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MANSFIELD — There were always saloons at the corner of Fifth & Main — until there weren’t. Today it is an urban green space reclaimed from beer taps and shot glasses. When the famous saloon-smashing activist Carry Nation stormed up North Main Street in 1902, she saw this corner as a nothing but a toll […]

There are more and more sightings of bears in Richland County all the time, which is just about right really, because this place was theirs long before we ever showed up. If footprints could mark the land in such a way as to transcend time it would be easy to see that there were bears […]

MANSFIELD — As the north side of Richland Mall is morphing into Avita Health System’s new hospital complex, it is a good time to take a look at how the building appeared more than 40 years ago through the lens of a noted American photographer. Not too different, really. When Avita took over the former […]

MANSFIELD — The Bissman Building was built in 1886. It was located near the railroad tracks because they were in the business of receiving, warehousing, and distributing groceries. So unquestionably their loading dock was a very busy place. This rare image from the 1890s shows how much times have changed since that horse-drawn era, and […]

BELLVILLE — There have been Universalists in Bellville since the 1940s, but they have been meeting in this amazing edifice since the1890s as All Souls Church. Today it is known as the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church. Undoubtedly one of the most exquisite buildings to come out of the Richland earth, All Souls is constructed […]

This is a really small story about something barely significant: a place you could drive through and not even notice. But the little story points to a much more significant element of history that is quite often overlooked, that has to do with transmission of lore from one generation to the next. The story concerns […]

The era of streetcars and trolleys in America is intimately woven into the history of Mansfield, but more than that, the era of streetcars in Mansfield is inextricably stitched throughout American history. We had one of the first electric trolley systems in the US, but more importantly, we manufactured the electrical mechanisms that made it […]

At its height of vitality in Mansfield the Westinghouse plant covered 42.7 acres between Third Street and Sixth Street. Today most of that square footage is merely naked concrete slab. But one piece of the manufacturing complex that still stands is the loading dock. The factory closed in 1990 but the loading dock has survived […]

This historic photo from July of 1900 captures the scene on North Main Street when Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show came to town. Like any other circus extravaganza, the Wild West Shows—such as this one belonging to Pawnee Bill, or others like Wild Bill Cody’s—made a grand entrance into each community with a festive parade […]

MANSFIELD — Going east out of downtown today, the primary thoroughfare of Park Avenue East splits into Route 42 and Route 430, creating a triangle of business properties. In the 1920s that triangle of land between the two routes was still one big field. The huge grassy expanse was a popular ball field at that […]