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On this site the Ohio & Erie Canal flowed south and down-level under the Market Street Bridge. Nearby Pawpaw Creek and the canal culturally divided the Swiss settlers to the west in Basil and the Virginia pioneers to the east in New Market (Baltimore by 1833). In March 1825, the “Twin Cities” were “dedicated” one day apart and energized a feud that often erupted at the bridge where “the boys of one village entered the other at their peril and where the worst of the intervillage fights were held.” The rivalry stretched well into the twentieth century and was arguably terminated with an uneasy consolidation of the two towns in 1947.
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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)
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The Dayton and Michigan Railroad provided the single most important impetus to the growth and development of Wapakoneta. Although Wapakoneta had been platted in 1833, at the time of incorporation (1848), “the town was still without any material improvement worth the name of enterprise, save in the erection of residences and opening of small retail stores and shops.” On March 15, 1854, in its first ordinance, the village council of Wapakoneta voted unanimously to grant a right-of-way to the Dayton and Michigan Railroad Company to construct a railroad line through the community. The financial backers of the railroad ran short of funds during construction, and planned to end the line at Sidney, but local leaders raised $70,000 to ensure its extension. (Continued on other side)
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Rossville was settled in April 1801 shortly after the U.S. Government initiated land sales west of the Great Miami River. Its original proprietors–John Sutherland, Henry Brown, Jacob Burnet, James Smith and William Ruffin–named the town in honor of Pennsylvania Senator James Ross (1762-1847), who favored Ohio statehood and advocated free navigation of inland rivers. These founders envisioned Rossville as a shipping port for the rapidly growing population of farmers settling west of the Great Miami. The most practical outlet for their products was by flatboat down the Great Miami, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. The town of Rossville was founded in 1804, the year after the Louisiana Purchase, which made the Mississippi River a United States possession. (Continued on other side)
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From 1944 to 1999, this was the site of Woody’s Market started by the late Woodrow W. Bowman. The Market grew from a one-person open-air produce stand to a 500-employee, 100,000 square foot full-service shopping center open 24 hours, 7 days a week. The Over-the-Road-Restaurant, added in 1968, was a gathering place for the community. Woody’s Market was a regional retail icon. After closing the Market in May 1999, Woody Bowman died on July 22, 2006. The Market was razed in April 2007.
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The Ohio River begins at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and flows 981 miles to join the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois. The Iroquois called the river “Oyo” or “Ohio,” which the French translated as “La Belle Riviere,” the Beautiful River. It was an important transportation route for countless generations of Native Americans and, beginning in the 1780s, for Euro-American settlers. It was the main route to the opening West and the principal outlet for the region’s growing farm output. Congress first acted to improve navigation in 1824 and, later, by canalizing the river with a series of locks and dams beginning in 1878. River commerce has increased with industrialization, moving up to 150 million tons annually.
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Bob Evans was born on May 30, 1918 in Sugar Ridge, Ohio. He married Jewell Waters in 1940 and moved to Gallipolis, Ohio. In 1946 Bob took the first step in what would later become Bob Evans Farms, Inc., when he opened a 12-seat diner in Gallipolis. Bob, unsatisfied with the quality of the sausage he was able to purchase to serve in his diner, created his own recipe. Before long, Bob Evans was selling his sausage to grocery stores and meat markets.
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The original structure, the central portion of the current house, is the oldest frame building in the village. It was built in 1808 by Elias Gilman, a prominent figure from Granville Massachusetts, who led the first family party to Ohio to establish a new settlement . In the home’s early years, it served as a post office, library, retail store, and select school. The initial meeting of the Freemasons of Granville was held in the home in 1811 and the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union organized here in the 1880s . A large spring to the west of the house supplied the village with water throughout the 19th century . The house has been an integral part of community life for over 200 years.
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