Athens County History

[orange-n-brown 365]

http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridges.html

[orange-n-brown 365]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Lunatic_Asylum

[mstangmom]

you can't talk about Athens without mentioning the history of the ghost stories.

[orange-n-brown 365]

Athens County

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Formed on February 20, 1805, Athens County was named for Athens, Greece. Athens County was originally part of Washington County. Ohio University, the earliest institution of higher education in Ohio, was established in Athens in 1804. The county also was home to Ohio’s first library, the Coonskin Library, established in 1804.

Athens County is located in the southeastern portion of Ohio and sits squarely in the heart of Appalachia. Its southeastern corner resides on the Ohio River. The county consists of 507 square miles of land, and it is primarily rural, with only 1.4 percent of the county deemed to be urban areas. The county seat is Athens, which is the largest city in the county, with a population of just over 21,300 people in 2000. The county experienced a 4.5 percent population growth between 1995 and 2000, with approximately 62,200 people calling the county home in 2000.

The largest employer in Athens County is the government, principally Ohio University and the county’s two state parks and national forest, including Zaleski State Forest, Burr Oak State Park, and Wayne National Forest. The county’s next largest employers occur in sales positions and in service industries. In 1995, the per capita was 18,202 dollars, with over nineteen percent of the county’s residents living in poverty, one of the highest rates in Ohio.

Most voters in Athens County claim to be independents, yet in recent years, they have overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates at the national level.

Educator William Holmes McGuffey ranks among Athens County’s more famous residents.

[Brutus8907]

http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridges.html

man that place gives me the creeps. had a few experiences up there that make me reluctant to ever go back...and yet, i still do

[NYBuckeye96]

Nelsonville: The 19th Century
A Timeline of Historic Events

Compiled by the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Council
Spring 2005

Abstracted from the following works of Dr. Ivan Tribe, Professor of History, University of Rio Grande:
Little Cities of Black Diamonds, 1988, Athens County Historical Society & Museum
Sprinkled With Coal Dust, 1989, Athens County Historical Society & Museum

1797 Ohio Company Map by Manasseh Cutler notes coal and salt deposits along the HockHocking.
1814 Daniel Nelson of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts purchases large tract of land in York Township
1816 Josiah Coe built a gristmill on Nelson’s land
1818 Daniel Nelson laid out townsite and began selling lots
1820-30 Nelson developed additional lots and laid out a public square
1822 James Knight, an Englishman, opened a store and began a plan to build a bridge across the Hocking River funded by a subscription drive
1828 Bridge across Hocking River completed
1828 Library opens, 47 books in collection
1829 Spring flood destroys bridge.
1830 Storekeeper James Knight took two wagon loads of coal, 116 bushels in all, to Columbus and sold them for 4 cents a bushel
1830 Enumeration shows that Nelsonville contains 12 families, 30 residents. York Twp. grows to 869 residents.
1832 James Knight distributes circular promoting construction of canal southward to the Ohio River.
1835 Lorenzo Poston, age 23, opens store in Nelsonville launching a successful business career in the town. He would become a major coal producer in the early mining days in the valley.
1835 Town founder Daniel Nelson dies
1836 Businessman James Knight dies
1836 Ohio Legislature approves the construction of the Hocking Canal
1836 Methodist Church opens in town, first known church.
1838 Nelsonville incorporated; Charles Cable, a 34 year old tanner, elected mayor
1840 Nelsonville grows to 207 residents
1843 Hocking Canal completed through Nelsonville to Athens
1845 10,699 tons of coal pass through canal toll station @ Nelsonville, a figure that would exceed 60,000 tons by late 1850’s.
1848 Freemasons organize in town, gain charter for Philodorean Lodge #157
1850 Eight coal operators call Nelsonville their home
1850 22,579 barrels of salt pass through toll station at Nelsonville heading north on the canal.
1853 Reilly’s Ohio State Business Directory lists individuals (not firms) engaged in trades in Nelsonville: dry goods, 8; blacksmiths, 3; canal boat builders, 1; boot & shoe makers, 2; cabinet makers, 2; carpenters, 9; carriage makers, 1; coal dealers, 16; grocers, 3; hotel operators, 1; physicians, 4; wagon maker, 1.
1856 Nelsonville organizes its own municipal school district separate from the York Township Board of Education and erect a 3-story brick school for the elementary grades.
1857 Christian Church opens, second known church in town
1858 Odd Fellows organize HockHocking Lodge in Nelsonville.
1859 W.B. Brooks enters the coal business as one of the area’s most successful early operators, though his business went bankrupt 30 years later in 1889.
1860 Nelsonville grows to 741 residents; York Twp., 2,563.
1861 Miners Journal becomes the town’s first newspaper, lasting only a few months and containing more literary items than news. Daniel Shriner and G. W. Sutherland are the editors.
1863 On July 19, General John Hunt Morgan’s Confederate Army passed through the town in retreat from Buffington Island on the Ohio River, setting fire to canal boats, looting stores and stealing horses according to Mrs. Harriet Stuart Hoodlet who as a young girl lived on a canal boat and was rushed to her grandfather’s shoe shop on the Public Square in her mother’s arms.
1866 Lancaster businessmen John D. Martin and Thomas Ewing invest heavily in the long delayed Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad, insuring its construction. Other investors include Nelsonville businessman W. B. Brooks; industrialist Peter Hayden, founder of Haydenville; Columbus hotel operator William Deshler; and former Governor William Dennison. Hayden elected as the first president of the corporation’s board.
1867 Thaddeus Longstreth enters coal business and was one of the most successful in the trade in the Hocking Valley until 1883.
1868 Lorenzo Poston, a Republican, is unsuccessful in his bid for state senate, though he carries the vote in Democratic leaning Nelsonville.
1869 On July 29, the first tracks of the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad reach Nelsonville signaling the start of the Great Hocking Valley Coal Boom era. The first train load of coal departed Nelsonville to Columbus on August 17.
1869 W. B. Brooks sold 71,248 tons of coal this year, taking in $95,000 and paying $80,000 in wages to 140 employees. Poston employed 50 miners (10 of them children) and sold 17,857 tons.
1869 Lick Run Coal Co. formed by John W. Scott across river from Nelsonville. Mine is served by switch built from new railroad. Soon thereafter the Laurel Hill Coal Company nearby and the town of Bretland was formed. Both disappeared by the end of the century and were replaced by the community of East Clayton.
1870 Nelsonville High School established (approximate date).
1871-72 140,357 tons of coal loaded from town depot in 1871; 256,062 loaded in 1872. Local agent on railroad collected $409,950 during these two years.
1872 Nelsonville Times began publication in August, but folded shortly thereafter.
1872 Presbyterian and Christian Churches announce building plans on Washington and Fort Streets, respectively. Columbus architect John Moser designs both churches.
1873 Nelsonville’s first bank opens—The Merchants and Miners Bank, founded by druggist and coal operator John W. Scott and mill owner Charles Robins.
1873 School enrollment of 275 served by 6 teachers in 1868 grows to 521, but only 7 teachers employed creating an average class size of 47 students.
1873 Construction begins on second rail spur of the C&HVRR to reach the thick “Straitsville Vein” of Coal to the east. The first spur was built in 1870 from Logan to New Straitsville. This spur would begin in Nelsonville and make the town the primary terminus for the Hocking Valley Coal Boom, further boosting rapid growth of the population and the local economy. The line had two branches: the Monday Creek Branch and the Snow Fork Branch and was responsible for creation of boom towns such as Bessemer (Buchtel), Carbon Hill, Murray City and many others before reaching New Straitsville.
1874 Miner T. Ames, part owner of the Lick Run Coal Company, brought African American miners from the south to “discipline” his workers. Violence erupts.
1874 Miners form the Nelsonville Mining Company, a cooperative that hoped to be worker owned. Attempt unsuccessful, but did lead to other more successful cooperative stores in the area.
1879 Canal boat showman Wm. J. Stuart builds opera house on Public Square and begins hosting traveling shows that pack up to 1,000 people into the second story performance space.
1880 Nelsonville’s population reaches 3,095; only 9% of the population is foreign born, making it unusual compared to the other towns in the coal fields where the foreign born population ran as high as 42%. 155 African Americans lived in Nelsonville in 1880.
1880 Hook and Ladder Fire Company forms as town’s first fire department.
1880 Miners from Nelsonville marched east and were joined by miners in New Straitsville, Shawnee and Corning in an attempt to stop the influx of African American miners coming from the south to the new town of Rendville. The Ohio Militia was called in to break up the potential fight, dubbed as the “Corning War”. Several skirmishes took place, with one miner killed, but the crowds dispersed after several days. Black miners remained at Rendville and soon were accepted at the table when area miners led the movement to form the United Mine Workers of America ten years later.
1881 Nelsonville Foundry and Machine Co. established as one of the few successful non-mineral extraction industries in the region, producing equipment for the coal industry.
1884 Local coal operators join together to form “the syndicate” to set prices and wages in their mines. Reduction in the price per ton paid to miners resulted in area miners, led by union organizer Chris Evans, to stage a long and violent strike against the coal operators. National attention to the strike and the work of Evans and his men did not result in increased pay, but did have lasting impact on labor laws and practices in this country.
1886 Nelsonville gamblers lost $1,500 on Silas Dew’s game cock, after it lost its first fight in 4 years.
1888 E. M. Poston established Nelsonville Electric Co. and introduces electric lighting to the town’s streets.
1890 Area miners are key players as the United Mine Workers of America holds its organizing convention in Columbus.
1892 Nelsonville Business College opens teaching commercial trades such as shorthand and typing.
1897 Fans rush the baseball field to protest an umpire’s call during a hotly contested battle between the Nelsonville Grays and the Athens Stars. They chased him to the Dew House and surrounded him before he escaped in his carriage out the back door. The game was forfeited in favor of the Stars, however, the Grays were known as the best baseball team in the Hocking Valley at the Turn of the Century.
1898 Ohio University’s football team defeats Nelsonville High School
1899 Nelsonville High School’s football team defeats Ohio University.
1900 Nelsonville’s population exceeds 5,000 giving it city status for the first time.

http://littlecitiesofblackdiamonds.org/Towns/Nelsonville/nelsonville_timeline.htm

[NYBuckeye96]

History of Stuart's Opera House:

Back in the mid-nineteenth century, Nelsonville native George Stuart’s showboat called the Arizona traveled on canals throughout Ohio with his minstrel troupe. In 1869, the Arizona sank in the Erie Canal during a rough storm. Stuart then returned to the booming coal mining town of Nelsonville with a dream of building an opera house to serve Nelsonville and Southeastern Ohio.

Envisioning a community-based arts center where first-class performances and community events could be staged, he built a magnificent theatre with bricks made by hand from a local surface clay.

The second-story playhouse called Stuart’s Opera House opened in 1879 and an article in the Athens Messenger called it, "…an ornament to the town and a monument to the public spirit of its projector." During its glory, the opera house housed a variety of events including professional touring shows of vaudeville, musicals, minstrel shows, and melodramas, community theatre, meetings, high school graduations, recitals, religious events, and dances. Famous performers graced the opera house stage, including Elsie Janis known as "The Queen of Vaudeville," vaudeville’s first great magician, Howard Thurston, and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" composer George M. Cohen. It was truly the focal point of all community activity. The theatre remained in operation until 1924.

For more than 50 years, the opera house sat empty with no performances or activity, yet with all its scenery and theatrical equipment preserved. Then in 1976, the Hocking Valley Museum of Theatrical History, Inc (HV-MOTH), a non-profit organization, formed to restore and sustain Stuart’s Opera House as a viable theatre and cultural arts center.

In 1979, Stuart’s Opera House was entered on the National Register of Historic Buildings. On March 24, 1980, Stuart’s Opera House was the scene of a devastating fire that nearly destroyed the community’s hopes for its future. But after an extensive renovation and restoration project, including the complete reconstruction of the street level commercial space as well as the theatre, Stuart’s reopened its doors in 1997.

http://stuartsoperahouse.org/about/index.php?page=83

[orange-n-brown 365]

http://www.athensohio.com/

[Orange and Brown]

Something that I relized the other day...............


It is really neat to think about all the people from Akron who come to OU.

Think about it and see if you can find the connection I am thinking about.









HINT; Who started the U of Akron?

[Orange and Brown]

come on no one has figered it out yet.
You buckeye fans can

[orange-n-brown 365]

is this it?

The institution now known as The University of Akron was founded as Buchtel College in 1870 by the Ohio Universalist Convention, which was strongly influenced by the efforts, energy and financial support of Akronites, particularly industrialist John R. Buchtel. From the outset, the college and the surrounding community were closely tied, with the college addressing the needs of the region as well as those of the Universalist Church and local entrepreneurs assisting the fledgling institution time and again. By 1907, Buchtel College's emphasis on local rather than denominational interests led it to become a private, non-denominational school.

The college's strong ties to the community and its challenging financial situation prompted Buchtel College trustees to transfer the institution and its assets to the city of Akron in 1913. For the next 50 years, the municipal University of Akron, assisted by city tax funds, brought college education within the reach of many more young people. During those years, enrollment swelled from 198 to about 10,000.

The University’s growth paralleled the remarkable expansion of Akron. People were drawn to the city, already a major manufacturing center, by the promise of jobs. Companies such as Goodyear, Firestone and Goodrich were headquartered in Akron, so it was only natural that the world’s first courses in rubber chemistry would be offered at the University, beginning in 1909. With the formation of the Rubber Technical Institute in 1942, University researchers and students were well-prepared to contribute to the development of synthetic rubber to aid the Allied war efforts.

A long era of expansion followed World War II. Overseeing much of this growth was the University’s 10th president, Dr. Norman P. Auburn. Under Auburn’s leadership, the institution made the transition in 1967 from a municipal to a state university.

In the years to follow, as tire production jobs left the Akron area, the University’s pioneering research was instrumental in helping the once-undisputed Rubber Capital of the United States evolve into the polymer center of the world.

In 1988, the University established the world’s first College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering - now the largest academic program of its kind in the world.

Led today by its 15th president, Dr. Luis M. Proenza, The University of Akron recently completed the $300 million first phase of its New Landscape for Learning campus enhancement program. During the five-year project, nine new buildings were constructed, 14 major renovations were completed and 30 acres of green space were added to the 218-acre campus. The new facilities include two classroom buildings, an Honors Complex, Student Union, Student Recreation and Wellness Center, and Athletics Field House.

The University’s revitalization is being extended into a 40-block area immediately surrounding campus through its leadership in the University Park Alliance. The alliance was established through a $2 million grant from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and is comprised of partners that include the city of Akron, Summa Health System, Akron Beacon Journal, Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, the Greater Akron Chamber, Akron Public Schools and the University Park Development Corporation.

New University degrees and certificates are offered in such areas as computer engineering, intellectual property law, e-commerce and international business. Research into biomaterials, nanotechnology and other emerging sciences offers hope for astounding medical and technological breakthroughs – and innovative activities in the arts and in community service continue to define and enhance the quality of life for those in the region and beyond.

As it moves into the 21st century, The University of Akron is poised to become the public research university for Northern Ohio, comparable to what The Ohio State University has long been for Central Ohio and to what the University of Cincinnati has more recently become for Southern Ohio

[Orange and Brown]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bingo

Good job. I wasn't sure any one would come up with the answer.

[NYBuckeye96]

The main street in Akron is called Buchtel Avenue and the main street in Buchtel is called Akron Avenue. However, Akron pronounces Buchtel differently then we do in Athens County. Since the town is named after the man from Akron, we actually mispronounce the way it was supposed to have been pronounced. I guess the Appalachian twang changed the way it was pronounced here back in the day, and now few people even realize that we technically are saying it wrong.

[Orange and Brown]

Cool info

[orange-n-brown 365]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bingo

Good job. I wasn't sure any one would come up with the answer.

Google is such a nice thing

[Orange and Brown]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Orange and Brown]

800 post woo hoo





Moving on

[orange-n-brown 365]

800 post woo hoo





Moving on

congrats

[Orange and Brown]

^^^^^^^^^
Thank you

[ibeleeve]

Lot of history here very interesting...I took a class at Rio Grande and was made aware of some of this...