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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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The Wilson Bruce Evans House, 33 East Vine Street, is a rare example of a residence built and occupied by an African American abolitionist and Underground Railroad operative. Free-born in North Carolina, Wilson Bruce Evans (1824-1898) moved to Oberlin in 1854. A skilled cabinetmaker, he opened a carpentry shop with his brother, Henry (1817-1886). Together they completed the original house by 1856. At the center of Oberlin’s interracial antislavery politics, Evans defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and was indicted for his part in the 1858 Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. During the Civil War, Evans enlisted in the predominantly white 178th O.V.I., serving August 1864-June 1865. The Wilson Bruce Evans House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and named a National Historic Landmark in 1997. (Continued on the other side)
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Dayton Woman’s Club. Community leader Robert Steele built the house that became the Dayton Woman’s Club between 1845 and 1850. Napoleon Bonaparte Darst, a wealthy merchant, bought the residence in 1861. After the Civil War he refurbished the structure, updating it to the then-popular Second Empire style. In 1916, Darst’s heirs sold the house to the newly-formed Dayton Woman’s Club. Mrs. Marie Kumler (1856-1925), first president of the Club and the Dayton Federation of Women’s Clubs led efforts to raise the $25,000 to purchase the property. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and the Club celebrated 100 years here in 2016.
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The Cleveland Grays were organized by statute in 1837 as an independent volunteer militia company. The Grays were the first company to leave Cleveland for service during the Civil War. In April 1861, they were designated Company E, 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). They saw action at Vienna Station and First Manassas and also served in the 84th OVI and were on duty with the 150th OVI at Fort Stephens when Confederate General Jubal Early attacked Washington in the summer of 1864. During the Spanish-American War the Grays volunteered for service and were admitted to the National Guard as the 1st Battalion of Engineers, 10th OVI. In 1916, they joined General John J. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition against Mexico. After service on the Mexican border, the Grays became part of the 1st Battalion, 148th Infantry Regiment, 37th “Buckeye” Division. (continued on other side)
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Near this site in Over-The-Rhine was one of the original Kroger Grocery & Baking Company stores, where Bernard H. Kroger began serving the Over-the-Rhine area in 1902. Kroger was 23 years old when he opened his first store, The Great Western Tea Company, at 66 East Pearl Street near the Cincinnati Riverfront in July of 1883. By 1902, when the company was incorporated as the Kroger Grocery & Baking Company, Kroger operated 40 stores. By 1908, the company had grown to a chain of 136 stores in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Northern Kentucky, and began making deliveries to customers with 200 mule-drawn wagons. Kroger was the first to combine meats and groceries under one roof and the first grocery company to operate its own bakery. Currently called the Kroger Co., the grocer is a major contributor to the local economy.