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In 1866, Gaines High School (grades 7-12), one of the first high schools for African Americans in Ohio, opened just west of this site in the same building as the Western District Elementary School, completed in 1859 and enlarged in 1866 and 1868. The school was named for John I. Gaines, whose leadership was responsible for securing passage of the Ohio law authorizing public schools for African Americans. Gaines was clerk and chief administrator of the African American school board when he died in 1859 at age 38. Gaines High School’s Normal Department trained almost all of the African American teachers for southwest Ohio; schools in other states hired many of the students before they had even completed their studies. From 1866-1886, Gaines High School and its principal Peter H. Clark were nationally recognized for their excellence.
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In 1886, thirty-six members from Toledo’s downtown Lutheran church, St. Paul’s, met to form a German-speaking Lutheran congregation for immigrants from Pommern, Mecklenburg and Hanover. Initially worshipping at St. Stephen’s at the corner of Harrison and Oliver Street, the congregation built a frame church on this site in 1887. That same year St. Lucas pioneered an early form of health insurance, The Mutual Sick Benefit Society, that later became a larger fraternal organization called The Mutual Sick Benefit Society for Ohio and Other States. In 1999, after joining a program called Reconciling in Christ, St. Lucas became the first Lutheran congregation in northern Ohio to publicaly welcome the LGBT communities. Named after Saint Luke, the patron saint of physicians, the church’s history is one of healing.
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The Union and League of Romanian Societies, Incorporated was formed in 1928 from a unification of two separate fraternal organizations, the Union and the League. The Union, founded on July 4, 1906, was originally organized for the purpose of promoting the general welfare of its members through life insurance policies obtained through individual societies located in the United States and Canada. The societies of the Union and League offer social interaction within their local lodges and through the strength of the larger parent organization. The purpose of the current Union and League is to maintain and encourage Romanian cultural heritage by promoting interest in Romanian ethnic values through cultural activities and to sustain loyalty to the United States and Canada among its respective members.
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The West Park African American community began in 1809 with the first black settler and one of the earliest residents of the area, inventor and farmer George Peake. With the growth of the railroad industry, African Americans were encouraged to move into the area to work at the New York Central Round House and Train Station located in Linndale. First among these, in 1912, were Beary Frierson and Henry Sharp. As more and more African Americans came, African American institutions followed. In 1919, Reverend Thomas Evans and the families of Herndon Anderson and Joseph Williams founded St. Paul A.M.E. Church, the first black congregation on Cleveland’s West Side. Reverend D.R. Shaw, the Ebb Strowder family and Iler Burrow established the Second Calvary Baptist Church in 1923. Both became pillars of the community.
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In July 1863, Confederate Brigadier-General John Hunt Morgan led a force of 2,000 cavalrymen across southern Ohio. Morgan’s force entered Ohio from Indiana. A chase ensued as Union cavalry pursued Morgan’s men across twenty Ohio counties. To evade 2,500 Union cavalrymen under Brigadier-General Edward Hobson and thousands of Union militia stationed at Cincinnati and Hamilton, Morgan’s exhausted troopers made a daring night ride, resulting in the longest sustained cavalry ride in American military history. Around 9 P.M., Morgan’s cavalry passed through New Burlington, then rode north on Mt. Pleasant and Hamilton Pike (present day Mill Road). Heading east on Bank Lick Road (Kemper Road), they reached this spot in the Village of Springdale around midnight. (Continued on other side)
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The Ohio General Assembly established the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station in 1882. From its inception until 1892, the Station occupied 17 acres on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University before relocating to 470 acres in Wayne County. In 1965, the Station changed its name to the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) to more accurately reflect its mission and programs. In 1982, the Center formally merged with The Ohio State University. Today, the Center encompasses nearly 2,100 acres in Wayne County with 10 branches located across the state for a total of approximately 7,100 acres dedicated to agricultural research.
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The Fernald Feed Materials Production Center initiated operations on this site in October 1951, in support of America’s Cold War effort. As the first link in America’s nuclear weapons production cycle, Fernald’s mission was to produce high purity uranium metal products for use by other sites within the nuclear weapons complex. In the late 1980s, releases of radioactive contamination from Fernald focused national attention on the environmental legacy of the Cold War. As a result of reduced demand for its product and public outcry over the environmental contamination, Fernald’s mission changed to environmental cleanup in 1989. Following the completion of one of the largest environmental cleanup and ecological restoration projects in American history, the site was renamed “The Fernald Preserve” in 2006.
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Dr. Wilbur Henry Siebert (1866-1961) organized one of the most extensive historical collections on the Underground Railroad in the United States. Siebert served as a professor of history at the Ohio State University, 1893-1935. His collection on the Underground Railroad, housed in the Archives/Library of the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, contains diaries, books, letters, and newspaper accounts of the day, as well as reminiscences from the dwindling population of abolitionists and their families throughout the northern states. It also includes Siebert’s own manuscripts, images, notes, and correspondence relating to his research. Siebert published The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898), an enduring classic on the subject, as well as numerous other books on the Underground Railroad in Ohio and elsewhere. His extensive research earned him recognition as the world’s foremost authority on the Underground Railroad.
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