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In spite of small numbers and being welcomed by the mostly white congregation of First Methodist Episcopal Church, African Americans in Findlay in the 1880s wanted to express their faith in ways that best reflected their freedoms and traditions. By the mid-1880s, the congregation was meeting in members’ homes and the Odd Fellows Hall, but began fund raising to build their own church in 1885. The congregation was admitted to the North Ohio Conference of the Third Episcopal District of the African Methodist Church in 1885, one of the first churches to be so admitted. The building on Liberty Street was well underway by the end of 1887 on a lot donated by Judge D. J. Cory. The original twenty foot by forty foot building cost $2,000 and immediately became a focal point for religion and social events for Findlay’s African American community. (Continued on other side)
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Wilberforce University, founded at Tawawa Springs in 1856 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, is the first private historically black college or university in America. The inspirations for Wilberforce were an unwavering faith in God, an acknowledgement of the contribution of the British abolitionist and Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, the leadership of AME Bishop Daniel Payne, and the belief in the potential of all women and men to learn and prosper. Wilberforce embraces the love of learning and the use of education as a tool of personal and community empowerment. Wilberforce seeks to cultivate and meet the historic hunger for freedom and liberty of all people. Today, Wilberforce is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church and educates diverse students from across the nation and around the world. Wilberforce continues to serve as a beacon for learning and research.
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Born in Warren in 1859, Phebe T. Sutliff received a Bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in 1880 and a Master of Arts from Cornell University in 1890. Miss Sutliff taught at Hiram College in Ohio and Rockford College in Illinois and served as President of Rockford College from 1896 until 1901. Returning to Warren, she turned her attention to civic matters. During World War I, she started an evening school of citizenship classes for foreign immigrants. In 1924, she was the first woman to run for Congress in her district. Elected as the first woman president of the Board of Trustees of the Warren Public Library in 1938, Phebe Sutliff served in this capacity until her death in 1955. Miss Sutliff was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990. Her legacy to the community was the establishment and endowment of the Sutliff Museum.
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The 1804 Iddings House is the oldest structure on its original site in Miami County. A second generation American and cousin to General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, Benjamin Iddings brought his wife, Phoebe, and six of their ten children up the Stillwater River into Newton Township and constructed the log house in 1804. In 1976 the structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places with an initial restoration in 1981. Thanks to community support, further restoration was completed in 2006.
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Cincinnati, along with Milwaukee and St. Louis, is one of the three corners of the “German Triangle,” so-called for its historically high concentration of German-American residents. During the 19th century, Cincinnati was both a destination for immigrants to the tri-state area and a hub from which many groups of Germans moved inland to settle new Ohio communities-many along the Miami and Erie canal corridor which began here. German-Americans have greatly influenced the social, cultural, economic and political life of the Cincinnati area. At the turn of the 21st century, approximately half of Cincinnati’s population was of German descent. (Continued on other side)
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The Canfield WPA Memorial Building was constructed by the Works Progress Administration, a federal government program instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as an effort to aid the United States in its recovery from the Great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s. Local merchant Arron Weisner donated lands on the west side of Broad Street for the proposed project. A six member committee, comprised of two persons each representing the Argus Masonic Lodge, the American Legion, and the Village of Canfield, determined that the building be “a community building built around community projects.” Through local subscription and $60,000 in federal funds, the WPA project moved forward. The Youngstown architectural firm of W.H. Cook and W. Canfield designed the building in the Colonial Revival style. A ground breaking ceremony was held on December 20, 1935. During World War II, the United States government maintained offices in the building. (Continued on other side)
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On this site the Lyceum Village and the Berea Seminary were established in 1837 by John Baldwin, James Gilruth, Henry O. Sheldon, and Josiah Holbrook. Their vision was to create the first in a connected series of Lyceum Villages. The Villages were designed especially to assist in the education of teachers, promote “scientific” exchanges over the world and thus encourage the study of the works and word of God, and cultivate the spirit of “peace on earth and good will to men.” The community, however, declined and in 1842, John Baldwin assumed the indebtedness of $15,000. James Wallace acquired the area. It was owned by the Methodist Children’s Home in the 1860s and then sold to German Wallace College in 1866, becoming the original German Wallace College campus.
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The Peoples Bank Theatre, built in 1919 and called the Hippodrome, marks an age when movies transitioned from silent films and nickelodeons into a major national industry and pastime. Designed by Columbus architect Fred Elliott for the C&M (Cambridge and Marietta) Amusement Company, the theatre featured a granite archway, 1,200 seats, a 35-by-55-foot stage, an orchestra pit, and the first air conditioning of its kind in Marietta. The Hippodrome opened May 9, 1919 with the silent film Daddy Long Legs, starring Mary Pickford. Shea Theatres of New York bought the Hippodrome and remodeled it in 1949, replacing the Hippodrome’s distinctive stone archway with a two-story southern colonial-style facade. Renamed the “Colony,” it opened June 25, 1949, showing the Esther Williams’ musical Neptune’s Daughter. (Continued on other side)
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