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In 1879, local hardware store owners L.W. Loomis and H.E. Parks established a summer resort at Front Street and Prospect Avenue. The High Bridge Glens and Caves park spanned both sides of the Cuyahoga River and featured a dance and dining pavilion, scenic trails and overlooks, cascades and waterfalls, deep caverns, curious geological formations, and a suspension footbridge. The park also offered several manmade attractions, including what is believed to have been one of the earliest roller coasters in the area. At the height of its popularity, the park attracted more than 8,000 visitors a day, including Congressman (later president of the United States) William McKinley. (continued on other side)
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Around 1843, local Methodists organized a new Methodist Episcopal church at Fair Play and later erected a brick chapel. The congregation was short-lived, however, and fell into decline after one of its leading members, Joseph Lashorn, moved to Hamilton. In 1876, Reverend F. G. Grigsby of the United Brethren church organized a congregation here, repairing and occupying the old Methodist chapel for the next several years. The cemetery is the burial place for veterans from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War; some of whom are interred in unmarked graves. The last known burial was Etta Thomas in 1941.
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In 1934 at the age 17, Dino Crocetti (1917-1995) who became known as the world-famous crooner, actor, and television star Dean Martin, took the stage for the first time at the Craig Beach Dance Hall. As the George Williams Orchestra played, Crocetti sang “Oh Marie.” Acquiring his first stage name, “Dino Martini,” Martin got his first big break into show business later in the 1930s, singing with the Ernie McKay Orchestra, from Columbus, Ohio.
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The Kyle-McCollum House, thought to be the oldest continuously inhabited residence still on its original site in Youngstown, was built by War of 1812 veteran Joshua Kyle (c. 1766-1842) and his wife Mary Stewart (c. 1774-1844). The Kyles moved from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to the Mahoning Valley around 1800 and purchased about 1,300 acres of land on a hill above Mill Creek. Using stone quarried from the property, they built a house, completed in 1813. The Federal style of the house is typical of early 19th-century homes built in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The structure is two and a half stories with stone load-bearing walls that are two feet thick. Beside his farm, Kyle built a sawmill on Mill Creek near Slippery Rock, a site now under Lake Glacier. [Continued on other side]
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Jess Willard, the 6′ 6″ 245-pound boxing champion, was a shy and gentle Kansas native who had won the championship from Jack Johnson of Texas in 1915 in Havana, Cuba. Jack (William Harrison) Dempsey of Manassa, Colorado, hailed as the greatest fighter of the half-century by the Associated Press, began his career in 1911, defeating opponents with his trademark bobbing and weaving style. Dempsey’s manager, Jack “Doc” Kearns, captured the attention of fight promoter Tex Rickard, who was looking for a Willard challenger. Despite the size and weight difference of the boxers, the bout was arranged.
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Nathanial Sackett (1768-1854) and John H. Piatt (1781-1820) platted Monroe in 1817, naming it for President James Monroe. Monroe was a stagecoach stop between Cincinnati and Dayton and grew to be a rural village surrounded by farms and dotted with small factories, incorporating in 1907. Beginning in the mid-1950s and coinciding with the construction of Interstate 75, the village expanded geographically, through the annexation of surrounding farmland, and continued to grow in population. Monroe officially became a city in 1995, when its population exceeded 5,000 people (5,380). As of its bicentennial year of 2017, Monroe was home to more than 13,000.
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The Lanes, Baptist merchants from New Orleans, and the Kempers, a Presbyterian family from Cincinnati, gave money and land respectively for Cincinnati’s first manual labor theological seminary and high school, which opened in suburban Walnut Hills in 1829. The Reverend Lyman Beecher came from Boston as its first president. The president’s house, now known as the Stowe House after Beecher’s daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, still remains at Gilbert and Foraker. Lane Theological Seminary, bound by present day Gilbert, Chapel, Park, and Yale streets, continued to educate Presbyterian ministers until 1932, when it was merged with McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.
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The Upper Arlington Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, is an important example of the “Garden City” model of early 20th century suburban development. Based on English precedents, the “Garden City” movement promoted the ideals of rustic beauty, health and comfort in an era when urban areas were becoming increasingly industrialized and congested. Local entrepreneurs King and Ben Thompson purchased 840 acres of farmland northwest of Columbus from James T. Miller for the creation of their “Country Club District” in 1913. The Upper Arlington Company, incorporated in 1917, built its field office in the building now used as Miller Park Library. Noted landscape architect William Pitkin, Jr. designed the curvilinear streets, spacious lots with generous setbacks, and permanent open spaces that characterize the district. Residential, civic, and commercial designs in the romantic Period Revival architectural styles popular between 1915 and 1940 contribute to the charm and character of the area known as Old Arlington.