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J. Scott Garbry, a 1986 inductee into the Ohio Conservation Hall of Fame, had a lifelong commitment and passion for conservation, historic preservation, and education. His gift of land and artifacts to the Upper Valley JVS led to the creation of the Willowbrook Environmental Education Center and Garbry Museum. He was also instrumental in providing land for the site of the Piqua High School and for Garbry Woods of the Miami County Park District. These gifts make it possible to appreciate and experience Ohio’s natural and historic heritage.
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This U.S. Post Office building, Sandusky’s third, opened in 1927, replacing a smaller building at Columbus Avenue and Market Street. It is notable for its fine Neoclassical-style architecture and its unusual curved portico. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. For sixty years it served as Sandusky’s business center, where merchants shipped and received goods and banks transferred money. During this time it also housed local offices for several federal agencies, including U.S. Customs, the National Weather Service, armed forces recruiting, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. Geological Survey disk embedded in the front steps serves as a benchmark for surveyors and scientists. Closed in 1987, the historic Sandusky Post Office building reopened as a museum in 1990.
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The original town plat of Rawson was filed on February 3, 1855, consisting of fifty-five lots in sections 13 and 14 of Union Township, Hancock County on the Frederick Keller and George J. Kelly farms. Several residential and business structures were built in anticipation of completion of a railroad rumored to pass from Fremont through the “Rawson” area on its way to the western boundary of Ohio. Farmers Keller and Kelly named their village Rawson after L.Q. Rawson, President of the railroad company, hoping that the name would encourage him to build through their area. Financial troubles delayed construction causing a standstill in Rawson. Seventeen years later the first locomotive arrived in Rawson, spurring new construction. At that time the railroad was called the Lake Erie and Louisville; in 1879 it was changed to the Lake Erie and Western and in 1922 became part of the Nickel Plate Railroad. (Continued on other side)
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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.
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Pioneers began to settle in the Groveport area around the year 1800. Subsequent growth was spurred by the opening of the Ohio Erie Canal, and, in 1847, the adjacent settlements of Rarey’s Port and Wert’s Grove merged to form the village of Groveport. The canal, which crossed Main Street immediately east of this marker, declined in importance as a commercial lifeline with the local arrival in 1868 of the faster and more flexible railroad system. By 1900, boat traffic on the canal ceased entirely. Traces of the canal bed are still visible throughout the area.
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Situated in an agriculturally rich area, county fairs have long been a significant tradition and event in Meigs County. The Meigs County Agricultural Society held its first fair on October 22, 1851, in Middleport and its second at the Rock-Spring Hotel on October 31, 1852. Subsequent fairs occurred around the county until March 14, 1868, when the first section of a permanent location was purchased from Leonard and Jane Carleton near Rock Springs and became known as the Meigs County Fairgrounds. A popular place, the nearby natural springs, exemplified by the historic stone-carved springhouse, once supplied water to the grounds and community. Improvements to the fairgrounds included expanding the one-third mile racetrack to a half-mile in 1889, constructing the unique curved grandstand in 1890, and reconstructing the 1829 Foster-Jenkinson log cabin on the grounds in 1987. A single barrack from the Civilian Conservation Corps camp of the 1930s remains in use.
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The Randall Secondary rail line dates to the 1850s when the independent Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad (C&M) laid tracks through Aurora, Ohio. C&M, chartered in 1848, linked the Mahoning Valley coal and iron ore fields to the industries and lake port at Cleveland. For over a century, the Randall Secondary contributed to Aurora’s economic life ? fueling the region’s rapid growth during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In its heyday, the line was an important route for commuter transport and freight service along the 67 miles between Cleveland and Youngstown. Although passenger service into Aurora Train Station stopped in the 1960s, freight service continued into the 1990s. The last remaining track of the Randall Secondary in Aurora stands near the station it served.
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Marion civic leaders Shauck Elah Barlow and Ida Harsh Barlow built “Waldheim,” their Colonial Revival residence, between 1903-1905. Ida Barlow, then president of the Marion Women’s Club, hosted a December 1905 meeting in her new home. Members discussed art, music, literature, and ideas for “civic improvement.” In 1909, this and other Marion clubs reorganized as the Marion County Federation of Women’s Clubs. Federation members soon organized into action: providing college loans to young women; sponsoring visiting city and later school nurses; purchasing trash receptacles; providing dental clinics for low-income residents; and funding railroad crossing safety equipment. Upon her death in 1945, Barlow bequeathed her house to the Federation as the “Women’s Club Home.” The new Federation headquarters offered meeting space for the Executive Board and the many associated clubs. (Continued on other side)
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