Submitted

If you look at the shape of Richland County on a map and pay close attention to detail, you will notice a small angular discrepancy in the line of its lower edge: like someone dropped it and dinged up the corner. That odd little chip off the corner represents an interesting principle in the study […]

At first glance it would appear that everything on the south side of Fourth Street (left side of the photo) has vanished since this postcard view was made in 1911. Certainly in the most bricks-and-mortar sense that is true: all of the buildings are gone today. Yet a close look at the postcard image shows […]

Long before there were “dollar stores” in America there were “five cent” stores, and then “five-and-dime stores.” King of them all was Woolworth’s. In the 1920s there was a Woolworth’s opening every 17 days in the US. By 1956 there were 2,100 of them. In the 1970s there were 15 stores closing every year; by […]

LEXINGTON — Lexington’s 19th century heritage as a pastoral country village is well documented in this photo taken on West Main Street in 1880. Most of the buildings in the old image were gone long before anyone living today can remember, so it is difficult to image whether or not they would have been missed. […]

A century ago Fleming Falls was a major tourist attraction of Richland County. Located off Fleming Falls Road, not far from Route 42, the resort area attracted so many visitors in 1913 that there was an Interurban streetcar stop designated nearby just to accommodate tourists. Today the falls and the old original resort lodge are […]

Mansfield made its first major step into the Industrial Age when the Aultman Taylor Company located on North Main Street in 1867 to manufacture farm machinery. During the 20th century most of the A&T complex was appropriated by the Ohio Brass Company. In the 21st century there is very little left on North Main to […]

Never doubt that the seeds you plant today could dramatically impact the world of tomorrow. In this case it was not seeds that were sewn exactly, but seedlings. In April 1954 there were 6,000 pine tree seedlings planted in the fields of Oreweiler Road through the labors of 136 Boy Scouts. The land had been […]

MANSFIELD — City Mills, at the corner of Fifth and Main Streets, sat gray and weathering for a number of years, and slowly the old tobacco advertisement on the south side faded away. It used to say CHEW HONEST SCRAP when the paint was fresh, but at the end of its gray existence — before […]

The Clear Fork River brought the village of Newville to life, and it was also the cause of its end. A close look at the left side of this 1913 photograph shows a covered bridge that crossed the river, depicting how close to Main Street the waters flowed. Every spring the town was in peril, […]

Every four years when the U.S. Presidential election heats up, all that political energy awakens old memories of elections past in Richland County. There was a time when wildly enthusiastic partisans here used to demonstrate the passion they felt for their candidates by engaging in a very old American patriotic tradition: raising a Liberty Pole. […]