Area History

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally published on Richland Source in 2014. Some of the oldest buildings that survive in downtown Mansfield are standing in the block of South Main Street that faces the Square. The “newest” of all the business buildings in this block is Mechanics Bank built on the Park Avenue corner in 1926. […]

LOUDONVILLE — Did you know that Loudonville was once home to a small convent, located in the former Haskell Academy? In 1971, St. Peter’s Catholic Church welcomed Sister Frances Marie and Sister Elizabeth to town. The two Dominican nuns came to Loudonville from Adrian, Michigan, and were sent to assist with the Confraternity of Christian […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally published on Richland Source in 2014. Everybody loves to feel free, and there is little that is more freeing than being at the wheel and having the open road in front of you. Think how especially freeing it must have been in the 1920s and 30s when, after decades of […]

LOUDONVILLE — The Loudonville Fire Department has a long and storied history, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that the EMS branch was created. In August of 1952, six members of the Fire Department were trained in the “art of saving lives.” The idea originally came to Bus Schneider, Chuck Getz, and Burley Saunier while […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2014. The Vasbinder Fountain is a landmark in downtown Mansfield, but it is also a special bookmark among the pages of early memories of Mansfielders. People remember being near it as a child, and the memory is warm with sunny goldfish, and gentle raining […]

LOUDONVILLE — Loudonville native Charles Kettering invented the world’s first guided missile — then called a flying bomb — in 1918, nearly 26 years before the Germans debuted the V-1 flying bomb. Formally titled the Liberty Eagle, but affectionately known as the Kettering Bug, the aerial torpedo was capable of traveling 75 miles while carrying […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece was originally published on Richland Source in 2014. At its heart the Richland County Fair has not changed at all since the first time it was held in 1849: it’s all about agriculture.  Beyond that fundamental basic there isn’t much about the Fair that has not completely changed — including the […]