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In 1968, Richard Nixon won the presidency partly based on a campaign promise to end the Vietnam War. Though the war seemed to be winding down, on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, triggering protests across college campuses. On Friday, May 1, an anti-war rally was held on the Commons at Kent State University. Protestors called for another rally to be held on Monday, May 4. Disturbances in downtown Kent that night caused city officials to ask Governor James Rhodes to send the Ohio National Guard to maintain order. Troops put on alert Saturday afternoon were called to campus Saturday evening after an ROTC building was set on fire. Sunday morning in a press conference that was also broadcast to the troops on campus, Rhodes vowed to “eradicate the problem” of protests at Kent State. (Continued on other side)
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On December 15, 1967, about one mile downstream from this historic marker, a national tragedy occurred. Forty-six interstate travelers lost their lives when the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River during five o’clock rush hour traffic. The 2,235 foot two-way vehicular bridge connected Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Kanauga, Ohio via U.S. Route 35. The West Virginia Ohio River Company built the structure in 1928 for $1.2 million. The bridge, unique in its engineering conception, was the first of its design in America and the second in the world. Instead of woven-wire cable, the bridge was suspended on heat-treated eye-bar chains. It was named the “Silver Bridge” because it was the first in the world to be painted with aluminum paint. In 1969, two years later, its replacement, the Silver Memorial Bridge was dedicated.
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Before and during World War II, the aviation industry was vulnerable to adverse weather conditions, particularly thunderstorms. In 1945, Congress mandated the nation’s first large-scale, scientific study of thunderstorms. The Thunderstorm Project was a cooperative undertaking of the U.S. Weather Bureau, Army Air Force, Navy, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (predecessor of NASA). The first phase of the project was conducted in Florida in 1946 and the second phase in Clinton County in 1947, partly because weather fronts frequently pass through this area. Pilots from the Clinton County Army Air Force Base made many flights through storms of varying intensities and all stages of development. (Continued on other side)
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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, the span is the oldest in Clark County a traveler can cross. It is also one of the oldest stone bridges in use in Ohio. Stone mason Samuel S. Taylor (1837-1930) built the culvert from locally quarried limestone in 1871, his first public works project. A Civil War veteran, Taylor worked on several projects, including the Mill Run underground sewer (1877), Champion’s East Street shops (1883), and the foundation for Springfield’s city hall (1890).
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This cemetery stands as evidence of a once thriving African American farming community established in the 1820s. With the aid of community leader, Alexander “Sandy” Harper (c.1804-1889), Captina, originally called Guinea, became a stop on the Underground Railroad, a national network, shrouded in secrecy, of volunteers who directed slaves northward. Harper is buried in this cemetery, along with Benjamin Oliver McMichael (1865-1941), an educator who taught for twelve years in Captina/ Flatrock at a segregated schoolhouse. There are 113 known burials in the cemetery, including nine Civil War veterans. At this site in 1825, an African Methodist Episcopal Church was established to serve the community. Many of its members left Captina to work in cities, but the church continued services until 1962. The building then fell into disrepair and collapsed during a windstorm in 1978.
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Born on April 18, 1913, in Barrea, Province L’Aquila Abruzzi, Italy to Salvatore and Maria (Lombardozzi) Campana, Mary Ann Campana immigrated to the United States with her parents at age eight. Raised in Youngstown and educated in the Youngstown Public Schools and Youngstown College, Ms. Campana was a pioneer in Ohio, National, and international aviation. In 1932, at age eighteen, she achieved the distinction of being the first licensed woman pilot in Ohio. On June 4, 1933, with only 44 hours of prior flying time, Mary Ann established the world’s endurance record in the Light plane class for a non-refueled flight. Flying above Youngstown in a 500-pound Taylor Cub Plane with a 40-horsepower engine and loaded with 40 gallons of gasoline, she flew for 12 hours and 27 minutes without a parachute, breaking the old record by one hour and ten minutes before electrical storms forced her down. (Continued on other side)
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On September 17, 1920, representatives from ten professional football teams met in Canton and formed the American Professional Football Association, which in 1922 became the National Football League (NFL). Pro football evolved from club football in the 1890s, and by the early 1900s had begun to spread across the country, concentrating in the Midwest. Jim Thorpe, the first nationally prominent pro, started with the Canton Bulldogs-an early pro football power-in 1915. In 1959, Canton citizens launched a well-organized and ultimately successful effort to have their city, “the cradle of professional football,” designated as the site of a monument to the sport’s historic stars. The Professional Football Hall of Fame opened on September 7, 1963, inducting seventeen charter members. The Hall of Fame interprets and promotes the study of the role of professional football in American culture.
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Just after 5:00 P.M on June 28, 1924, a tornado swept off Lake Erie directly into downtown Lorain. Within five minutes, seventy-eight people lost their lives. Fifteen died in the old State Theatre that stood upon this site, as an audience of two hundred watched a Saturday afternoon musical performance. More than one thousand suffered injuries. The tornado did extensive damage to the business district, destroyed 500 homes, and damaged a thousand more. The city’s largest industry, the American Shipbuilding yards, was severely damaged. The tornado, which had hit Sandusky before striking Lorain, continued along the shoreline and struck Sheffield and Avon minutes later. Contemporary accounts listed eighty-two deaths resulting from the deadliest tornado in Ohio’s history.