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In 1966 the New York Central Railroad Company (A.E. Perlman, President) proposed a test of existing rail passenger equipment to determine the feasibility of operating high-speed passenger service between cities up to 300 miles apart. The site chosen for the test was near Bryan, Ohio on the longest multiple track straight railroad line in the world. This sixty-seven mile straight trackage from Toledo, Ohio to Butler, Indiana was originally constructed by the Northern Indiana Railroad Company of Ohio incorporated March 3, 1851. On July 23, 1966 the New York Central Technical Research Department ran their Budd RDC-3 passenger car number M-497 fully instrumented for stress analysis, and propelled by two roof-mounted jet aircraft engines. The speed of 183.85 miles per hour was attained, the highest recorded on a railroad in North America at that time and to this day.
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The present structure for the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church was built in 1849 on Macedonia Ridge north of Burlington, an abolitionist sanctuary for escaped and freed slaves since 1799. It was built by the existing Baptist congregation and a group of 37 freed slaves who had arrived in Burlington from Virginia. The Baptist congregation in Macedonia had organized in 1811-1813 and practiced their faith in their homes and later in a small building with a bell tower made of sticks. The 1849 church was the religious and social focal point for the black community and became the “Mother Church” for approximately eight Baptist churches that exist in Ohio and West Virginia. The Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
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Bainbridge Center Historic District. Founded in 1817, Bainbridge Township was named for Commodore William Bainbridge, commander of the USS Constitution during the War of 1812. The unincorporated hamlet of Bainbridge Center is both the geographic and historic center of Bainbridge Township. The town hall, churches, stores, shops, a school, and post office were established in Bainbridge Center. The architecture of houses in the area, most notably those built during the Greek revival period, reflects the agricultural past of the community and its development in the twentieth century. Citizens gathered in The Center to attend church and school, shop, and participate in social and political functions.
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Creator of some of America’s favorite cartoon characters, Milton Caniff was born in Hillsboro in 1907 and graduated from Ohio State University in 1930. He created his first comic strip in 1932 for the Associated Press Syndicate, and in 1934 introduced “Terry and the Pirates,” an innovative serial adventure featuring believable characters drawn with unprecedented realism. Enormously popular through the World War II years for both “Terry” and the comic strip “Male Call,” which he created for the U.S. military’s Camp Newspaper Service, Caniff subsequently introduced “Steve Canyon” in 1947. “Steve Canyon” ran for forty-one years until Caniff’s death in 1988. Credited with influencing generations of successful cartoonists, Caniff brought adventure, suspense, and sensuality to what had been largely a medium for humor and melodrama.
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Bainbridge Center Historic District. Founded in 1817, Bainbridge Township was named for Commodore William Bainbridge, commander of the USS Constitution during the War of 1812. The unincorporated hamlet of Bainbridge Center is both the geographic and historic center of Bainbridge Township. The town hall, churches, stores, shops, a school, and post office were established in Bainbridge Center. The architecture of houses in the area, most notably those built during the Greek revival period, reflects the agricultural past of the community and its development in the twentieth century. Citizens gathered in The Center to attend church and school, shop, and participate in social and political functions.
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Frederick Rice was born on September 29, 1753, near Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania and moved to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania around 1766. During the American Revolution he served under George Washington at Valley Forge and fought in the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, in which American forces surprised and captured 1,000 Hessian mercenaries. He served for two more years as a spy working against Native American tribes in western Pennsylvania. After his service he married Catherine Lauffer, and they raised eleven children to adulthood. Rice chose this 320-acre site, transferred to him in a deed signed by President James Monroe on May 21, 1821, because it offered excellent springs. He assigned the west half to son Simon and the east half to son Barnhart in 1822. Ownership remained in the Rice family until acquired for the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station in 1891, renamed the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in 1965.
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Designed by architect Levi T. Scofield, the Ohio State Reformatory opened its doors in 1896 as a facility to rehabilitate young male offenders through hard work and education. A self-sufficient institution with its own power plant and working farm, the reformatory produced goods in its workshops for other state institutions and provided opportunities for inmates to learn trades. As social attitudes towards crime hardened in the mid-twentieth century, it became a maximum-security facility. The six-tier East Cell Block is the largest known structure of its kind. Considered substandard by the 1970s, The Ohio State Reformatory closed in 1990. It has served since as a setting for several major motion pictures. This Mansfield landmark was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
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African-American history began in Piqua with the settlement of Arthur Davis in 1818 and expanded with the settlement of the freed Randolph slaves of Virginia in 1846. African-American religious heritage in Piqua began with the Cyrene African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1853 and the Second Baptist Church (Park Avenue) in 1857. Segregated education started in 1854 at the Cyrene Church and ended in 1885 at the Boone Street School. Several Piqua African-American men circumvented Ohio’s early ban against Civil War military service by joining the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments. Following the Civil War an African-American Co-operative Trade Association established Piqua’s first African-American retail store. Continued on/from other side)