Remarkable Ohio

Results for: bay-village
17510 Road 8-P
Columbus Grove

, OH

The construction of Putnam County’s first public swimming pool helped Columbus Grove weather the Great Depression of the 1930s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Village of Columbus Grove planned the pool to provide much-needed jobs and recreational facilities for the residents of Putnam County. Between the fall of 1935 and 1936, local men (and two women) built the pool and shelter house by hand from rock quarried on site. The workers were not trained stone masons or cutters. Befitting their limited skills, the pool was built in a simplified Norman Revival/Rustic architectural style. Wages ranged from $.33 to $.55 per hour. The pool’s grand opening was July 1, 1937. That first year, adults paid $.25 to swim, and children were charged $.10. The Columbus Grove Municipal Pool was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

7983 S Wiswell Road
Windsor

, OH

The prehistoric Erie Indians built a fortification across this neck of land sometime before 1650. A low wall is all that remains today of a stockade where earth had been piled at the base of posts. The stockade and the naturally steep embankments of the ridge provided a safe location for an Indian village.

Immediately W of 9948 E Bayshore Road
Lakeside Marblehead

, OH

The first War of 1812 battle on Ohio soil was fought here when about 60 exhausted citizen soldiers were ambushed by about 130 Indians on September 29. Twenty men held the Indians at bay from a cabin while the main body escaped by boat to Cedar Point. Two days later the defenders were rescued. Forty Indians including several chiefs and 8 Americans were killed in the skirmish, neither a victory nor a defeat for either side.

Fort Amanda State Memorial, OH 198, 1/4 mile S of Ft. Amanda Road, Lima
Lima

, OH

After Gen. William Hull’s surrender at Detroit early in the War of 1812, most of the Michigan Territory came under British and Indian control. To prevent a possible invasion of Ohio, Gen. William Henry Harrison, commander of the Northwestern Army, called up the Kentucky and Ohio militia. Rather than moving troops and supplies across the Black Swamp, he chose to use the Auglaize and St. Marys rivers. In November 1812 Harrison ordered Lt. Col. Robert Pogue of the Kentucky Mounted Militia to construct a supply depot at this site, previously an Ottawa village. Pogue, a veteran of the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, named the post Fort Amanda after his 12-year-old daughter, Hannah Amanda. (continued on other side)

6857 OH 4/OH 103
Chatfield

, OH

For centuries this area was used by Indian tribes as a hunting ground. Vast swamp forests of elm, ash, beech, pin oak, and maple lay on all sides. To the east, a large cranberry bog was covered by water most of the year. Indian hunting camps on the headwaters of Sycamore Creek were the scene of plentiful harvests both of game and cranberries. These wetlands produced abundant game after most sections of the country were settled and farmed. Today, extensive drainage has changed the area into productive farmland.

22611 OH 2
Archbold

, OH

A pioneer furniture manufacturer and philanthropist, Erie J. Sauder (1904-1997) was born and reared on a farm in Archbold. With the help of his wife Leona, he began woodworking in their town barn in 1934. Crafting tables and church pews, the Sauder Woodworking Company grew quickly. Sauder’s 1951 invention of an easily shipped table kit heralded the modern ready-to-assemble furniture industry and firmly established the company as one of Fulton County’s primary employers. In 1976 Sauder founded the Sauder Village to interpret nineteenth century rural lifestyles in the Black Swamp region.

115 N. Williams Street
Paulding

, OH

Named for John Paulding, a Revolutionary War soldier whose capture of a British spy implicated Benedict Arnold in treason, Paulding County was formed in 1820 from the last remaining unorganized area of Ohio. Sparsely settled, it remained under the jurisdiction of Wood County until 1824 and then Williams County until 1839. Paulding’s first county seat was established at New Rochester in 1839, then moved to Charloe in 1841. Neither village exists today. Centrally-located Paulding Center became the county seat in 1851, and a courthouse was built the following year. The present courthouse, built during the region’s timber boom of the late 19th century, was designed by architect Edward Oscar Fallis and patterned after his Lenawee County courthouse in Adrian, Michigan. The four-faced Romanesque style building was completed in 1888 at a cost of $40,000. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

5 S. Mechanic Street (OH 60)
Hayesville

, OH

This building was a center of community life from the time of its construction in 1886 to the late 1930s. Once common, such combinations of governmental offices and commercial and entertainment space are today rare. The second floor opera house retains many original features, including stage backdrops, dressing rooms, and seats. Vaudeville, theater companies, and entertainment of all kinds were hosted here and many performers signed the backstage walls: Buffalo Bill dated his signature October 28, 1888. Along with village offices, first floor tenants have included the Vermillion Township Trustees, the Eddie Stover Hat Shop, and the F.L. Smith Watch Repair and Jewelry Store. Hayesville’s citizens approved the hall’s construction on April 18, 1884 by a vote of 100 to 13. Contractor Samuel Craig completed the building two years later at a cost of $4,852.20. Located on the Lincoln Highway, this building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.