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Poland Township’s school board built the Center School- the “Little Red Schoolhouse”- in 1858. The brick school replaced a previous wooden building dating to the early 19th century. One of several schools in the township in the latter half of the 19th century, the Center School served children living within a surrounding two mile radius. Under state and county-wide reorganization plans, the Poland Village and Poland Township schools consolidated to educate all children within the village and township. Consequently, the Center School closed in 1915 and the building came to be used for other purposes, such as 4-H activities, public meetings, a church, and township equipment storage. In 1979 the Poland Township Historical Society formed to preserve the school. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
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In 1934 at the age 17, Dino Crocetti (1917-1995) who became known as the world-famous crooner, actor, and television star Dean Martin, took the stage for the first time at the Craig Beach Dance Hall. As the George Williams Orchestra played, Crocetti sang “Oh Marie.” Acquiring his first stage name, “Dino Martini,” Martin got his first big break into show business later in the 1930s, singing with the Ernie McKay Orchestra, from Columbus, Ohio.
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The Kyle-McCollum House, thought to be the oldest continuously inhabited residence still on its original site in Youngstown, was built by War of 1812 veteran Joshua Kyle (c. 1766-1842) and his wife Mary Stewart (c. 1774-1844). The Kyles moved from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to the Mahoning Valley around 1800 and purchased about 1,300 acres of land on a hill above Mill Creek. Using stone quarried from the property, they built a house, completed in 1813. The Federal style of the house is typical of early 19th-century homes built in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The structure is two and a half stories with stone load-bearing walls that are two feet thick. Beside his farm, Kyle built a sawmill on Mill Creek near Slippery Rock, a site now under Lake Glacier. [Continued on other side]
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Alexander Frankfort (1842-1930), the last surviving Civil War veteran from Struthers, built this house in 1884. His wife, Louisa Jane Johns Frankfort (1851-1921), purchased the land from Thomas Struthers for $190.00. The house is of balloon frame construction and has sandstone foundation. The main beam traversing the basement was made from a large tree on the property. Married in 1874, the Frankforts had eight children, but four little ones had died by 1884. The Frankforts brought their fifth child, the infant Alma (1884-1984) to this then new house, where she and three sisters grew up. Alma lived and worked here as a seamstress for 93 years. The house was empty until 1986 when the Mohr family, Alma’s nephews, donated it to the Struthers Historical Society. The historical society renovated the house and opened as a museum in 1989.
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The Boy Scouts of America began in 1910, and by 1912, Scouting was established in the Mahoning Valley. Camp Stambaugh opened in July 1919, thanks to a gift from the estate of prominent local industrialist Henry H. Stambaugh (1858-1919). In his will he had named his friend and business partner Phillip J. Thompson as trustee of Stambaugh’s 86.5 acre Indian Creek Farm. Stambaugh’s expectation was that Thompson would convey the property to the local Scouting organization. In 1919 the property was mostly a treeless pasture and one could see Indian Creek from Stambaugh’s hay barn near Leffingwell Road. That first summer a Council Ring was carved from an old limestone quarry just north of the creek. (Continued on other side)