LOUDONVILLE — On April 15, 1912 (the same day the RMS Titanic sank), Loudonville hosted famed orator — and former three-time Democratic nominee for President — William Jennings Bryan. Bryan had spoken in Loudonville twice before, but always from his train car as it passed through the area. This time, however, he would stand on […]
Area History
Posted inArea History
Then & Now: The steel mill 1924
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally published on Richland Source in 2014. MANSFIELD — The steel mill in Mansfield has been known by different names to different generations of families in Richland County. Today, we know it as AK Steel, but within recent lifetimes, it was called Empire Detroit and Cyclops. In 1924, shortly after the […]
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Then and Now: Eclipse Stove/Tappan Stove 1889
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2014. MANSFIELD — The big, brick complex that we familiarly refer to as the Tappan Stove factory, on Orange & Newman Streets, opened in 1889 as the Eclipse Stove Company, founded by the Tappan family who eventually put their name over the door in […]
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Ashland County man was believed to be oldest in nation
The Loudonville area was once home to possibly the world’s oldest person. The following was written for the Mansfield Shield and Banner newspaper, and reprinted in the Loudonville Times (Sept. 26, 1901). “In the Ashland county infirmary, which is located 15 miles east of this city, there is an inmate named Alexander Lyons, who is […]
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Three Mansfields: Tires, actress, and a state
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2014. MANSFIELD — This photo essay tracks three footnotes in American Popular Culture that were named after Mansfield, Ohio. These are: Mansfield Tire, Martha Mansfield, and Mansfield, Washington. Mansfield Tire In 1912, the Richland Buggy Company on Newman Street could see that the age […]
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Intellectual Robert Bacher, a Loudonville native, helped end World War II
Overshadowed by the contributions of Charles Kettering, Loudonville native Robert Bacher was considered one of America’s most brilliant minds, who eventually helped bring an end to World War II. Robert Fox Bacher was born in Loudonville in 1905, but moved away with his family at a young age. He taught physics at Cornell before he […]
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Rare photo postcard from Fredericktown Day in 1914
FREDERICKTOWN — It pays to keep a sharp eye out for potential material for a local history column. One recent Sunday, after I led a true crime bus tour in Cleveland, I stopped at a postcard show being held at the VFW in Brookpark, Ohio, on the way home. I found one vendor who had […]
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Mansfield’s U.S. Post Office has had various homes since 1919
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2014. MANSFIELD — The U.S. Post Office in Mansfield has been located all over downtown at different times including, originally, in a hollow tree on the Square. This was the first building in town built specifically for the purposes of postal services by the […]
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A Malabar Farm legacy comes to an end
LUCAS — It was the second time I talked to Ellen Bromfield Geld that a chill ran up my back. The first time I talked to the youngest daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning Mansfield author and conservationist Louis Bromfield, it started formally. The year was 2006 and I was then employed at Malabar Farm State Park, […]