Area History

Editor’s Note This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2016. It is important to have the opportunity to see your town all at once — to experience the wholeness of it. Our lives are spent on the ground, on a street, in a neighborhood; and the views we know are always, therefore, necessarily […]

It is important to have the opportunity to see your town all at once — to experience the wholeness of it. Our lives are spent on the ground, on a street, in a neighborhood; and the views we know are always, therefore, necessarily fragmentary, partial and only a piece of the whole. But in order […]

MANSFIELD — Georg Nillsen became an American in 1926. He sailed across the ocean from Sweden because he believed there was a wonderful and exciting new life for him in the United States. With his name reconfigured in English to George Nelson, he wound up in Mansfield working at the Steel Mill. He was so […]

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2016. The home that author Louis Bromfield built on his farm in Pleasant Valley was designed very intentionally to appear as if it had grown through the generations, with successive additions built on to an old farmhouse. The ‘generations of additions’ part of the story […]

Editor’s Note This story was originally published by the Ohio History Connection. Richland Source has a collaborative agreement to share content across our sites. Philip Sheridan was a major figure in the military history of the United States in the latter half of the 19th century, particularly in the Civil War. Sheridan was born on […]

It’s easy to forget how hard it was to casually communicate in the past. With social media and instant electronic communication at our fingertips, we are living in a different world. A little more than 100 years ago, modern communications were only just starting to spread out into rural America, via telegraph and telephone. Yet […]

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in 2015. MANSFIELD — John Angle had a grocery store on the south side of the Square in 1900. He also had a camera and a fierce desire to capture the world around him on paper. One of the attractions that drew folks in off the sidewalk was a […]

Editor’s Note This story was originally published by the Ohio History Connection on Aug. 26, 2022. It’s being shared here through a collaborative agreement. As the last days of summer shine down, some gardens may not be as green or lush as they were just last week, but there is one garden that has stood […]

Editor’s Note This story was originally published by the Ohio History Connection on Sept. 1, 2017. Richland Source has a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to publish content across our sites. During the final year of the Civil War, Ohio native William Tecumseh Sherman was given command of the Union’s Western Armies as well […]

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. MANSFIELD — Go to the corner of Second and Walnut and you’ll find a pretty quiet place: folks sitting on the porch; a little slow coming and going; some friendly low-key conversation. As of 2015, it’s the West Park Senior Center. Had you reached […]