Remarkable Ohio

Results for: historic
SW corner of W. Elder Street and Race Street
Cincinnati

, OH

Ohio’s oldest surviving municipal market house, Findlay Market was designed under the direction of City Civil Engineer Alfred West Gilbert (1816-1900). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The structure was among the first market houses in the United States to use iron frame construction technology. Originally an open pavilion, much of the market was erected in 1852, but disputes with contractors delayed its opening until 1855. The center masonry tower was built in 1902. Soon after, public health concerns prompted enclosure of the market stalls and the addition of plumbing and refrigeration. Until then, vendors found cool storage in deep cellars beneath nearby breweries. The tower bell was brought from Cincinnati’s Pearl Street Market in 1934. Findlay Market was renovated in 1973-74 and again in 2002-03.

1415 Columbus Avenue
Sandusky

, OH

Eleutheros Cooke. The Cooke-Dorn house was the last home of attorney Eleutheros Cooke (1787-1864) who served four years in the Ohio legislature and one term in the 22nd Congress of the United States. An early proponent of railroads, Cooke received one of the first charters granted to a railroad west of the Alleghany Mountains, for the Mad River & Lake Erie line. He and wife Martha had six children, four of whom lived to adulthood. Two rose to prominence in the Civil War era. Jay was a successful banker and became known as the “financier of the Civil War” for his efforts to secure loans from Northern banks to support the Union’s war effort. Henry was appointed as the first governor of the short-lived Territory of the District of Columbia in 1871 (which was replaced in 1874).

114 W. Adams Street
Sandusky

, OH

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.

South River Road
Waterville vicinity

, OH

The Lima and Toledo Traction Company Bridge was construted in 1907 by the National Bridge Company of Indianapolis, and it was considered to be a revolutionary type of bridge construction. The Old Electric Bridge, as it was called, was built of steel reinforced concrete and filled with earth. In fact, for this period some considered the bridge to be the longest such railroad bridge in the world. Twelve spans of Roman aqueduct architectural design anchor the 1220-foot bridge in solid river bedrock. The bridge linked Lucas and Wood counties and connected a busy Toledo with points south by means of an electric trolley. This Interurban Bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Plesenton Subdivision
Worthington

, OH

Archaeologists believe that this prehistoric mound, part of a complex of earthworks, was used for rituals by the Hopewell people and was probably built between 100 BC and 400 AD. Note the painted post tops marking the Hopewell pole house footprint. The mound is recorded on the National Register of Historic Places and was given to the Worthington Historical Society in 1974 in memory of Herman Plesenton Jeffers.

885 Mound Road
Miamisburg

, OH

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)

6 E Federal Street
Youngstown

, OH

Steel-frame skyscrapers and retail buildings replaced wood-frame residences as the downtown evolved into a commercial district. A small public library branch occupied the north side of the square from 1923 to 1954. The Keith-Albee Theater (later the Palace) in the northeast corner of the square from 1926 to 1964, featured vaudeville performances and movies. Streetcar tracks around the square were removed for scrap during World War II. With expansion of suburban shopping malls, downtown theaters and department stores gradually closed. In 1973-74 Central Square was converted to a pedestrian Federal Plaza by closing off traffic on Federal Street one block east and west of Market Street. Central Square reopened in 2004 with a new traffic pattern, planting beds, and street furniture. Marker for “Central Square (1798-1899)” across the street.

1502 W. Central Avenue
Toledo

, OH

Founded in 1876 by a group of Toledo businessmen, Woodlawn Cemetery was designed in the tradition of the country’s “rural cemetery” movement, which was first popularized in Europe in the 1830s. This movement reflects the change in American burial practices in the nineteenth century as attitudes of death changed from grim to sentimental. The cemetery’s landscape emphasizes nature and art. Besides being a burial place, the cemetery is an arboretum, bird sanctuary, outdoor museum, and historical archive. Woodlawn also became a fashionable park for Toledo’s residents to escape the commotion of the city. The cemetery chronicles the growth of Toledo and northwest Ohio, and is an important cultural and historic landmark in regards to community planning and development, and landscape and building architecture. Historic Woodlawn Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.