader, and philanthropist who founded the Libbey Glass Company and Toledo Museum of Art. Libbey’s successful business ventures earned Toledo the nickname “The Glass Capital of the World.” Much of his fortune was spent on providing cultural and educational institutions that still serve the public as of 2018. (Continued on other side)
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Born on September 21, 1918, golf course architect Jack Kidwell attended Columbus Central High School where he became the Ohio School State Golf Champion in 1937. Kidwell was the owner and operator of Beacon Light Golf Course from 1937-1971. He was inducted into both the Southern Ohio PGA Hall of Fame and the Ohio Golf Association Hall of Fame in 1997. He was the founding father of Hurdzan/Fry Golf Course Design and the inspirational leader to this day. Kidwell was a true giant of the golf industry and has been named the person having the most influence on golf in the state of Ohio over the past 200 years. He was married to his wife Geraldine “Jerry” Kidwell for 57 years and they had four daughters, Sally, Shirley, Kathy, and Jody. Jack Kidwell died on April 29, 2001.
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The West Park African American community began in 1809 with the first black settler and one of the earliest residents of the area, inventor and farmer George Peake. With the growth of the railroad industry, African Americans were encouraged to move into the area to work at the New York Central Round House and Train Station located in Linndale. First among these, in 1912, were Beary Frierson and Henry Sharp. As more and more African Americans came, African American institutions followed. In 1919, Reverend Thomas Evans and the families of Herndon Anderson and Joseph Williams founded St. Paul A.M.E. Church, the first black congregation on Cleveland’s West Side. Reverend D.R. Shaw, the Ebb Strowder family and Iler Burrow established the Second Calvary Baptist Church in 1923. Both became pillars of the community.