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From the 1890s to the 1930s, interurban railways were an important form of travel in the Midwest. Beach Park Station had an interurban carhouse, where repairs were performed and passengers boarded. The Lorain & Cleveland Railway (L&C) built the 65½ by 200 foot brick station in 1897. By 1901, the L&C became part of the Lake Shore Electric Railway (LSE) and Beach Park became stop 65 on a line that ran from Cleveland to Toledo and then to Detroit. Requiring power and water, the LSE built an electric plant and water tower at Avon Lake. This infrastructure spurred the community’s development and growth. (Continued on other side
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A library has existed to serve Sandusky’s citizens since 1826. Beginning with the Portland Library and growing through the years, Sandusky’s library found its ultimate caretakers in a group of local women who started a fund to build a new library. Built with the aid of a $50,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie, Sandusky’s Carnegie Library was dedicated on July 3, 1901. Designed by New York architects D’Oench and Yost in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, the library was built of locally quarried limestone. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. In 2004 a renovated library was dedicated, which incorporated the former Erie County Jail building and almost tripled the facility’s size.
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Merion Village was named for the Nathaniel Merion family, who in 1809 settled what is now the South Side of Columbus on 1800 acres of the Refugee Lands. Entrepreneur William Merion operated “Merion’s Landing” in the 1830s to capitalize on the canal trade from the Columbus Feeder Canal. This area saw a large influx of German immigrants as the South Side industrialized in the mid-nineteenth century. Later, many Irish, Italian, and eastern European immigrants who worked in the local steel mills and foundries made their homes here.
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Built over a two-year period, from 1936-1937, by the Federal Works Progress Administration, the Glendale Steps survive as a monument to the work of stone craftsmen during the Great Depression. Spanning a 200-foot slope, the purpose of the Glendale Steps was to enable Akron residents to descend from South Walnut Street to a city park along Glendale Avenue. The 242 sandstone steps were dressed on site and hand laid by WPA laborers at a cost of $22,000. Depression-era budget problems prevented the City of Akron from completing planned improvements to the park.
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Toledo’s first fire station was built in November 1837 one city block due north of this site at the southwest corner of Cherry Street and Eagle Lane at 519 Cherry on what is now the driveway for the Goodwill Industries Building. It was a small non-descript, wooden building, built by contractors Hoisington and Manning for $78. It was replaced by a two-story brick building with tin-clad window sills and trim in December 1854. With fire trucks becoming larger and heavier, it was necessary to construct a new building in 1872 at a cost of $7000. Designated Station No. 2, it remained in service until 1953 when the new headquarters station at Huron and Orange streets was dedicated. It disappeared for good during the Urban Renewal projects of the late 1950s and 1960s.
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The Piqua Nuclear Power Facility was part of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s Power Demonstration Reactor Program. The program developed experimental nuclear reactors that could supplement steam generation for electricity production. In 1956, the commission accepted Director of Municipal Utilities John P. Gallagher’s proposal to build a reactor in Piqua and the following year Congress set aside $11,465,000 for the project. The Piqua Nuclear Power Facility was the first nuclear power plant of any type to be operated by a municipal utility. It reached criticality in 1963 and, for a few years, Piqua proudly called itself “The Atomic City.” The reactor was shut down due to technical issues and economic considerations in 1966. It was fully decommissioned by February 1969. The facilities were demolished in 2023.
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Holy Angels Catholic Church is the mother church of Sandusky. Reverend Joseph P. Machebeuf, a French Missionary, began ministering to Catholics in the Sandusky area in late 1839. Soon after, William H. Mills offered five lots, $530, and the materials needed to build a church. Father Machebeuf laid the cornerstone on October 13, 1841, and services were held in 1842. By Christmas of 1845, the building was complete, the steeple added, and the bell installed. The congregation was mostly Irish emigrants. In 1855, as more Germans settled nearby, they built St. Mary’s Mother of Sorrows Church. The city’s expansion prompted the building of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in 1871. Holy Angels became a mission church of Sts. Peter and Paul until 1875 when Holy Angels was assigned its own pastor and reopened.
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The facilities once here propelled the United States through the Nuclear and Space Ages and were named for the nearby pre-historic Miamisburg Mound. The Manhattan Engineer District of the War Department began construction of Mound Laboratory in 1946. The facility consolidated production of the nuclear-reaction initiators, developed for the United States’ first atomic bombs during World War II. Previously (1943-1946), the work to separate, purify, and process the element polonium used in these initiators occurred at facilities throughout the Dayton area. Mound Laboratory was the nation’s first permanent post-WWII Atomic Energy Commission site. Mound Laboratory had 116 buildings and at its peak employed approximately 2,500 scientists, engineers, and skilled workers. Contractors operating at the site were Monsanto (1947-1988), Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier (1988-1997), and Babcock and Wilcox (1997-2002). (Continued on other side)