GALION — America’s greatest inventor has a connection to Galion?
That topic will be explored at the first Gill House Chautauqua, which takes place Sunday, Sept. 13, from 1 to 4 p.m. as part of the statewide Ohio Open Doors program. All are welcome.
The event connects two parts of Galion’s story.
The traveling Redpath Chautauqua came to town during the first decades of the 20th century, making its final appearance here in 1928. Its programs typically included lectures, plays, singing and musical performances, orations, impersonators, and much more.
In 1920, for instance, the program included an appearance by Sir John Foster Fraser, a Scotsman who had participated in one of the first bicycle journeys around the world.
The Chautauqua name came from the movement launched by the Chautauqua Institution, which began as a Sunday school camp in western New York State and became a world-renowned center for education, entertainment, and culture.
One of its two founders was Akron businessman Lewis Miller.
Miller’s daughter, Mina, became close friends with Galionite Nellie Stewart in the late 1870s and visited her here in Galion. In the mid-1880s, Nellie married Bloomer Gill, while Mina married inventor Thomas Alva Edison.
The Ohio Open Doors event is free to the public and will feature four opportunities to learn more about the past and how it continues to influence the present:
How can one use archiving?
What can an old photograph or a century-old document tell us? More importantly, how do we make sure someone can find that information decades from now?
Attend the program for a behind-the-scenes look at the process of cataloging historic photographs and documents.
Attendees will explore how seemingly ordinary clues, including names, dates, handwriting, clothing, locations, and even the backs of photographs, can help unlock the stories hidden within a collection. Come see how museum cataloging turns “a box of old pictures” into a searchable historical resource, and try your hand at being a museum detective.
Newspapers can boost family history research
Learn tips and techniques for successfully using Newspapers.com in your genealogical research. You’ll also discover ways to access the service for free and learn where to find other local newspaper archives.
Explore the first fair foods
The Gills moved into the house the same year as the great World’s Fair in St. Louis. Learn about foods that were introduced to wider audiences or became closely associated with the fair, including hot dogs, ice cream cones, puffed rice, cotton candy, French’s mustard, Dr Pepper, Jell-O, and more.
Even better, enjoy samples of some of them.
Learn more about Galion architecture
Take a trip through the streets of Galion and learn how the city developed, from its earliest log cabins, some of which survive, through the mid-20th century. You’ll also find out how to begin discovering the history of your own house.
The event is free and open to the public, though donations will be warmly accepted.
The landmark Gill House is located at 342 Harding Way West, a long block west of Uptowne Galion. It is situated within the original plat of Greensburg, which predated that of Galion and on the original route of the Lincoln Highway.
It was designed by one of America’s great architects and visited by family friends Thomas and Mina Edison and Henry Ford.
The Gill House is a member of Destination Mansfield.