We had a plan to announce our 12 Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites starting this past Tuesday in a specific order, with a site unveiled every two days.  Then, with news that the Cuyahoga County Commissioners were considering the fate of the Marcel Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust Tower this morning, we decided to make an exception and to accelerate the announcement of the Tower’s placement on the list.

At this morning’s meeting, the Commissioners voted 2-1 to authorize demolition.

For information about the Cleveland Trust Tower, including photographs and the latest news, click here to access the Tower's Ohio's Most Endangered Site lising.

According to a Press Release from the Ohio Historic Preservation Office, on March 30 the following sites will be considered by the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board for recommendation as listings in the National Register of Historic Places or as National Register Historic Districts:

Joshua Stevenson House – Canal Winchester area, Franklin County – A well-preserved 19th century farmhouse sitting in 10 acres of surrounding open space.

Euclid Avenue Historic District Boundary Increase – Cleveland, Cuyahoga County – Three buildings would be added to an existing district, including the St. Clair Building (1925), Standard/Engineers Building (1924) and the former Allerton Hotel (1926).

Wilhelm and Minna Scheele House – Cleveland, Cuyahoga County – 19th century Folk Victorian house associated with area’s European ethnic heritage.

Forest Hill Realty Sales Office – Cleveland, Cuyahoga County – 1930 Norman Revival building associated with Forest Hill Development, which was begun by John D. Rockefeller.

Dayton Canoe Club – Dayton, Montgomery County – Two-story Arts and Crafts club building constructed in 1913.

Levi J. Hartong House & Farm – Green, Summit County – Well-preserved farmstead dating from 1839 through 1950, including an 1883 Sweitzer barn.

Jamestown Opera House – Jamestown, Greene County – 1889 combined town hall, township house and opera house. Click here for photos of the Jamestown Opera House.

Hocking Valley Coal Company Town – The Plains/Athens County – Well-preserved company town with 15 buildings, always in single ownership.

If the board finds that the proposed nominations appear to meet the criteria for listing on the National Register it will recommend to the State Historic Preservation Officer that they be forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places for her consideration.

The 17-member board is appointed by the governor to advise the Ohio Historical Society and the state on historic preservation matters. It includes professionals in history, architecture, archaeology, and other historic preservation related disciplines as well as citizen members. The board meets three times each year to consider proposed Ohio nominations to the National Register of Historic Places and conduct other business.

Photo: Allerton Hotel, Cleveland, vintage postcard

The time is here for the 2007 List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites.

On Tuesday, March 27, the first listing will be revealed at the list website, with a new endangered site announced every two days thereafter until the complete list of twelve properties is unveiled.

Each listed property represents not only a significant piece of Buckeye history that deserves to be recognized and celebrated, but also exemplifies challenges which face historic resources across Ohio. Being placed on this list does not guarantee protection, but is designed to increase awareness and to focus attention on significant pieces of Ohio history. Former editions of this list have aided in the preservation of historic resources, and have been covered by local, regional and statewide media.

The 2007 edition includes a new “twist” – properties placed on the list will remain there in subsequent years until such time as an identified threat is removed. This change was brought about as experience has shown that decisions affecting historic resources are often made over many months and, in some cases, more than one year.

To visit the 2007 List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites, visit the Preservation Ohio website at: www.preservationohio.org and click on “Ohio’s Most Endangered 2007.”

From time to time, pieces of Ohio history come up for sale on various online sites.  In a previous post, we have profiled the eBay auction of a Crandall Park Neighborhood mansion in Youngstown, as well as other properties advertised for sale via the Internet.

Craigslist, the long-standing marketplace website, has an ad which caught our eye this week.  In a brief notice entitled, "abandoned piece of history for sale," the announcement is made that an empty brick brewery building in Nelsonville is available... for the price of $145,000.

A little bit of online sleuthing revealed that the building in question was actually built as the "Hocking Valley Brewery, Inc," and further that it was constructed in 1904-5, and has been used for a variety of uses since the brewery closed -- including as a chicken hatchery.  A 2005 article in the Athens News profiled then-ambitious plans at transforming the space into a mixed-use facility.  For whatever reason, that vision has not become reality.

28,000 square feet of historic space awaits you in a wonderful Ohio small town.

Photo: Hocking Valley Brewery Building, Nelsonville - tsmyther/Creative Commons License

Ask any Ohioan to choose the most historic small town in Ohio, and you are bound to get a different answer – likely depending on the section of the state he or she calls home. Each section has its own “favorites,” those places which, in addition to one’s own hometown, are held in high esteem.

If you were, however, to objectively choose the most historic town in a given area – such as entire state – how would you go about that task? This was the question asked by owners of ePodunk, a website dedicated to promoting the “power or place” in American communities. In addition to the site’s regular fare of descriptions and data on thousands of places across the country, the site recently set out to define the most historic small towns in America … and the most historic in each state.

To accomplish this mission, site owners used four criteria – the number of individual listings on the National Register of Historic Places, the size of any existing National Register Historic Districts, the average age of housing, and the use of the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit.

Ohio’s winner? It might surprise you. It is…. Kellys Island in Lake Erie.  The two runners-up were Casstown (Miami County) and Zanesville.

Kellys Island is indeed a scenic and historic place. Kellys boasts two individual listings on the National Register of Historic Places, the Louis Beatty House (1851) and Inscription Rock – but it is also the location for two National Register Historic Districts. The first, the South Shore District, was created in 1975, and includes 31 buildings on 230 acres. The second and largest, the Kellys Island Historic District, was added in 1988, and includes 284 buildings, 17 structures and 5 objects in an area of 28,880 acres.

All of this, mind you, on an island that had 367 permanent residents in the 2000 census. In 1900, the island actually had 2,000 permanent residents; the number of seasonal residents now exceeds 3,000.

A good way to delve into the history of Kellys Island is to visit the website of the Kellys Island Historical Association, an organization housed in the island’s 1865 “Old Stone Church."

Photo: Old Stone Church, Kellys Island - gregjsmith/Creative Commons License

Clark County has now joined the list of Ohio counties (including Ottawa, Washington, Montgomery and Butler Counties) with properties protected by a preservation easement, also known as a “historic conservation” easement, held by Preservation Ohio.

On March 12 in the offices of the Turner Foundation, the Lagonda Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, owners of the historic Pennsylvania House in Springfield, transferred a preservation easement to Preservation Ohio. While the local DAR remains committed to safeguarding the Pennsylvania House, as they have for the last several decades, the easement transfer was a requirement of the Save America’s Treasures grant program.

Preservation easements, also known as “historic conservation” easements, protect a property’s historic integrity into the future by providing a review process for significant alterations. The benefits of donating a preservation easement are numerous, including not only knowledge that the historic elements of a house or building will remain intact for future generations, but also available tax and/or estate planning benefits. Click here to access more information on the easement program.

The Pennsylvania House is an outstanding historic resource along Ohio’s portion of the National Road, the first true “interstate” highway, which ran from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois (see this article in Wikipedia). Initially commissioned in 1806, the Ohio segment of the National Road was finished in the 1820s and 1830s. While there is some disagreement about the actual date of construction for the property, which was originally used as a hostelry and inn, it most likely dates to 1838 according to this article by the Springfield Preservation Alliance. The high amount of original interior and exterior building fabric make the property one of the very few places along the National Road where visitors can garner a true sense of period history. It is open to the public as a museum, and is a must see.

Enjoy these recently-taken photographs of the Pennsylvania House’s newly-restored exterior.

Be sure to check out recent comments concerning fundraising for the Captain Joseph M. Scott House in Alexandria (click on “Comments” after the story, “Ohio History at Risk: Local Community Needs to Raise $45,000 in One Month” below). As noted, supporters now have a live PayPal button for donations on their website at: http://www.captainscotthouse.org.  Your help and support is sorely needed.

“And now,” as they say, “a word from our sponsor.”

The year was 1982. Ronald Reagan was President, and James Rhodes was in his last term as Governor of Ohio. In May of that year, a group of intrepid Ohioans met at the Departments of State building in downtown Columbus, now home of the Ohio Supreme Court, and launched Ohio’s non-profit statewide preservation organization, the Ohio Preservation Alliance, Inc..

The initial Trustees of OPA included the following, among others:

John Cimperman, Director, Cleveland Landmarks Commission
Franklin Conaway, Urban Affairs Consultant, Chillicothe
Douglas DeGood, Mayor of Toledo
Robert Gaede, Architect, Cleveland
Loren S. Gannon, Historian, Dayton
Bruce Goetzman, Architect, Cincinnati
Emily Gulker, Bonneyfiddle Association, Portsmouth
Judith Kitchen, Architectural Historian, Columbus
Rose Mary Martin, Ohio Chamber of Commerce, Columbus
Dixie Sayre Miller, Civic Leader, Columbus
Judge Thomas Moyer, Judge, Court of Appeals, Columbus (now Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court)
David Taylor, Director, Columbus Landmarks Foundation
Josephine Voss, Fairfield Heritage Association, Lancaster

Over the next 25 years, successor Trustees have included a “Who’s Who” in preservation in Ohio, and OPA, now known as Preservation Ohio, has remained at the forefront of historic preservation, downtown revitalization and smart/sustainable growth efforts in the Buckeye State. Some quick highlights of that history would include the following:

• In 1983, the organization hosted the first general conference in Ohio on preservation-based downtown revitalization.

• In the early 1990s, OPA hosted one of the first comprehensive looks at the need for and potential of smart and sustainable growth strategies in Ohio, the “Managing Change Conference.”

• In 1993, the organization issued the first List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites; subsequent lists have been published annually or bi-annually since then.

• In the mid-1990s, OPA sponsored the first look at historic courthouse renovation in Ohio.

• In 2002, OPA announced Ohio’s first statewide preservation easement program, which now protects properties across the state.

• In 2005, the organization announced creation of the OHIO Heritage Neighborhood Program and the Gannon Fund for Historic Preservation.

• In 2006, MyHometownOhio was launched, which is already the most popular statewide preservation and revitalization online magazine in the country.

On March 24, the organization will celebrate its 25^th Anniversary with an open Annual Meeting at the main branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.  At that time, the 2007 List of Ohio's Most Endangered Historic Sites will be announced. For more information on Preservation Ohio, be sure to visit our website by clicking on the link to your left.