Remarkable Ohio

Results for: public-schools
800 Vine Street
Cincinnati

, OH

Among the first in America, Cincinnati’s public library dates from March 14, 1853. A public reading room opened in 1856, but funding remained a problem until 1867, when local school board president Rufus King II secured legislation for a renamed Cincinnati Public Library. In 1869, King lured leading librarian William Frederick Poole to organize Cincinnati as a national model for the growing public library movement. Poole designed 19th century America’s most advanced library at 629 Vine Street, which fully opened in 1874. Becoming a countywide system in 1898, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was a pioneer in the 20th century with special services for the blind and for children, bookmobile services, and circulation of audiovisual materials. (continued on other side)

15 N. Maple Street
Akron

, OH

St. Vincent-St. Mary High School is the oldest continuously operating, public or private, high school in Akron. With roots extending to the late 19th century, St. Mary High School graduated its first three students in 1901. St. Vincent High School opened in September 1907 in an effort to extend educational offerings beyond the eighth grade. The first class, comprising four students, graduated in 1910. The two schools merged in late 1972 to become a single co-educational college preparatory high school. “In the spirit of the Gospel, we are committed to educate the whole person,” the St. Vincent-St. Mary High School mission statement pledges, “to lead and to serve, enlightening the mind, developing the body, touching the heart and inspiring the soul.”

Memorial School, 410 E 152nd Street
Cleveland

, OH

The Village of Collinwood was originally a part of Euclid Township of the Western Reserve and named after the death of railroad chief engineer Charles Collins in 1876. Originally known as “Frogsville,” the population of Collinwood dramatically increased in the 1870s, due partly to repair roundhouses of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad. By 1901, the Village has grown to 7,500, and as a result, the schoolhouse, which once housed 200 students and four classrooms, had been enlarged twice to house 350 students in eight classrooms. Constructed in 1901, the Lakeview School was the site of a tragedy that reverberated across the nation and around the world. (Continued on other side)

209 S. High Street
Akron

, OH

On December 30, 1847, six educators met at the Summit County Courthouse to organize the first convention of the Ohio State Teachers’ Association, now known as the Ohio Education Association (OEA). The organizers Josiah Hurty (Richland County), Thomas W. Harvey (Geauga County), M.D. Leggett (Summit County), Lorin Andrews (Ashland County), William Bowen (Stark County), and Marcellus F. Cowdery (Lake County) hoped “to elevate the profession of teaching” and “to promote the interests of schools in Ohio.” In 1853, the General Assembly enacted the new association’s entire slate of proposals into law, thus ensuring free, universal, public education in Ohio. For 176 years, the Ohio Education Association has advocated for fair terms and conditions of employment for Ohio educators and for the betterment and improvement of public education for all students.

4645 Mayfield Road
South Euclid

, OH

William E. Telling (1869-1938) was one of ten children born in a farmhouse on this property. As a boy he sold strawberries and milk door-to-door and worked in a local sandstone quarry until at age 23 he purchased a milk route. He and four brothers formed the Telling Brothers Ice Cream Company in 1895 with William as president. A merger in 1915 formed the Telling Belle Vernon Dairy Company that was the first local distributor of pasteurized, glass-bottled milk. Their unique bacteriological laboratory (later Sealtest Laboratories) developed the baby food S.M.A. His recipe for success was “just work and work and work some more; do the work of two and draw the pay of one.”

1573 E. 214th Street
Euclid

, OH

Japanese-American Buddhists, who resettled in the Cleveland area in 1943-44 after being released from World War II internment camps, established the oldest continually meeting Buddhist organization in Ohio. The organization was originally known as the Cleveland Young Buddhist Association and is now known as the Cleveland Buddhist Temple. Services were held in members’ homes until a building on East 81st Street was purchased in 1955. After extensive damage to the building during the Hough riots in 1966, the Temple’s current residence was acquired in 1968. Affiliated with the Buddhist Churches of America, the Temple serves the Jodo Shinshu Tradition of Buddhism. In 1979, the Temple under the direction of Sensei Koshin Ogui introduced the Zen Shin meditation practice in response to public wishes. The Temple welcomes all those wishing to study the teachings of the Buddha.

2820 Gilbert Avenue
Cincinnati

, OH

The Lanes, Baptist merchants from New Orleans, and the Kempers, a Presbyterian family from Cincinnati, gave money and land respectively for Cincinnati’s first manual labor theological seminary and high school, which opened in suburban Walnut Hills in 1829. The Reverend Lyman Beecher came from Boston as its first president. The president’s house, now known as the Stowe House after Beecher’s daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, still remains at Gilbert and Foraker. Lane Theological Seminary, bound by present day Gilbert, Chapel, Park, and Yale streets, continued to educate Presbyterian ministers until 1932, when it was merged with McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

2726 Johnstone Place
Cincinnati

, OH

Mary Harlan Doherty was born in 1862 in the Dayton Street neighborhood of Cincinnati. She graduated from Woodward High School in 1880 at a time when women were not expected to go to college, but rather to marry, raise children, and take care of household duties. Miss Doherty, as she was known, saw the world differently. She felt strongly that women should not only possess solid social skills, but also be prepared for college. She graduated from Cornell University in 1899. In 1906 she established the College Preparatory School for Girls in the former home of Superior Court Judge and Ohio Governor George Hoadley, with a class of 125 students. Enrollment doubled by 1920, with Miss Doherty guiding her students under the school’s motto, Ad Summum, meaning “To the Highest Point,” or, as she viewed it, to strive for excellence, hard work, and service.