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Sounds of boat horns and brawling packet crews resounded for many years at this lock and 142 others on the Ohio and Erie Canal. The canal was a 308-mile water toll road built between 1825 and 1832 from Lake Erie at Cleveland to the Ohio River at Portsmouth. The early growth of Akron and Massillon was due to the canal. Railroads caused its decline and the flood of 1913 destroyed its usefulness.
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On this location 11,000 years ago, at the end of the Ice Age, there existed a large encampment of early Paleoindian hunters. They were the first inhabitants of Ohio. The 25-acre Nobles Pond archaeological site is one of the largest Clovis Paleoindian sites in North America. It documents how these early people obtained raw materials, made and used tools, and lived their daily lives. The Nobles Pond site was excavated largely by local volunteers to preserve this important part of our common heritage.
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At this site on September 17, 1952, an assembly of Louisville citizens led by Olga T. Weber joined U.S. Congressman Frank T. Bow in commemorating the completion of U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787. With the goal of promoting a wider understanding of citizens’ rights and responsibilities, the Committee for the Preservation of the Constitution lobbied for both state and national observances. In 1953, Governor Frank Lausche proclaimed September 17 as Constitution Day in Ohio; subsequently President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed the week of September 17, 1955 as Constitution Week. The committee, incorporated in 1962, has marked the anniversary each year since–making this Louisville tradition the nation’s longest continuing observance of Constitution Day.
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Burial Site of Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Private First Class Joe R. Hastings, U.S. Army, World War II Hastings, the squad leader of a light machinegun section in Company C, 386th Infantry, 97th Infantry Division, displayed conspicuous initiative in battle at Drabenderhohe, Germany, on April 12, 1945, allowing his battered unit to evacuate its wounded and reorganize. Pfc. Hastings, by his intrepidity, outstanding leadership, and unrelenting determination to wipe out the formidable German opposition, cleared the path for his company’s advance. He was killed in action four days later while again supporting his unit. President Truman posthumously awarded Hastings the Congressional Medal of Honor on November 8, 1945.
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A soldier in Company A, 148th Infantry, 37th “Buckeye” Infantry Division, Cicchetti was part of the assault on the first important line of Japanese defenses at South Manila, Luzon, Philippines on February 9, 1945. He died of wounds received while leading a volunteer litter bearer team that rescued fourteen wounded men, deliberately drawing machine gun fire to himself in the process. “By his skilled leadership, indomitable will, and dauntless courage, Pfc. Cicchetti saved the lives of many of his fellow soldiers at the cost of his own.” President Truman posthumously awarded Cicchetti the Congressional Medal of Honor on December 8, 1945.
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William McKinley served the nation as president, the people of Ohio as governor, and the citizens of his congressional district as a representative. McKinley was shot by an assassin in Buffalo, New York, in September 1901 and died several days later. The McKinley National Memorial, funded by children’s donations, was dedicated in 1907. It is the burial site of the 25th President, First Lady Ida Saxton McKinley, and two daughters. Designed by architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle, the pink Milford granite structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975.
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Golfer and World War II veteran William J. Powell, excluded from playing on many American golf courses because of his race, overcame the indignity of discrimination by creating his own course. Hand built in two years and opened in 1948, Clearview Golf Club is the first golf course in the United States designed, built, and owned by an African-American. The acclaimed course harmonizes with the landscape and bears many design elements of traditional British courses. A triumph of perseverance over discrimination, Clearview represents the historic postwar era when athletes first broke the “color line” in American sports.
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On September 17, 1920, representatives from ten professional football teams met in Canton and formed the American Professional Football Association, which in 1922 became the National Football League (NFL). Pro football evolved from club football in the 1890s, and by the early 1900s had begun to spread across the country, concentrating in the Midwest. Jim Thorpe, the first nationally prominent pro, started with the Canton Bulldogs-an early pro football power-in 1915. In 1959, Canton citizens launched a well-organized and ultimately successful effort to have their city, “the cradle of professional football,” designated as the site of a monument to the sport’s historic stars. The Professional Football Hall of Fame opened on September 7, 1963, inducting seventeen charter members. The Hall of Fame interprets and promotes the study of the role of professional football in American culture.