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14-11 General Robert Lawrence Eichelberger
Robert L. Eichelberger was born in Urbana on March 9, 1886, the youngest of the five children of George Maley Eichelberger, an Urbana lawyer, and Emma (Ring) Eichelberger. After graduating from Urbana High School in 1903, he attended Ohio State University and then was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Graduating […]
13-11 John Anderson Ward Farmstead / John Quincy Adams Ward 1830-1910, Edgar Melville Ward 1839-1915
John Anderson Ward had this Federal style house constructed from 1823-1825 on land inherited from his father, Urbana’s founder Colonel William Ward. The Colonel’s will stipulated that a local mason use 26,500 bricks to build the house and be paid $80.00. The original house is thought to have had four rooms, two rooms each on […]
12-11 Kings Creek Baptist Church
The founders of what would become the Kings Creek Baptist Church first met on June 29, 1805 in the log home of local residents James and Ann Turner. The Baptist congregation continued to meet in people’s homes until 1816 when Taylortown founder John Taylor donated an acre of land to establish a burying site and […]
11-11 Warren G. Grimes / Grimes Field
Raised in an Ohio orphanage, Warren G. Grimes (1898-1975) ran away after finishing the ninth grade and at age 16 went to work for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. He later became a partner in an electrical business where he was instrumental in designing and developing the first lights for the Ford Tri-Motor airplane. […]
10-11 Mt. Tabor Church / Mt. Tabor Cemetery
The first Mt. Tabor Church, a log meetinghouse, was erected on this site in 1816. It stood on land originally selected by Griffith and Martha Evans for a graveyard at the death of their daughter circa 1812. Deeds show the Evans family gave two and one half acres of land “for the purpose of erecting […]
9-11 Joseph E. Wing
Joseph E. Wing was one of the first persons to identify, promote, and grow alfalfa as a forage crop east of the Mississippi River. He developed his interest in alfalfa while in Utah, where he worked on a cattle ranch. When he returned, Wing began promoting the alfalfa culture, traveling among farmers in Champaign County […]
8-11 1950 National and Ohio Plowing Matches
Benson Road and the North Urbana Lisbon Road (SR 54) in Champaign County was the site of the 1950 National and Ohio Plowing Matches and the National Association of Soil Conservation Districts Field Days. The three-day event drew a crowd of nearly 75,000 and was headquartered in the woods of the Edwin (Ned) Kirby farm […]
7-11 Ohio Caverns
In 1897, a farm boy investigating the disappearance of water into a sinkhole in a nearby field discovered this system of subterranean passageways. Digging down a few feet, he found an opening to a cave that had begun forming perhaps several thousand years earlier during the Ice Age in soluble limestone bedrock that was approximately […]
6-11 Cedar Bog Nature Preserve
In 1942 Cedar Bog became the first nature preserve in Ohio purchased with state funds. Efforts to set this wetland aside began in the 1920s through the efforts of Florence Murdock and her daughter. Efforts intensified in the mid 1930s with help from Walter Brigham Evens, Jr., and finally came to fruition in 1941 due […]
5-11 Bailey and Barclay Halls / Johnny Appleseed
Urbana University was established by the Swedenborgian Church in 1850. Bailey Hall (1853), named after Francis Bailey (1735-1815), was designed by W. Russell West, architect of the Statehouse of Ohio. Bailey was an American Revolutionary War hero, official printer of the Continental Congress and printer of The Freeman’s Journal or the North American Intelligencer. He […]