, OH
After his home was destroyed by fire, George Barrett decided to build a home that would survive another disaster. An article Barrett read by O.S. Fowler in New York described a new building material that used gravel, sand, and lime. Cement was a less expensive and more time efficient construction material than brick. Unable to get help from a mason, Barrett gathered the material and built the house himself. Completed in 1853, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
, OH
On July 3, 1872, 16 men and a 9-year old boy descended the 170 foot shaft in the Atwater Coal Company Mine located in Atwater Township south of Route 224 and East of Route 225. The mine was situated on the property known as the S.G. Shaffer Farm. By mid-day, 7 miners survived the brutal fire in the mine. Richard Roberts, Robert Roberts, William Roberts, Thomas Maines, Joseph Otey, John Williams, John Howells, John Jones and 9-year old George Hufford gave their lives to the first Mining Disaster in Ohio and the 19th mining disaster in the United States since 1839 with more than 5 fatalities. In 1873, Ohio was the second State to pass a law for the safety of Miners.
, OH
Construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal, beginning in Cleveland and running south to Portsmouth, began in 1825. As a means to pay for debts on the community’s 5,500 acres of Tuscarawas County land, members of the Society of Separatists of Zoar contracted to construct this portion of the canal. They received $21,000 for this work, which was completed in 1827. Surplus goods were transported on Society owned and operated canal boats to outside markets via the Ohio and Erie Canal, which also brought manufactured items into Zoar. (continued on other side)
, OH
In 1862, less than a mile upriver from this marker, the John Lithoberry Shipyard in Cincinnati constructed the Sultana, a 260-foot, wooden steam transport. At the end of the Civil War, the U.S. Government contracted the Sultana to transport recently freed Federal prisoners north from Confederate stockades. During the night of April 27, 1865, while carrying over 2,300 Union soldiers – over six times its capacity of 376 passengers – a steam boiler aboard the Sultana exploded. The ship erupted in a massive fireball and sank in the cold, flood-swollen Mississippi River ten miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. Over 1,700 individuals died – some 200 more than those lost aboard the Titanic in 1912 – in what remains the worst maritime disaster in American history. Of the total casualties, Ohio lost the most of any state, with 791 dead. Indiana lost 491 persons, with Kentucky suffering 194 dead. It is estimated that, of the Ohio casualties, over fifty were Cincinnatians.
, OH
Soldiers from Company F of the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry died in the explosion of the steamboat Sultana seven miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865. The Sultana reportedly carried more than 2,400 passengers–six times its capacity of 376. The vast majority were Union soldiers recently freed from Southern prisons at the end of the Civil War. Approximately 1,800 passengers and crew died in what is considered the worst maritime disaster in American history. Company F was organized in Stark, Columbiana, and Portage Counties and was mustered into service at Camp Massillon in the fall of 1862. This marker is a memorial to the soldiers of Company F who died as a result of the Sultana tragedy and other war-related causes.
, OH
The Village of Collinwood was originally a part of Euclid Township of the Western Reserve and named after the death of railroad chief engineer Charles Collins in 1876. Originally known as “Frogsville,” the population of Collinwood dramatically increased in the 1870s, due partly to repair roundhouses of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad. By 1901, the Village has grown to 7,500, and as a result, the schoolhouse, which once housed 200 students and four classrooms, had been enlarged twice to house 350 students in eight classrooms. Constructed in 1901, the Lakeview School was the site of a tragedy that reverberated across the nation and around the world. (Continued on other side)
, OH
Garrett Augustus Morgan was an African American businessman and prolific inventor of devices that made people’s lives safer and more convenient. Born on March 4, 1877 in Claysville, the Black segregated section of Paris, Kentucky, Morgan migrated north first to Cincinnati and then Cleveland in 1895. He lived and worked in this house at 5204 Harlem Avenue. In 1906, Morgan started the G.A. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market the hair straightener he had invented. The following year he opened a sewing machine repair shop. In 1908, he and his wife Mary opened Morgan’s Cut Rate Ladies Clothing Store. (continued on other side)
, OH
At 2:30 p.m. on Friday, October 20, 1944, an above ground storage tank that held liquefied natural gas in the East Ohio Gas Company’s tank farm began to emit vapor from a seam on the side of the tank that dropped into nearby sewer lines. It mixed with air and sewer gas and ignited, resulting in explosions and fires that brought damage to nearly one square mile of Cleveland neighborhoods. With 79 homes and two factories destroyed, nearly 700 people were left homeless, 131 killed, and 225 injured. The East Ohio Gas Company took responsibility for this tragedy to aid those in need through direct financial assistance and by rebuilding the community. The disaster also led to a movement by public utilities and communities across America to store natural gas below ground without tanks.
614.297.2300
Contact Us
