Remarkable Ohio

Results for: sonneberg-village-settlement
215 West 5th St.
Marysville

, OH

Union County, Ohio, was established on April 1, 1820. The county was created from the “union” of portions of Delaware, Franklin, Logan, and Madison Counties, and a section of former Native American territory. The first seat of justice was in the village of Milford with court sessions held in the tavern of Nathaniel Kazar. In 1822, the county seat was moved to Marysville where court sessions were held in the tavern of Matthias Collins until a courthouse was erected later that year on East Fifth Street. This structure was replaced in 1838 with the construction of a two story brick building located on the Public Square. This courthouse served the county for nearly fifty years before the county decided to construct the current courthouse, built from 1880 to 1883.

‘140 W. Lock Street
Miamisburg

, OH

On this site Daniel Gebhart established a tavern in 1811. Taverns were where people gathered to eat, rest, and share news. During spring freshets, boatmen from the Great Miami River stayed at the tavern. Joining them were pioneers coming by the river and overland to settle at Hole’s Station, now Miamisburg. The tavern closed in 1840, became a boarding house, and then sold to become a private residence in 1853. To commemorate the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, Miamisburg’s bicentennial committee purchased the tavern and gave it to the city. It was restored and opened as a museum in 1982. (Continued on other side)

505 West South Street
West Union

, OH

The Adams County Fairgrounds, established at this site in October 1853, on seven acres of land donated by Judge George Collings, was converted to a Civil War training camp named in honor of General Thomas Hamer, a Mexican War hero, of Georgetown, Ohio. The old stone Courthouse was made into a hospital to serve the camp. The 70th Ohio Volunteer infantry, organized in October 1861, trained on the old fairgrounds until Christmas day 1861, when it marched from Camp Hamer to Ripley. The 70th participated in the battles of Shiloh, Tennessee; Atlanta, Georgia; the siege at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Sherman’s March to the Sea.

1 James Duncan Plaza
Massillon

, OH

During the New Deal of the 1930s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) formed the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) under the leadership of CIO president John L. Lewis. Following successful CIO strikes in the rubber and automobile industries, SWOC signed hard-won contracts with U.S. Steel and Jones & Laughlin Steel, the nation’s largest steelmakers, in early 1937. On May 26 SWOC struck three “Little Steel” companies for similar recognition: Inland, Republic, and Youngstown Sheet and Tube, many of whose operations were concentrated in eastern Ohio. By early June the strike idled more than 28,000 Canton, Massillon, Warren, and Youngstown steelworkers in the first major steel strike since 1919. (continued on other side)

791 Farmview Rd
Bidwell

, OH

The Village of Adamsville commemorates life in this area as it was during the early to mid-19th century. The original Adamsville settlement was located on the banks of Raccoon Creek, roughly one-half mile east of this site. Adam Rickabaugh (1761-1836), a veteran of the Revolutionary War from Virginia, brought his family to this valley around 1804. His patent for land along the creek was signed by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison. Soon after his arrival, Rickabaugh built a grist mill, which became a meeting place for the growing community. In 1805, Nehemiah Wood, one of the earliest settlers in Gallia County, bought the mill from Rickabaugh, later adding a sawmill and a fulling mill for cleaning and thickening woolen cloth. (Continued on other side)

509 Main Street
Genoa

, OH

The Village of Genoa and Clay Township agreed to construct a joint township and village hall in Genoa in 1884. The firm Findley & Shively of Fremont designed the hall in the High Victorian Gothic architectural style and Woodville’s Fred Sandwisch was contracted to build the hall for $8,860. In 1890, the Sandusky Register declared that Genoa could “boast of having one of the finest town halls of any village of its size in Ohio.” As a seat of government and an auditorium (“opera house”), the hall hosted village and township meetings, Memorial Day services, school graduations, community events, and theatrical productions. The hall also had a jail and served as a municipal garage. By early 1970s, the auditorium had been condemned and the future of the structure was uncertain. (Continued on other side)

Harriot Drive
Powell

, OH

Lucy Depp Park was a 102-acre development named for Lucinda Depp (1844-1929). She had inherited the land from her father, Abraham (1791-1858), an emancipated African American man and central Ohio pioneer from Powhattan County, Virginia. Known historically as the Depp Settlement, Robert Goode (1876-1957), a nephew of Luch and her husband Thomas A. Whyte (1845-1919), purchased the land and developed it as “Lucy Depp Park” in the mid-1920s. The park became a popular vacation spot as well as home site for African American families from Columbus and elsewhere in the segregated America before the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. According to a brochure Goode used to promote the development, “Lucy Depp Park…For People Who Care; by the Beautiful Waters of O’Shaughnessy Resevoir and Twin Lakes.”

Grove Street
Brookfield

, OH

In 1798, Judge Samuel Hinckley of Northampton, Massachusetts, drew the 72nd draft in the land lottery held by the Connecticut Land Company and received 15,305 acres in Township 4, Range 1, for which he paid $12,903.23, less than one dollar per acre. The area had been inhabited for many years by trappers, missionaries, and Native Americans. One of the earliest settlers was James McMullen, who acquired the first 160-acre parcel from Hinckley in 1801. Brookfield Township became the crown jewel of Hinckley’s holdings. Hinckley named Brookfield after a city in England and set aside land for the village green and the cemetery stating that they were for public use forever. During the mid-1820s the Overland Stage Line had a run through Brookfield, linking it to Salem, Warren, and Youngstown in Ohio and Erie, Pennsylvania and Dunkirk, New York. (Continued on other side)