This past Sunday’s Chicago Tribune featured a story extolling the attractions of one of Ohio’s metropolitan areas. No, not a story about Playhouse Square or the Rock n’ Roll Museum in Cleveland, or about the arts and culture in Ohio’s Queen City, Cincinnati.
No, this one was closer to home for Chicagoans.
In his story about Toledo, Tribune staff reporter Robert Cross begins by saying, “We came for the art, and stayed for the . . . art.” Mr. Cross spent much of his time in Toledo’s Warehouse District, a series of renovated nineteenth-century buildings (including Bartley Lofts) near Fifth Third Field, home of the Mud Hens. He continues with a visit to the Toledo Museum of Art, where the new Glass Pavilion will open later this month – a likely landmark of the future -- and the 1911 S.S. Willis B. Boyer, a docked freighter open for public tours.
Of course, the story continues the required references to Tony Packo’s and Jamie Farr.
All in all, it is quite a glowing report. No big news to Ohioans, who know that Toledo is one of our best kept secrets. The city is full of historic and architectural gems, including the Oliver House, the sole standing hotel designed by architect Isaiah Rogers, known as the “father” of the modern hotel, and the architect of the Tremont House in Boston and the Astor Hotel in New York City.
This past week, the Ohio Department of Transportation announced a list of recipients for federal transportation enhancement funding – a total of $14.5 million for Ohio alone. According to the Department’s news release, the funding aids “community projects that preserve historic transportation sites, scenically enhance local roadways and add bicycle and pedestrian facilities throughout Ohio.”
Projects receiving funding include:
Downtown streetscape and infrastructure improvements in West Jefferson (Madison County), Pioneer (Williams County), Spencerville (Allen County), Bluffton (Allen County), Columbiana (Columbiana County), Sugar Creek (Tuscarawas County), Bainbridge (Ross County), Celina (Mercer County) and Greenville (Darke County).
Historic rehabilitation projects for the Big Run Road Bridge in Knox County, the Mount Olive Covered Bridge in Vinton County, and the Union Cemetery Bridge in Ashtabula County.
One project uniquely combining streetscape and historic elements is the rehabilitation of Court Street in Bellefontaine (Logan County), the first concrete street in America. Court Street is adjacent to the Logan County Courthouse (pictured above).
A complete list of recipients is available by clicking above.
Photo Credit: Logan County Courthouse/Public Domain
Click above to view a 24-second view of Darke County's own Annie Oakley, dating from 1894. The footage was filmed at the world's first movie studio, operated by fellow Ohioan Thomas Edison.
There is no better place to learn about Phoebe Ann Oakley Mozee than at the Annie Oakley Center, housed at the Garst Museum in Greenville. The outstanding local history museum, operated by the Darke County Historical Society, also includes an exhibit of material donated by famed broadcaster, traveler and native son Lowell Thomas.
The fate of the A.N. Myers House at 408 Center Street in Ashland remains cloudy, after the City of Ashland Historic Preservation Board voted against an application to demolish the structure by the building's owner.
Here's the "twist" - the owner is the Ashland Historical Society!
A feasibility study attached to the demolition application stated that the cost of transforming the house into museum and office space would approach $1 million. In its place, the Society planned to erect a new, "similar" structure, according to a story in the Ashland Times-Gazette, but until that could occur, the space would remain vacant. Opponents of the demolition request noted that the Society had failed to present plans on what would be built in place of the house, and further shared that the Center Street house was one of few remaining buildings associated with the Myers family, local industrialists and community benefactors.
In June, the Society received communication from the Ohio Historic Preservation Office declining the Society's request to have the building declared "non-contributing" to the local National Register Historic District along Center Street. The Society has the right to appeal the Board's decision.
For more information, click here to read about the Historic Preservation Board's vote in the Ashland Times-Gazette (requires free registration). To take a virtual tour of Center Street in Ashland, click here.
The Ohio Rail Development Commission has announced the launch of The Ohio Hub website. The site profiles the proposed Ohio Hub rail plan, which according to the site will transport passengers "over an almost 1,000 mile high-speed rail system, connecting to seven states and Canada. It will also be an engine that drives new economic development and thousands of new jobs." The proposal calls for connection of Ohio's 3-C corridor with existing national passenger rail routes with trains moving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.
The site includes maps, videos, and Powerpoint presentations from the recent "Ohio Hub Station Location & Economic Development Workshop," which featured speakers from the ORDC, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the American Institute of Architects, transportation research companies and others. To access these presentations, click first on "Meetings," and then on the meeting title.
While not all of the site is live, a press release from ORDC states that more features are coming soon. There's already a lot to view about an ambitious and exciting proposal. Click here to access the site.
America's newest initiative for downtown revitalization is here. Right here in Ohio.
HometownOhio takes the very best revitalization strategies and infuses them with innovative, flexible and cost-effective methods to maximize their effectiveness. Together, these methods serve to give downtowns every advantage possible in a highly competitive and changing economic marketplace.
These approaches include the following, many of which are the first of their kind:
Statewide real estate and opportunity marketing
Funding partnerships
Flexible management structures that respond to and reflect a community's assets and allow limited program funding dollars to have maximum impact
Retail incubation concepts
Integration of close-in, walking neighborhoods into overall revitalization strategies
Hometown competitiveness training
Using the latest in online communications, social networking and e-commerce tools for public relations, marketing, increased economic activity and program funding
On-site project and program assistance and management services
Creative and cost-effective tools for packaging attractions and tapping into heritage tourism opportunities
Using the latest, GIS-enhanced comprehensive market surveys
Branding and image marketing, including low-cost web design and technology assistance
and, coming soon, is the beta test for townology, America's first online experience tailor-made for traditional downtowns and the organizations that support them.
For more information, click on the link to the left, visit Preservation Ohio online, or send us an e-mail at our HometownOhio contact address: myhomeohio@gmail.com
This Fall brings its standard fare of opportunities to learn more about preservation, revitalization, planning and heritage tourism -- some close to home, and some a bit further away, but still worth the trip. And, this year, the National Preservation Conference is just about as close to Ohio as you can get without actually being on Buckeye soil -- in Pittsburgh, just 36 miles east of Steubenville.
Conferences this Fall include the following (click each for more information):
This month, the northwestern Ohio community of Van Wert becomes the undisputed focal point of front yard commerce, as two of the largest historic route yard sales in America cross at the intersection of Main Street and Washington Street in the middle of downtown.
From August 3 through August 6, the "World's Longest Yard Sale" takes place along US Route 127. Starting in Alabama, the event includes communities along the highway in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. The 110-mile Buckeye leg of the sale includes the communities of Cincinnati, Hamilton, Eaton, Greenville, Celina and Van Wert.
Not to be outdone, on the following weekend, August 10 through August 12, the Ohio Lincoln Highway "Buy-Way" stretches from the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, across the state and into northern Indiana. Cities along this route include East Liverpool, Lisbon, Canton, Massillon, Wooster, Mansfield, Galion, Bucyrus, Upper Sandusky, Lima, Delphos and ... of course... Van Wert.
So hitch up the wagon and hit the road for two weekends full of bargains and roadside attractions - and while you are in Van Wert, be sure to stop for lunch at Balyeat's Coffee Shop, a local institution since 1922.
Photo: Lincoln Highway/Main Street, Downtown Van Wert/Public Domain
The fate of the A.N. Myers House at 408 Center Street in Ashland remains cloudy, after the City of Ashland Historic Preservation Board voted against an application to demolish the structure by the building's owner.
The Ohio Rail Development Commission has announced the launch of The Ohio Hub website. The site profiles the proposed Ohio Hub rail plan, which according to the site will transport passengers "over an almost 1,000 mile high-speed rail system, connecting to seven states and Canada. It will also be an engine that drives new economic development and thousands of new jobs." The proposal calls for connection of Ohio's 3-C corridor with existing national passenger rail routes with trains moving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.
America's newest initiative for downtown revitalization is here. Right here in Ohio.
This month, the northwestern Ohio community of Van Wert becomes the undisputed focal point of front yard commerce, as two of the largest historic route yard sales in America cross at the intersection of Main Street and Washington Street in the middle of downtown.