Area History

Bellville became the business center of southern Richland County due to the happy confluence of two factors: the B&O Railroad, and the grain elevator…both of which are pictured here. For generations farmers brought their produce to the mill and elevator on Ogle Street in Bellville to ship off on the freighters, and then invested their […]

I’ve already mentioned in these columns the bold self-promoter Lansford Hastings, who received a general’s commission in the Confederate Army mainly to encourage his long-shot scheme of raising an army in the west to take over California and make it a Confederate state. But Knox County also had the real deal: a genuine soldier who […]

Our place on the Earth, designated as Richland County for the last two centuries, has been in more or less continual habitation for the last hundred centuries. It is amazing how little we know about our predecessor neighbors, and how much of what we know about them is speculation based on evidence that has long […]

MOUNT VERNON — The woman can barely be made out, standing in front of a house with decorative trim, its two front doors suggesting that it’s a rental property. The backyard continues past a fence or trellis, and in the medium distance stands the sturdy beams of a tall railroad bridge. The two children with […]

By the early 1950s, there were so many thousands of farmers and sightseers drawn to Malabar Farm to witness the revival of worn out soil, that it seemed a shame not to send them home with some nutritious sample of the farm’s fabled fertility. Louis Bromfield, the author and farmer who developed and wrote about […]

The golden age of radio—from the 1920s through the 40s—had its own pantheon of gods and heroes, stars and luminaries who ruled the airwaves to move the hearts and shape the lives of everyone in America. They are all long gone now and washed away in the streaming current of ever-new media, but if you […]

Midway between Shelby and Mansfield on Route 39 is an impressive landmark that graces the landscape behind old trees and a wide lawn. It has been known as Abraxas for the last 25 years, but the history of the place goes back much farther on the timeline. The foundation for the institute was an ornate […]