Remarkable Ohio

Results for: farms
344 W. US Route 36
Piqua

, OH

On November 14, 1935, the rural electrification movement got its start in Piqua with the installation of the first electric pole financed by the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). In partnership with the Miami Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., the pole was constructed to support a power line of 193 miles, bringing electricity to nearly 700 farms in the county. At the time the REA was established by the federal government, only 10% of the rural population had electricity. Today, electric cooperative lines reach more than 36 million consumers in 47 states.

9614 OH 73
Wilmington

, OH

The comingling of faiths in an area settled predominantly by Quakers helps explain the origins of Jonah’s Run Baptist Church. Ministered to by a Baptist preacher, the children and neighbors of Daniel Collett (1752-1835), an Episcopalian and private in the Revolutionary War, and his wife Mary Haines Collett (1753-1826), a Quaker from Virginia, became Baptists and started the church in 1838. Levi Lukens (1767-1860), a Quaker from Pennsylvania by way of Virginia, purchased the land where the church stands in 1812 and sold it in 1839 to a founder of the congregation. Like local Quaker meetinghouses, the church had separate entrances for men and women and a partition between the two that divided the sanctuary. The congregation’s sons and daughters lived their faith. Howard McCune (1852-1923) was the Clinton Baptist Association’s moderator and president of the Ohio Baptist Convention’s state board. Anne Cossum (1894-1977) was a missionary in China from 1920-1927.

3007 Harding Highway East (OH 309)
Marion

, OH

This site was once a twenty-four acre camp for Prisoners of War established on the grounds of the Marion Engineer Depot. The Depot was a major supply and logistics site of the U.S. Army Engineers during World War II. The first contingent of POWs arrived in December 1944, consisting of two hundred and fifty men, many of them Germans who had served in the Afrika Korps Panzer Division. POWs served in many capacities during their time at Camp Marion. Some worked in construction, others cooked, cleaned, and performed maintenance and office tasks around the depot. Many worked on local farms, where farmers provided food to supplement their sometimes inadequate rations so that they would have energy to be able to work a full day. By 1946 five hundred Prisoners of War could be held at Camp Marion. (Continued on other side)

Belmont Street
Bellaire

, OH

Labeled “Union Square” on the first village maps, block 12 of the City of Bellaire was formed by joining portions of the Harris and Rodefer Farms in 1857. Used for tent shows, circuses, political meetings, and playing baseball, the land during the Civil War was used as a canteen for feeding Union recruits from nearby Camp Jefferson. Stonemasons cut sandstone blocks here that make up “Great Stone Viaduct” railroad bridge. A steam derrick and stable for horses that helped to move the sandstone to the bridge’s construction site were also placed temporarily on this land. In 1882, a monument was erected to honor Civil War veterans as “Union Square” became a city park. Former President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech here to the citizens of Bellaire in 1912.

Across from 2623 Pole Lane Rd
Marion

, OH

On March 2, 1942, four months after the U.S. entered WWII, farmers living between Marion-Williamsport and Marseilles-Galion Roads and between State Route 98 and the Norfolk & Western Railroad were notified to vacate their farms by the first of May. This displaced approximately 126 farm families from over 12,600 acres so that a munitions factory could be built. The site included the administration area, cafeteria, fire and police stations, and a hospital, in addition to the widely dispersed powder houses and the production lines. Manufacturing began in the fall of 1942. The plant’s operators included U.S. Rubber, Atlas Powder, the Permanente Metals Division of the Kaiser Corporation, Kilgore Manufacturing, and Ferro Enamel, who made bombs until August 14, 1945 — VJ Day. (Continued other side)

SW corner of Cromwell Road and Winton Road
Greenhills

, OH

Considered a bold experiment in community planning, Greenhills was intended to relieve an acute housing shortage and to provide jobs during the Great Depression. In 1935, the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the construction of three greenbelt communities: Greendale, Wisconsin; Greenbelt, Maryland; and Greenhills, Ohio. The construction of Greenhills began on December 16, 1935. The project generated thousands of jobs and, ultimately, 676 units of housing for working people. On April 1, 1938, the first Greenhills “Pioneers” moved into homes on Avenell Lane. Greenhills reflects the town planning principles of the English “garden city” movement. Planners clustered homes around a common green space and a community shopping area was within easy walking distance. Like the original greenbelt of forests and farms, today Winton Woods Park serves as a buffer for the Village. The original federally built center of Greenhills was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

100 Walnut Street
East Liverpool

, OH

Fawcettstown, later to become East Liverpool, marked the first Ohio community to be encountered by early river travelers as they headed toward new challenges and new lives in the expanding nation. Indian canoes, flatboats, and steamboats carried increasing traffic, both passenger and freight, along these Ohio “Gateway” shores. Many of these early craft were built locally and local residents served as crewmen. Products from farms and ceramics from this city’s pioneer potteries were shipped from this site. The wharf area also served as a landing place for many of the early English potters who came here to ply their trades and, in the process, create a defining industry. The river continues to play an important role in industrial and recreational capacities.

Gorsuch Road
Harlem Township

, OH

Benajah Cook and the families who settled in Harlem Township, Delaware County are honored for creating a community of productive farms. The Benajah and Cassandra Cook family arrived when the land was forested and settled on 500 acres of the 4,000 acres that Benajah purchased at a sheriff’s auction on June 12, 1807. The millrace, visible along the north side of Duncan Run near the Gorsuch Road bridge is the last vestige of the sawmill operated by Benajah on the Cook farmstead. The Cook farmstead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.