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Oran Follett constructed his Sandusky house between 1835 and 1837. The golden sandstone mansion was home to Follett and his family until his death in 1894. Sold to James Flynn and then the Krupp family, the house remained a private residence until rented to the Works Progress Administration in 1935. The Sandusky Board of Education purchased the house in 1939 and used it as the adjacent high school’s Home Economics annex, meeting space, offices, and occasionally as art gallery or dance venue. From 1958 to 1968, it housed the Sandusky School of Practical Nursing. The Sandusky Library took over management of the house in 1973, opening it as museum in 1976. Considered one of the finest Greek Revival mansions in Ohio, the Follett House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
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Marcellus F. Cowdery, Sandusky’s first Public School superintendent, encouraged William D. Curtis to formulate a chalk that did not break easily or scratch chalkboards. Curtis conducted experiments in his kitchen and, using gypsum and limestone deposits from Sandusky Bay, created sticks of pure white, processed chalk. In the late 1860s, he and his brothers-in-law, Marcellus and John S. Cowdery, began producing the chalk from their family home. In 1890, John Whitworth, Curtis’s son-in-law, helped finance the incorporation of The American Crayon Company. The company pioneered high quality art supplies, including wax color crayons and Prang watercolors, used in schoolrooms around the globe. Sandusky’s American Crayon factory that stood at 1706 Hayes Avenue for more than a century, closed production in 2002 and was later demolished.