Area History

The art and design of lighting the streets in downtown Mansfield is an ever-evolving process.  At this point in time, there are corners where you can look in three different directions and see three different kinds of streetlights from the past 60 years.  For a look at lights from before 60 years ago, all it […]

The pages of Mansfield history hold many fascinating designs of coincidence: the phenomenon where fate spirals our timeline back on itself in order to create irony, mystery, and an almost mystical sense of balance. Many of these stories involve the Square, and one example involves a particular corner of the Square that happened to serve […]

In the 1930s, when a lot of America was struggling to find work, there was a busy crew of young men hired by the Federal government to recondition the natural area in Ashland County known today as Mohican State Park. Among the many tasks they undertook was picking up a steel trestle bridge that crossed […]

The Glorious Fourth takes place on only one day of the year, but Mansfield history actually exists in a dimension that stands outside of time: where it is free from all limitations of the sequential ticking of life’s clock. On the timeline—as on the internet—it is always exactly today, always exactly now; and the whole […]

It is worth walking down Park Avenue West just to experience this church from the sidewalk view. Everything about it rewards putting yourself in proximity: the classic architecture creates a noble old-world aura that is deep and culturally stirring; and really, you miss the best details unless you are close enough to see them. When […]

MANSFIELD — It was a hot summer for news in Mansfield in 1990. A passerby was shot and killed downtown when he tried to intervene during the armed robbery of two armored vehicle guards outside a bank. There was a violent strike that ended with a riot outside a local factory. There were raids on […]

BUTLER — Joan Walsh, of Butler, has dozens of memories from her childhood at Malabar Farm. The 74-year-old woman remembers spending hours at the Lucas-based farm and even traveled to Texas as a young girl when the farm’s owner, Louie Bromfield attempted a version of Malabar Farm in Wichita County, Texas. The project was short-lived, […]

The Square in Mansfield is a pretty tame place today: manicured, mowed, planted and watered, carefully honed to public park perfection. It has taken 200 years for the place to reach this state of polish. It started out as an anonymous five-acre plot in the vast reaches of an endless wilderness; the square shape of […]