Area History

The intersection of Main and Gamble in Shelby is a crossing of highways, so it carries a lot of traffic today, but it is also a crossroad of history: because the whole city started right here. In the 1820s James Gamble built a horse-powered grist mill in the woods of Richland County, and he planted […]

There is a stone soldier in South Park who stands solitary watch above Brinkerhoff Avenue; he has stood alone for over 100 years, yet he stands for 976 men who put their lives on the line to make America free for all people. Each of those men deserve to be remembered, and this granite sentry […]

Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the 1860s and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. The books are available from Lintern for $25 a set, tax and shipping included. Each book is about […]

In 1915, the busiest street in Mansfield was Fourth Street, because that was the city’s stretch of our first national road: the Lincoln Highway. With all the new tourist travel passing across the US, every restaurant along the way was competing for attention; so, diners named Lincoln Restaurant spring up all across the country. The […]

Of all the many historians who strode the fields of Richland County taking measure of her past, the ones who faced the most complete and unlimited spectrum of possibilities were those who came first. Today the land has been trodden under 200 years of living, and the old stories have been filtered through multiple generations […]

Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the 1860s and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. The books are available from Lintern for $25 a set, tax and shipping included. Each book is about […]

During the era when the B&O Railroad passed through Richland County, every town along the way had a station. Of them all, the only original one left standing is the Lexington Station, built around 1913. After the last train passed through town in 1987 the depot was repurposed as the Lexington Senior Civic Center, and […]

When I knew her in the 1970s, Pauline was wiry as a tiny bird, and seemed to sort of fold into herself when she sat down, with her knees and her sharp little face all that emerged from the sofa; but she told me that when she was 40—in 1943—she was plump as a Thanksgiving […]

Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the 1860s and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. The books are available from Lintern for $25 a set, tax and shipping included. Each book is about […]

Looking for a cool place to eat in downtown Mansfield? Step back in time—about 60 years or more—and the coolest place would be the Max Diner at 15 South Walnut Street. They had a state-of-the-art air conditioning unit installed in 1938, and boasted that they were cooler than anyone else. Begun as a classic train-car-type […]