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In 1854, Samuel and Rebecca McClellan Collins deeded 1.28 acres to Beavercreek Township, Greene County, for the purpose of building a schoolhouse. The first two schoolhouses were constructed of stone with fireplaces for heat. Collins neighborhood children in first through eighth grade were educated in the present red brick building until 1944, when decreased enrollment forced Xenia Township to close the school. Virgil and Helen Bryson Brantley, great-granddaughter of Samuel and Rebecca Collins, purchased the school property in 1982 and began the restoration of the vandalized and deteriorated schoolhouse. The pony/coal shed and privies were rebuilt on their foundations. (Continued on other side)
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The Infirmary, also known as the poorhouse or simply “The Home,” is one of the last county poorhouse sites in Ohio where nearly all of the original structures still stand. The main building, constructed in 1868 with outbuildings added over the years, served as home for the county’s poor, sick, orphaned, elderly, and mentally ill. The Lunatic House was added in 1885 as a facility for the violently insane. The Infirmary operated as a self-sufficient farm where residents contributed according to their ability. Throughout its 102 years of service, the Infirmary had an average population of eighty residents, swelling to over 140 during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The site closed as a poorhouse in 1971 but reopened in 1975 as the Wood County Historical Center and Museum. The Wood County Infirmary was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
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Established in 1879 by Chicago industrialist William P. Rend as a coal mining town, Rendville became a place where African Americans broke the color barrier. In 1888, Dr. Isaiah Tuppins, the first African American to receive a medical degree in Ohio, was elected Rendville’s mayor, also making him the first African American to be elected a mayor in Ohio. Richard L. Davis arrived in Rendville in 1882 and became active in the Knights of Labor. He was one of the labor organizers from the Little Cities of Black Diamonds region who helped found the United Mine Workers of America in 1890. An outstanding writer and orator, Davis was elected to UMWA’s national executive board and organized thousands of African Americans and immigrants to join the union. (continued on other side)
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This Queen Anne style building with segmental-arched windows and steep hipped roof was Burton’s second high school. Completed in 1885 at a cost of $12,500, it is wood framed with a brick and stone exterior, modeled after an academy in River Falls, Wisconsin. Its basement and two upper floors contained 12,720 square feet of space, enough for all twelve grades. There were two separate entrances; girls entered on the left and boys on the right. Electricity was installed in 1921 by the superintendent and students. Classes met here until 1936. During its history, the building housed various organizations, including the Red Cross, Opportunity School of Geauga County (later Metzenbaum), Geauga County Historical Society, American Legion, and County Extension Office. In 1937, it became the home of the Burton Public Library and in 1983 was expanded with a north wing designed to be architecturally consistent with the original 1885 structure.
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Now ranked among the country’s finest, the zoo began in 1900 with one large woodchuck in a box at Walbridge Park. After the organization of the Toledo Zoological Society, 1905-10, the zoo began its steady growth, particularly after 1923 under the leadership of Percy C. Jones. An ambitious federal construction program during the Great Depression of the 1930s provided several major structures.
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A dense swamp forest roughly the size of the state of Connecticut once stretched across this region of Ohio and Indiana. A remnant of ancient Lake Maumee, this dense, soggy flatland supported abundant waterfowl and wildlife, but blocked travel and settlement and remained largely uninhabited until it was cleared and drained for agriculture between 1860 and 1885. This marsh and other scatter remnants are all that remain of the Great Black Swamp. Managed for a variety of wetland wildlife, Magee is one of the premier bird watching sites in North America, with more than 300 species.
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In 1749, the French in North America perceived a threat by British expansion west of the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River Valley and beyond. The French commander, Pierre Joseph Celeron, sieur de Blainville, with 250 men, left Montreal, New France, to establish French claims. They buried inscribed lead plates at the mouths of six important tributaries to the Ohio River. Three lead plates have been recovered, one was sent to England, and two are in American historical societies. The final plate was buried just west of here at the mouth of the Great Miami River, before the detachment turned north. However, after the British captured Montreal in 1760, French claims east of the Mississippi River were ceded to Britain by the 1793 Treaty of Paris. British Parliament annexed to Quebec (now Canada) and controlled all lands north of the Ohio River until 1776.(Continued on other side)
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Completed in 1892 at the height of the region’s oil boom, the Pemberville Town Hall followed a late-1800s municipal trend to house many civic functions under one roof. The fire station, jail, and council chambers occupied the ground level, while the entire second floor hosted a public auditorium, or “opera house,” that seated 250. The 1897 debut of The Mikado featured new electric lighting. The ornate Opera House was the center of Pemberville’s social activities for decades, hosting dances, plays, socials, graduation ceremonies, political meetings, lectures, and husking bees. Traveling companies performed concerts, vaudeville, minstrel, and medicine shows. Following World War II the Opera House fell into disuse. It was restored in 1999 to both its former grandeur and its place in Pemberville’s cultural life.
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