First Railroad Comes To Twinsburg

The Connotton Valley R.R. was built in 1880 running “one-half mile east of the center” of town. It went from Cleveland to Canton and for years was known as the Wheeling and Lake Erie. The railroad brought the telegraph to Twinsburg. The American Rapid Telegraph Co. originally operated the Connotton Valley railway lines but eventually became the Postal Telegraph Co. In 1882, the first telegraph office in Twinsburg was established with Fred. B. Barber as the person in charge.

Information from “Twinsburg, Ohio 1817-1917” by Lena M. Carter (p. 133-134).

First Burial at Locust Grove Cemetery

The first burial at Locust Grove Cemetery took place on July 5, 1846 when 83 year old James Henri was laid to rest. He was the oldest man in town at the time of his death.

Having outgrown the first public burying ground and wanting to keep a memorial ground more substantial than home farms, Ethan Alling purchased the land, graded it, added fencing, and planted locust trees. In 1860, a stone fence was constructed to replace the original fence. The roadway leading to the cemetery was deeded in 1870 by Lewis Alling. The stone vault was constructed around 1872, used for storing bodies throughout the colder months until they could be properly buried once the ground was no longer frozen.

For more Twinsburg200 information regarding Locust Grove Cemetery:
–http://twinsburg200.com/locust-grove-cemetery/
–http://twinsburg200.com/premature-burial-in-locust-grove-cemetery/

Information from
-Twinsburg, Ohio, 1817-1917 by Lena M. Carter

Herrick House Opens at Hale Farm & Village

In 1981, the Jonathan Herrick House was slated for demolish at its original location on Darrow Road near Old Mill Road; an industrial park was to be built in its place. Thanks to a $25,000 grant and a donation from the land developer, a plan was implemented within six weeks in order to dismantle and move the house to Hale Farm and Village.

Norma Stefanik was the architecture consultant at Hale Farm and Village who oversaw the initial challenge of moving the home, considered “one of the finest stone houses of Greek Revival architecture in the Western Reserve”. The home was built out of locally quarried sandstone, rumored to have been purchased from another Herrick relative who lived in the area and owned a stone quarry. Jonathan Herrick was one of seven brothers. Born in Worthington, Massachusetts, he moved to Aurora, Ohio in 1826 and married Phila Clark shortly after. The stone home was built in 1845, weighing 141 tons. Because of the home’s original stone construction, the home could not be moved as a whole but needed to be entirely dismantled stone by stone. Wallpaper was peeled off and mortar chipped off in order to prepare for moving. It took 20 truckloads to transport the stones, which had each been individually numbered to assist in the reconstruction process.

Because of the cost required for rebuilding the home, the stones sat in a pile for years before the reconstruction process could begin. Conservator Shawn Godwin was responsible for helping restore the home, which finally opened to the public on Friday, July 8, 1989.

Jonathan Herrick and his family are buried at Locust Grove Cemetery.

Additional Source Information from:
-Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 29, 1982, accessed from Cleveland Public Library Newsbank database
-Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 21, 1988, accessed from Cleveland Public Library Newsbank database
-Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 2, 1989, accessed from Cleveland Public Library Newsbank database
-Twinsburg, Ohio, 1817-1917

Microburst

Sunday, November 5, 2017. Hundreds were without power after 105 mile per hour winds came through the area. The cause? A microburst- a downdraft caused by a thunderstorm. One day later, over 23,000 people were still without power in the Northeast Ohio area. 9,107 people in Twinsburg alone had reported outages from the storm. At least 5 electrical poles were damaged as well as multiple homes in the area.

In the days following, The Twinsburg Public Library became a safe haven, providing respite for those suffering from the storm. Patrons filled chairs and even lined the hallway floors while charging their electronics in any available wall outlet they could find. Others took advantage of the library as a warming station. The library provided coffee and hot water for those who needed it.

For more coverage:

Fox 8 News article

Cleveland.com news article

National Weather Service Statement

Tree wreckage near the house on the corner of Laurel and Conrad. Luckily the large tree did not hit anything and caused no damage to the structure.

Image from Lisa Thomas Mercurio — Tree wreckage near the house on the corner of Laurel and Conrad. Luckily the large tree did not hit anything and caused no damage to the structure. Image from Lisa Thomas Mercurio

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Twinsburg & The Civil War

Like other cities at the time, Twinsburg finds itself amidst the beginning of the Civil War.

There were 120 documented volunteers from Twinsburg who enlisted with various regiments, including:

1st Regimental Iowa Volunteer Infantry
1st Regimental Michigan Volunteer Infantry
1st Regiment, O.V.I.
2nd Regiment, O.V.I.
6th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry
6th Regiment, O.V.I.
7th Regiment, O.V.I.
7th U.S Regulars
9th Independent Battery, Ohio Light Artillery
10th Regiment, O.V.I.
13th Regiment, O.V.I.
17th Regiment, O.V.I.
18th Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
19th Regiment, O.V.I.
20th Independent Battery, Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery
21st Regiment, O.V.I.
23rd Regiment, O.V.I.
24th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry
30th Regiment, O.V.I.
41st Regiment, O.V.I.
49th Regiment, O.V.I.
84th Regiment, O.V.I.
85th Regiment, O.V.I.
103rd Regiment, O.V.I.
104th Regiment, O.V.I.
105th Regiment, O.V.I.
115th Regiment, O.V.I.
125th Regiment, O.V.I.
150th Regiment, O.V.I.
177th Regiment, O.V.I.

Note: O.V.I. is the abbreviation for Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

For further reading on Twinsburg’s soldiers during the Civil War, look for Beyond the Monument: The Civil War Soldiers of Twinsburg, Ohio written by Veronica Hughes, published in 2017.

Founding of Twinsburg

Ethan Alling left for Ohio with three hired men, Zeri Alling, Rodolphus (called Tom) Wolcott and Lex Johnson on March 3, 1817. A sawmill was built in 1817 and a gristmill was built in 1818. In 1818, a frame barn and part of a frame house were also built. Joel N. Thompson ran a distillery in 1821.

In July 1817, Ezra Osborn arrived and settled in the western part of the township. She had “the distinction of being the first woman to be a settler in the town.”

Mount Olive Baptist Church

Mount Olive Baptist Missionary Church has enthusiastically been serving the spiritual needs of the Twinsburg Heights community for over 85 years. Within the three communities only the Twinsburg Congregational Church has a longer continuous history.

Not long after the Heights was established as an African American community within Twinsburg, a small group of residents met to form what would eventually become Mount Olive Baptist Church.

The small group, meeting in the home of John and Emma Mckinney, first organized themselves on May 25, 1932. The group included the Mckinneys, Hiram and Betty Studevant, Louise and Blanch McDonald, acting secretary Christine Golden and Rev. Wilder, who served as the initial chairman.

The congregation held their services in the Mckinney’s home until April 16. 1933 when they relocated to The Church of God in Christ on Eaton Street, where they continued to meet for the next year.

In 1933 though, Charles Brady of the Ravenna Building Co and the developer of Twinsburg Heights, had promised a church to the first minister who purchased a home in the development. Rev. John Ribbins, previously of Cleveland, purchased a home in early 1934 and was awarded a lot on the current church site at the corner of Oxford and Yale. Ribbins’ house, after several remodels, still stands.

Pastor Ribbins capitalized on the standing offer from Charles Brady of the Ravenna Building Company to provide land for a church to the first minister to purchase a house in the Heights.

The men of the community dug and built a basement for the church, volunteering their free labor during the W.P.A. era. On the fourth Sunday in April of 1934, the congregation marched from The Church of God in Christ to the new church and held services their for the first time. The church consisted only of a basement, which would be the congregation’s home for the next three years. And while it has continued to grow over the years, both spiritually and physically, The Church of God in Christ structure no longer exists.

In the spring of 1937 the membership started work on the framework for what was to become the upper sanctuary. It was completed by that winter. In the subsequent years a pulpit area and a choir loft were also added. In 1970 though a major renovation occurred when a front room, church office, choir room, restrooms and a pastor’s study were added.

Mt. Olive, currently led my the Rev. Wallace Thomas, continues to serve the Twinsburg Heights community. The Heights has always been well served by its churches, with six congregations currently residing within the community, but Mt. Olive is the originator.

For more information, check out Mt. Olive’s website.

Creation of Twinsburg Chamber of Commerce

No organization binds the three communities and their businesses together more than the Twinsburg Chamber of Commerce. Founded in 1921 with a mere dozen members, the organization has steadily grown and now boasts over 260, according to Abby Fechter, executive director of the Chamber. There are approximately four hundred businesses in Twinsburg, the Township, and Reminderville, with over half belonging to the Chamber of Commerce (there are more than 260 active members as of 2018). Though the main focus is on businesses located in the three communities and on drawing new industry to those areas, the Twinsburg Chamber of Commerce also serves businesses in neighboring cities such as Shaker Heights and Hudson.

The Chamber’s mission is “to promote the interests of its members, strengthen the local economy and advance educational, tourism and community development programs that contribute to making the Greater Twinsburg area a better place to work, visit and live.” Educational programming is determined by the member’s needs and wants. When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed, members asked for and received a program on how the new plan would affect their business and their employees. Programming is tailored toward different types of businesses to assure every company is accommodated.

Twinsburg High School Girls Basketball Mini-Dynasty

The pride of Twinsburg High School athletics is the girls’ basketball program. From 2011 to 2013 the Lady Tigers parlayed hard work, determination, and great skill into a mini-dynasty, reaching the Division I state finals, three years in a row, and winning the championship on their first two trips.

It was a total team effort that carried the Lady Tigers to three straight finals, but there were two stars who shined brighter than the rest. Malina Howard, who had been receiving national attention since junior high for her hardwood prowess, was the undisputed leader of those championship squads. The six-foot-four basketball dynamo dominated the post in two straight state tourneys, rendering opposing post players defenseless, and sometimes offense-less. In 2012, the same year she led the Tigers to their second consecutive state title, Howard was named Plain Dealer Girls Basketball Player, also for the second straight season. Howard went on to become an Academic All-American at the University of Maryland.

The other star was guard, Ashley Morrissette, who fully blossomed in her senior year, when she was named Ohio’s Ms. Basketball while leading the Lady Tigers to their third straight state final. After graduating from Twinsburg High School, Morissette moved on to Purdue University. In her senior season as a Purdue Boilermaker, she leads the team with over fifteen points per game.

Twinsburg Historical Society, 1963

Civic-minded residents decided to start the Twinsburg Historical Society (THS) in 1963 in order to preserve and promote local history. To be a member of the THS originally an individual had to live in Twinsburg for a specified duration of time, but there are no longer such strict restrictions on membership. The original members of the THS were Marjorie Percy, Larry Richner, John L. Eggleston, Fred Bissell, Marian Jewell, Jean E. Zahniser, M. Leland Zahniser, Carl Herrick, and Sarah M. Riley. Original member and former president Marge Percy recalled: “The Historical Society began with a building, a charter, a board with enthusiastic volunteers, a shabby barn in great need of repair, and an empty treasury.”

The THS has a substantial collection of papers, photographs, maps, books, and various vital artifacts pertaining to local history. They are also responsible for staging events such as the Olde Thyme Faire, at which youngsters can view how their forefathers lived and actively participate in an outmoded way of life as well.

The structure that is now the THS building was built in 1865 by the Reverend Samuel Bissell, almost exclusively with his own hands. The Bissell Institute, established and run by the Reverend Bissell until his death in 1896, was housed in this building. In the course of his tenure more than six thousand students received an education, regardless of their ability to pay. In 1920 the Twinsburg Grange purchased the building, retaining ownership until 1963, when it was sold to the THS. The second story was removed when the building started to settle, rendering it unsafe due to the weight of the stones. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Veterans Day Tornado, 2002

The potential for a storm to spawn a tornado peaks during the heat of summer. Mother Nature decided to mix things up, however, when Ohio was rocked by an unusually late tornadic outbreak on November 10, 2002. News stations around the state had their hands full as nineteen tornadoes touched down across the region. One left a scar on the land and lives of area residents when damage and destruction from a swirling storm damaged dozens of homes and completely leveled others.

According to an issue of the Plain Dealer dated November 23, 2002, “Twinsburg, Macedonia, Solon and Glenwillow filed a joint application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for emergency funds to help pay for recent tornado damage, said Macedonia Mayor Barbara Kornuc. Public officials have asked FEMA to consider their communities one disaster area. The communities will have to pay a total of more than $500,000 to clean up damage.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

A small F0/F1 tornado touched down in Macedonia near the intersection of Valley View Drive (SR 631) and Aurora Road and moved northeast. The tornado gradually strengthened and reached F2 intensity as it crossed State Route 14 and moved into Twinsburg. Extensive damage was done in Macedonia and Twinsburg. In Macedonia, 60 homes were damaged including two that were destroyed and 15 others were damaged enough to be declared uninhabitable. The most severe damage in the county occurred in the Glenwood Preserve neighborhood on the north side of Twinsburg. Extensive damage was done on Andover Drive and Deeplake Circle where several homes were leveled and a total of 45 homes damaged. Damage estimates in Twinsburg alone were well over $5 million. The damage path was continuous and about 100 yards in width. Dozens of cars were damaged or destroyed and hundreds of trees and power poles downed in Summit County.

Thanksgiving Blizzard of 1950

During the Thanksgiving Blizzard of 1950, forty-mile-per-hour winds socked the region, and a blanket of snow more than one foot deep covered the land. Areas farther east fared worse, with some Ohioans recording more than two feet. The culprit was an extratropical cyclone that paralyzed the area unlike any storm during the prior three decades. Temperatures hung near zero, freezing water lines and killing car batteries. Nationally, 353 souls perished due to the storm. Many sources compare the storm’s ferocity to that of the 1913 storm that crippled the region for five days. Estimates place fatalities for that storm at over 250. In Cleveland, the Ohio National Guard provided support in light of the countless police officers unable to make it in to work. Many of those enjoying family and festivities over the Thanksgiving holiday were forced to extend their stay.

Image taken from Cleveland Plain Dealer. See full article here: http://media.cleveland.com/remembers/other/snowstorm.pdf

The First Congregational Church

Like a boulder that withstands the flow of a rushing river, the First Congregational of Twinsburg has remained unmoved, in spite of time and transformation. A house of worship, it has stood through the ages, a silent witness to generations of parishioners and the coming and going of reverends, as well as periodic renovation and expansion.

Twinsburg’s oldest church during a long ago Christmas season.

The origins and essence of the church predate its physical embodiment. The first assembly coalesced in August of 1822. Though small in number, the thirteen founding members formed a cohesive community, united in their belief in a higher power. The work and worship they dedicated themselves to began within the walls of a small log structure in close proximity to Public Square. The church standing today owes its construction and craftsmanship to the skilled laborers who completed the structure in the autumn of 1848.

Over its nearly two centuries of service, numerous leaders would guide the flock; schisms fractured the congregation and time brought them together again. The street it stood along, Church Street, was named for its houses of prayer, though Congregational Church would eventually stand alone, much as it was when it began its life. Of all the reverends to serve, Dewey Long held the distinction of serving the longest, doing so from 1972 to 1991. It was during his tenure that in 1974 the National Register of Historic Places bestowed a place within its ranks on the church, recognizing its longevity and importance to the community. Patricia Jefferis, the first woman to shepherd the flock, arrived in 1998.

For more information, visit the First Congregational Church website here.

First Female Firefighter

Betty Tomko began her public service career just east of Twinsburg in Aurora, Ohio. In 1978, Betty broke a gender barrier that once seemed so prevalent: she became the first firefighter, paramedic, and fire inspector in the history of Twinsburg, positions traditionally held by men in a profession traditionally associated with masculinity. Serving with Twinsburg for three and a half years, she made her way amid rampant sexism and stereotypes.

In her interview for the bicentennial she confessed, “It was tough in some ways. There were two men who eventually quit the fire department and that’s on the records at the police department. They named me as the reason they left because they didn’t want to work with a woman.” While her employment opened the door for other women hoping to protect and serve the people of Twinsburg, the firehouse remains a predominantly male domain. As of 2016, only one of the twenty-nine full-time firefighters and paramedics with the TFD was female.

Close Encounters and UFO Sightings

Mankind has experienced many strange things for which no parallel could be found. In 1972, author and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek categorized and defined the many experiences people claimed to have had with aliens and unidentified flying objects. His book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Journey provides the following outline:

Close Encounters of the First Kind: visual sighting of a UFO
Close Encounters of the Second Kind: physical effect of the UFO is felt
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: the eyewitness account of an alien entity

Disclaimer: not an actual photo of the purported UFO seen over Twinsburg in 1969.

On the evening of March 6, 1969, area residents both saw and experienced the effects of one such object. Eyewitness accounts seem to corroborate the presence of a UFO along a stretch of Liberty Drive.

Mildred Karabec lived off Liberty Road in 1969, along with her husband James Karabec. The strange activity began as they arrived home for the evening. “We had just moved in…I pulled in my driveway and I opened the garage door . . . and the door kept going up and down and up and down.” Their residence was located along a swath of high-voltage power towers that cut across the rural countryside. Former mayor James Karabec, suggested that alien aircraft “would get their power from the power lines,” as they flew parallel to those streams of electricity. What of the aircraft itself? What did it look like? Mildred Karabec recalled, “We saw lights but there was no noise over the power lines . . . there was absolutely no noise . . . bright, they were just bright lights . . . white.”

Sketch of a unidentified flying object from page 6 of a highly redacted United States Air Force report, from 1969.

Reports from residents terrified and confused by what they saw began making their way to the police on duty that night. According to Betty Tomko, two area officers investigated. Her account of their patrol is as follows: “We had two policemen call it in . . . and they were coming up Cannon Road Hill . . . and they actually stopped their cars on the hill and got out because something was hovering over top the police car and it was very bright lights around and they got out and watched this thing for a while and they felt it was watching them so they got back in the car, and when they would try to go forward this thing would follow them and I guess it followed them to the top of Cannon and when they turned on Liberty, it flew away.” Photographer Mark Gutowski remembers, “We were actually friends with one of the patrolmen at the time. Not sure which one it was . . . On that night, I remember him visiting our home and asking if we’d seen anything.”

An interview with police sergeant Donald Prange appeared in the Twinsburg Bulletin on February 24, 2015, adding credence to accounts by the many silent observers of that night several decades ago. Reporter Andrew Schunk wrote:

The evidence may have been in the evening sky over the city Feb. 17, 1969. The curious case of one local UFO sighting began innocuously enough in the city of 7,000 with TV interference at a Glenwood Drive home. It concluded, abruptly, with a bizarre visit to the Twinsburg Police Department from a United States Air Force lieutenant colonel and his mysterious, diminutive sidekick.

According to a recently released report from Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force’s systematic analysis of UFO reports between 1952 and 1969, a woman, 44, and her son, 19, were watching the news when the color contrast went out on their TV—and then the entire signal. The mother walked outside at dusk to check the antennae, and immediately called Twinsburg police to report an “oval-shaped object that had red and white lights around it”—what World War II pilots might have dubbed a “foo fighter,” or UFO, just two decades earlier. “Looking up we seen [sic] the strange object, coming over Glenwood Drive,” said the woman, whose identity is redacted in the March 6, 1969, report. “I never seen anything like this before,” she states. “It seemed to have stopped near the corner of [Glenwood Drive], then proceeded down [East Idlewood Drive] for about a quarter mile . . . then it just went right up out of sight.”

Sgt. Donald Prange, a former Twinsburg officer and Marine Corps veteran who later served as chief of police in Twinsburg in the late 1970s, responded to the woman’s call around 6:40 p.m. More than 20 calls referencing the UFO were ultimately fielded by Twinsburg dispatch that evening. Prange, now 77, recalled the event with detail Jan. 27 from his home in Rancho Cordova, Calif. “We officers talked amongst ourselves after the sighting,” said Prange, who said he witnessed the object over R.B. Chamberlin High School for several minutes with Twinsburg patrolmen Walter Orcutt and Herbert Munn. “I told them I didn’t think we should say anything to anyone . . . they would think we were crazy.”

In keeping with caution, the TPD did not immediately report the event to the USAF. The USAF was made aware of the event thanks to a Feb. 18, 1969, letter from the woman’s 19-year-old son to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton detailing the sighting. In its April 22, 1969, conclusion to the Glenwood Drive woman, the USAF determined that the object was actually an “aerial advertizing [sic] aircraft.”

“A letter was sent to the Twinsburg Police Department requesting information on the sighting, however this office did not receive a reply . . . the description of the UFO is similar to past reports of Aerial Advertizing aircraft,” states Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, chief of the now defunct Aerial Phenomena Branch at Wright-Patterson. Prange said he doesn’t buy the USAF’s answer in the Twinsburg incident any more than he believes its conclusion from a Portage County case three years earlier, in 1966, when officers were informed that they had just chased the planet Venus for 85 miles, from Ravenna to just outside of Pittsburgh.

“It was like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Prange said. “We had three cars respond, and watched it for several minutes over R.B. Chamberlin High School, near some power lines there. “It appeared to be stationary, hovering. What bothered me is that it didn’t seem to be making any noise, at least not that ‘egg beater’ sound you get from a helicopter. It was more like a whirring sound. Then it slowly rose up and disappeared.”

For the woman and her son, the story ends with the April 1969 correspondence from Quintanilla. For Prange and his fellow officers, the story of the peculiar foo fighter over Twinsburg has one final, bizarre chapter. About a month after the sighting, Prange says his department was visited by a USAF lieutenant colonel—believed to be Quintanilla—and a “strange little man.”

“They brought out a light colonel . . . another strange little man was with him . . . to question us individually,” Prange said. “The smaller man, perhaps 5 feet tall, was not like us . . . he had strange features, almost like a child who has aged rapidly. He wore a hat, gloves, and he never spoke to us, never shook our hands, just observed. I don’t remember [the colonel] ever even saying thank you. When they left, we never heard from the Air Force again.” Prange added he never experienced anything like the February 1969 call again in his law enforcement career. “You ask me what it was? It was a flying saucer,” he said.

Fast-forward to 2014, and glowing spacecraft were still lighting up the skies over Twinsburg. Mildred Karabec recalled, “We were changing a tire for my younger sister and just happened to look up and we saw two of them interacting . . . and it had flashing lights.” They proceeded to head toward Liberty Park, the site of the close encounter thirty-five years earlier. “I got out of the car and stood by the hood of the car and two cigar-shaped [objects] . . . came toward us and stopped right above us and I turned to jump back in the car at that point and when I did, they went up a little higher and one went left and one went right. And then in a second they both met back in the center and headed straight toward Aurora and disappeared, but they moved at such speed.”

The pencil mark below the “30” indicates the angle above the horizon of the alleged UFO as seen by an unnamed observer along Glenwood Drive.

If flying saucers and glowing lights weren’t enough, there were rumors of an abduction. According to Betty Tomko, “There are a set of apartments at the top of Route 91 . . . [where] a child claims to have been abducted.” She said, “He was spending a night with a friend . . . The people who owned that apartment disappeared.” Local police were purported to be going door to door following the incident. When asked if they believed it to be a UFO, Betty Tomko replied, “I can’t attribute it to anything else.”

Cost of Freedom, 2015

Like so many family-oriented, close-knit communities, the three communities are proudly patriotic. Twinsburg is the perfect locale for hosting an event honoring our veterans and safety services. In September 2012, a postcard was delivered to the Twinsburg Historical Society from a company in Texas promoting the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall. The letter was passed along to Commander Joe Jasany, who immediately broached the idea of bringing the tribute to his fellow members of the 4929. In December of 2012, the Texas company provided information, including the cost of the exhibit, to Commander Joe. The cost for bringing the wall to Twinsburg was $16,000, an amount Post 4929 wasn’t even close to possessing, so Jasany went before City Council to ask for funding. The Council agreed without a second of hesitation to donate $5,000. In quick succession the Township and Reminderville gave $6,000 and $5,000, respectively, effectively paying for the wall.

There was still a great deal of funding needed for security, construction of a replica Vietnamese village, and a variety of other expenses. The Cost of Freedom Fundraising Committee held approximately fifteen fundraising events to raise funds for the event. In fact, so much money was raised ($88,000 overall) that a surplus was accrued and given to veterans in need.

From July 1 to July 5, 2015, Twinsburg’s VFW Post 4929 presented the Cost of Freedom Tribute event. According to the City of Twinsburg website, “The Cost of Freedom Tribute is a one of a kind outdoor tribute depicting honor, respect and remembrance of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country. The mission of the traveling tribute is to create a forum for communities to come together for all those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country and to educate all to the cost of freedom. The AVTT, or American Veterans Traveling Tribute, travels the USA bringing this traveling tribute to as many communities as possible.” The event featured much more than just the tribute wall. There were exhibits from every era, including a 9/11 exhibit built entirely by a retired firefighter from Macedonia.

Somewhere in the vicinity of sixteen to twenty thousand patrons visited the wall during the holiday weekend it was displayed in Twinsburg. It was open twenty-four hours a day with clergy stationed in a comfort tent the entire duration of the event. The majority of veterans visited the tribute in the cover of the darkest and most desolate hours of the evening and morning. The experience was too emotional and personal for them to share with the public. A couple of videos were produced to commemorate the event, one produced by Cable 9, the other created by a local high school student.

Blizzard of 1978

No mere snow squall or winter gale, this storm was known to those who witnessed its icy wrath as “The Great Blizzard.” The front slammed the region, dropping the mercury to dangerous lows and pumping out snow to incredible heights. It began on January 23, as it moved west toward the Ohio Valley. On January 25, forecasts for the state began to paint a more severe picture of things to come and by nine p.m. a blizzard warning was issued for the entire state of Ohio. Scott and Sue Kollman of Kollman’s grocery store conveyed the frantic state of locals as the storm approached, saying, “Everyone was scared . . . there was a run on the store.” The next day, President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency for Ohio. This would mark the peak of the blizzard’s strength, with wind speeds topping eighty miles per hour in Cleveland. It would be another two days before the storm broke and an assessment of the damage could take place.

Of the storm’s aftermath, local Andrew Miller nostalgically remembered it as only a small boy could have: “I remember the snow being up to my knees, which at the time probably would’ve been two feet . . . No plows had been through yet, nobody had shoveled after, it was still storming and you just couldn’t tell the difference between the road and someone’s front yard. It was just an even plain.” His mother Sandy told how theirs was the only home in their neighborhood with a wood-burning fireplace, presenting a warm and inviting refuge for nearby neighbors without heat . . . providing they were capable of braving the storm. And for some, that bravery came from the insatiable need to eat, drink, and be inebriated. “Nobody could go to work, but Babka’s was packed,” according to the Kollmans. The following is taken from a bulletin by the National Weather Service:

Still images and film footage were combined, documenting many of the familiar sights around Twinsburg as they appeared during the now infamous blizzard. Public Square, shops and storefronts, Corbett’s Farm, and rural byways are shown coated in snow, reflecting the true ferocity of the storm in its immediate aftermath. Film footage of the 1978 blizzard was captured by Twinsburg resident James Kizak.

The following content are the actual press releases from the National Weather Service illustrating the evolution of the storm from January 24-26:

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AKRON OHIO
100 PM EST FEB 1 1978

…THE BLIZZARD OF 78…

TUESDAY JAN 24…TWO SEEMINGLY UNRELATED LOW PRESSURE AREAS SEPARATED
BY VAST DISTANCES…ONE IN THE WESTERN GULF OF MEXICO THE OTHER IN
NORTHERN NORTH DAKOTA…BEGAN TO BECOME ORGANIZED. THE NORTH DAKOTA
LOW WAS EXPECTED TO PASS NORTH OF OHIO POSING NO GREAT WEATHER THREAT
TO THE STATE OTHER THAN TO BRING IN COLDER AIR. THE GULF LOW WAS
FORECASTED TO MOVE GRADUALLY NORTHEAST UP THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY TO
THE OHIO VALLEY AND THEN NORTHEAST OF OHIO. RAIN WAS EXPECTED TO
SPREAD INTO THE STATE FROM THIS LOW…CHANGING TO SNOW AS THE COLDER
AIR MOVED IN BEHIND.

WEDNESDAY JAN 25…ALL THINGS SEEMED TO BE OCCURRING AS FORECASTED AS
THE GULF LOW MOVED INTO NORTHERN LOUISIANA DURING THE MORNING. THEN
THE FIRST SIGNS OF SOMETHING MORE OMINOUS BEGAN TO APPEAR. THE NORTH
DAKOTA LOW STARTED TRACKING MORE SOUTHEAST AND PRESSURES NORTH OF THE
GULF LOW BEGAN TO FALL RAPIDLY. IT BECAME APPARENT THAT THE TWO LOWS
WERE ON A VIRTUAL COLLISION COURSE AND THAT COLLISION WOULD TAKE
PLACE IN OR VERY NEAR THE STATE OF OHIO. PRESSURES CONTINUED TO FALL
RAPIDLY AHEAD OF THE GULF LOW AS WARM MOIST AIR WAS BROUGHT NORTH. BY
AFTERNOON HEAVY SNOW WARNINGS WERE ISSUED FOR NORTHWESTERN COUNTIES
OF OHIO AND A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE STATE. BY
EARLY EVENING THE PRESSURES HAD DROPPED TO RECORD LOWS THROUGHOUT THE
BUCKEYE STATE AND THE COLD LOW FROM THE NORTH WAS TRACKING DIRECTLY
TOWARD OHIO. IT NOW BECAME VERY OBVIOUS THAT A VERY DANGEROUS WEATHER
SITUATION FACED OHIOANS AND BLIZZARD WARNINGS WERE ISSUED FOR THE
ENTIRE STATE AT 9 PM. TEMPERATURES ROSE INTO THE 40S AND RAIN
CONTINUED AS THE DAY NEARED ITS END. THE WIND INCREASED GREATLY TOWARD
MIDNIGHT AND THE PRESSURE CONTINUED ITS DOWNWARD SLIDE.

THURSDAY JAN 26…BY EARLY THURSDAY HERE AT THE AKRON CANTON WEATHER
SERVICE OFFICE THE WIND HAD RISEN TO SUSTAINED SPEEDS BETWEEN 25 AND
30 MPH GUSTING TO OVER 40 MPH. THE PRESSURE WAS STILL DROPPING AND IT
WAS EVIDENT THAT A STORM OF UNPRECEDENTED MAGNITUDE WAS IMMINENT. AT
347 AM THE BAROMETER REGISTERED 28.33 INCHES…A FULL HALF OF AN INCH
LOWER THAN THE PREVIOUS RECORD LOW OF 28.83 INCHES SET ON FEB 25 1961.
WIND WAS NOW BLOWING AT 30 TO 40 MPH AND GUSTING TO OVER 50 MPH. BY
430 AM THE COLD AIR MOVED INTO THE LOCAL AREA. TEMPERATURES DROPPED
RAPIDLY AND THE RAIN CHANGED TO SNOW. THE WIND WAS NOW GUSTING TO
OVER 60 MPH AND AT 512 AM A PEAK GUST OF 76 MPH WAS RECORDED. BETWEEN
5 AND 6 AM THE TEMPERATURE FELL 21 DEGREES FROM 34 TO 13 AND
EVERYTHING THAT WAS WET FROM THE RAIN BECAME ICE. THE TEMPERATURE
LEVELED OFF AROUND THE 10 DEGREE MARK BUT THE WIND REMAINED HIGH…
SUSTAINED AT 25 TO 35 MPH AND GUSTING TO 40 AND 50 MPH DURING THE
ENTIRE DAY. REPORTS OF DAMAGE BEGAN TO POUR IN OF POWER LINES DOWN…
TELEVISION ANTENNAS BROKEN OFF…TREE LIMBS AND WHOLE TREES DOWN…
AND BROKEN WINDOWS. ROADS HAD BECOME VAST SKATING RINKS AND DRIVING
WAS ALL BUT IMPOSSIBLE. THE SNOW WAS BLOWING AND DRIFTING REDUCING THE
VISIBILITY TO NEAR ZERO. WIND CHILL FACTORS DURING THE DAY FELL FAR
BELOW THE MINUS 60 DEGREE MARK MAKING VENTURING OUTSIDE EXTREMELY
HAZARDOUS.

BLIZZARD WARNINGS WERE CONTINUED THROUGHOUT THE DAY AS OHIO REELED
UNDER WINTERS WORST STORM IN MANY YEARS. WINDS REMAINED HIGH…SNOW
BLEW AND DRIFTED…AND ALL TRAVEL AND OUTDOOR ACTIVITY CAME TO A
VIRTUAL HALT. THIS SITUATION CONTINUED INTO FRIDAY WITH THE BLIZZARD
WARNINGS BEING REPLACED BY TRAVELERS ADVISORIES AT 440 AM FRIDAY
MORNING. THESE ADVISORIES REMAINED IN EFFECT THROUGHOUT FRIDAY AS THE
WINDS DIMINISHED BUT WERE STILL STRONG ENOUGH TO CAUSE CONSIDERABLE
BLOWING AND DRIFTING…AND RESTRICTING VISIBILITY ON THOSE ROADS THAT
WERE OPEN. WIND CHILL FACTORS OF MINUS 40 TO 60 DEGREES CONTINUED AS
WINDS BLEW FROM 25 TO 40 MPH AND TEMPERATURES HOVERED IN THE TEENS.

FOR SHEER MAGNITUDE…THIS MUST RANK AS THE WORST STORM TO HIT THE
GREAT LAKES REGION IN MANY YEARS. ON THE WEATHER SIDE…RECORD LOW
PRESSURE READINGS…HIGH WINDS…DRAMATIC TEMPERATURE DROPS AND
CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW WERE ALL BUT UNPRECEDENTED. ON
THE HUMAN SIDE…THE SUFFERING…DISCOMFORT AND DANGER CAUSED BY
DISRUPTED POWER…WIND DAMAGE…STRANDED AUTOMOBILES AND OTHER STORM
RELATED EVENTS WERE PROBABLY MORE WIDESPREAD THAN IN ANY OTHER STORM
IN MOST PEOPLES MEMORIES. MANY WEATHER RECORDS WERE BROKEN BUT THAT
IS WHAT RECORDS ARE FOR AND THOSE ARE JUST COLD STATISTICS.
UNFORTUNATELY THERE ARE NO RECORDS OR COLD STATISTICS TO MEASURE THE
HUMAN FACTOR IN A STORM OF THIS VAST SCALE.

Brownberry Bread Fires

It’s easy to imagine the smell of warm, freshly baked bread wafting from the ovens of a Brownberry factory. This pleasant scenario, however, was not the one that unfolded during the morning hours of October 13, 1980. Beginning during the predawn hours, flames rapidly engulfed the confines of the brick Brownberry warehouse, causing $300,000–$500,000 in damage. While those figures were provided by fire officials, corporate officials put the pyre’s price tag at nearly $4 million. No word on whether that figure included the loss of ten thousand cases of croutons and stuffing.

It can be surmised that the cardboard and crouton kindling only served to exacerbate things. The one-story building and the fire that it fueled would require more than five hours of assistance by sixty-seven fire responders from Twinsburg, as well as Hudson, Macedonia, and Northfield Center Township. Per the Plain Dealer, “No one was hurt . . . but two Twinsburg fireman were covered with lard when a lard tank exploded.” Betty Tomko, the first female firefighter, worked a hose line at the fire. Luckily, no one was injured. {Courtesy of the Twinsburg Bulletin} 66. Three Communities, One Heritage stated, “When they turned the water on, it just wiped us all over the blacktop, because lard had melted inside the facility that they used for the bread.” It made those using the hose slip and slide uncontrollably. The fight could have taken much longer had the fire spread to the offices, but a functioning sprinkler system and interior brick wall held the flames at bay.

After a strenuous day battling the Brownberry blaze, firefighters would respond to an eerily similar call when the second of two warehouses operated by the bread company caught fire just a street away. Although smaller and less destructive, the fire at the warehouse suggested something more sinister was going on. A year and a half earlier, in February 1979, another fire caused more than $60,000 in damage to the Brownberry store in Bedford Heights. The Plain Dealer reported the fire’s origins as “suspicious” in nature. When taken as a whole—three fires in two years—the coincidences become too strong to ignore, suggesting something nefarious was at work. In the end, no one was ever arrested in connection with these events.

Twinsburg National Bank Robbery

How many bank robberies need to be committed by the same team to constitute a crime spree? At least four, according to Summit County Sheriff Pat Hutchinson. Still, Hutchinson and his detectives had their hands full when four banks across the region, including the Sharon, Peninsula, Bedford, and Twinsburg banks, were held up over the course of several months in 1920.

On March 6, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Robbers made an unsuccessful attempt to blow the safe in the Sharon Center Banking Company.” The modus operandi was nitroglycerin, a smokeless yet highly volatile explosive. A neighbor of the bank was awakened around three a.m. by a noise he assumed came from his barn, but most likely was the detonation of the nitro next door.

On September 16, four men again attempted to blow open the safe maintained by Sharon Center Banking. The bandits escaped due to the late hour and the use of mattresses to muffle the explosion. Nearby residents, dressed in their bedtime attire, rushed to the scene, reporting the explosion as having occurred around four a.m. One of the would-be bank robbers took the idea of a clean getaway quite literally and washed up before making his exit. Detectives located the latent fingerprint in a bar of soap. Fingerprinting was still a relatively new science, having been introduced to the United States in New York late in 1905, just fifteen years prior to the robbery streak that gripped Northeast Ohio.

On October 13, 1920, the band of bandits struck closer to home. Nitroglycerine and basement walls seldom encounter one another, though this seemed to be a more common occurrence than one might suppose. The thieves were credited with taking $1,250 from the Twinsburg Banking Company. Adjusted for inflation, that 1920 figure would be worth close to $15,000 in 2016. Sheriff Hutchinson and a team of special detectives vowed to apprehend the culprits, claiming, as reported in the Plain Dealer, “to have evidence that the Twinsburg job was done by the same gang of highwaymen which robbed the Peninsula Bank several months ago, the Sharon Bank only a few weeks ago, and which also had been operating on Sherbondy Hill [Akron] in holding up pedestrians and motorists.”

Greed begets more greed, and too much greed almost always ends poorly for those involved. Such was the case for the band of bank bandits and their legendary lucky streak. A rain of bullets would end in bloodshed on October 22, 1920, following an attempt on the Bedford branch of the Cleveland Trust Company. The Plain Dealer reported: “One bandit was killed. Three other robbers, including George ‘Jiggs’ Losteiner, much wanted crook, were seriously wounded. A bank clerk was shot and is near death. This occurred in a battle in which more than 200 shots were exchanged between the bandits and citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns.”

Jiggs Losteiner’s legal problems only escalated, as charges of murder were brought against him a month later. According to the Sandusky Star-Journal, Jiggs was under the guard of one hundred Cleveland police and deputy sheriffs for the murder of Patrolman Patrick Gaffney, two years earlier. A plea of not guilty was entered for the murder, though his guilt in the armed bank robbery was affirmed.

The Plain Dealer published the following list of men shot in the final robbery:

Albert Joyce, alias Johnson,
Killed. Said by police to have a
long police record.

George (“Jiggs”) Losteiner,
wounded , not seriously. A noto-
rious crook and pal of John Gro-
gan, who is serving a life sentence
for the murder of an East Cleve-
land policeman.

Harry Stone, wounded, not se-
riously. Alleged by police to have
a long criminal record and only re-
cently released after a term of six
years in Leavenworth penitentiary.

Unidentified Man, wounded se-
verely. Police are comparing Ber-
tillon records in an effort to identify him.

Four Men, who escaped, all believed
to have been wounded. Bank em-
ployes furnish police with general
descriptions.

William Petre, bank clerk, 9011
Bucckeye road S.E. In serious con-
dition with buckshot wounds in
chest and abdomen.

C.H. Maxseiner, barber. Bedford,
wounded in hand by two of bandits
lookouts.

Reminderville Fire Dept. Unrest

William J. Delgado, Reminderville Fire Chief for 17 years, his assistant (Joseph W. Algeri Sr.), and another firefighter all quit the fire department in the same week in February 1972. They jointly alleged the burgeoning village had inadequate budget and equipment. The potential inability to continue to keep the village safe, as the population continued to grow, in particular with the addition of Aurora Shores, weighed heavy on the department. At the time of the unrest in the department, the three engines utilized by the department were a 1939 Ford, 1946 Dodge and a truck purchased (and subsequently remodeled) for $150 by the firefighters.

Another major contention voiced by the former chief and his assistant: the village was in violation of fire hydrant distance limitations as some fire hydrants, that should have been 300 feet apart, were instead 1,000 feet apart. They further alleged the village made these concessions in order to appease developers of Aurora Shores.

Two weeks after the resignations, Reminderville Mayor Louis Svette appointed Albert J. Sedlak as new fire chief (Sedlak, his wife and two children had recently migrated to Aurora Shores). Sedlak was a former Cleveland fire battalion chief.

Glenwood Acres

Few things can spur growth and development in a small town like the construction of a company in need of thousands of local employees. Taxes are generated, jobs created, and area infrastructure receives much needed improvements. The construction of the Glenwood Acres subdivision is an example of one such development. Preparations began shortly after the announcement that Chrysler was pulling its automotive plant out of nearby Macedonia and shifting its gaze to Twinsburg. When construction was complete, the development would boast more than four hundred low-cost houses. With the influx of new residents moving to the area in search of good jobs, few could overlook the housing opportunity afforded by Glenwood Acres. Residents began moving in the week of November 11, 1956, according to the Twinsburg Bulletin.

The Acres was not without its shortcomings. During a city council meeting just four months after occupancy began, vocal residents of the newly created subdivision brought their frustration to light, demanding something be done to improve upon the poor quality of the roads. However, their grievances went unaddressed. Records for 1958 indicate that voter turnout in Ward 1, which consisted of Glenwood Acres, was higher than that in the other four wards combined. The prolonged back-and-forth between City Council and the residents continued into the 1970s with issues of adequate sewage and sidewalks in need of attention. Sixty years have passed since the first residents arrived in Glenwood Acres, and in the intervening time these issues have been addressed one by one.

Suffragists Visit Twinsburg

It was 1912, and hundreds of spectators and participants gathered from far and near to watch the festivities. There was, however, more to the annual parade than the usual floats and figures. Two platoons of suffragists, numbering sixty-eight in total, led the parade through town, spreading their peaceful message of equality. Labeling themselves as suffragists rather than suffragettes meant they pursued a more legal, quiet approach than their more boisterous, action-oriented, and sometimes legally questionable counterparts. Photos of the event appeared in the Plain Dealer, showing the women on horseback. Additional festivities included dinner prepared by the Methodist Church, discussions by village elders, live music, and dancing around the Maypole.

America’s entry into World War I and the mass exodus of men to the front necessitated an influx of women into the newly vacant workforce. Working women were proving their vigor and value one job at a time. After years of protest and perseverance, women won the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Educational Facilities

The pages of history record and recall stories and statistics of the earliest schoolhouses to dot the countryside, these antiquated institutes of learning were long vacant by the time the first truly modern school came into being. While the first centralized school brought all the students under one roof, it was the “Old School” that many remember so fondly.

The source of countless lessons learned and friendships forged, the old schoolhouse located just off the town square served the area’s children for nearly seventy-five years. Welcoming its first students in the fall of 1921, the two-story red brick schoolhouse was a replacement for the older, whitewashed building that once stood behind it. Games were won and lost, field trips were taken, and countless bells rang, signaling the end of one period and the beginning of another. For more than thirty years, the school served all grades from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The edifice, now vacant, evolved in numerous ways after closing its doors in 1992, including its utilization by Kent State University. Congressman Steven LaTourette used the space while campaigning, it was the first location of the Twinsburg Senior Center, and at one point a proposal to transform it into a perambulator museum was bounced around.

Exterior of vacant school building taken April 26, 2016.

All of Twinsburg’s current educational facilities except the new high school and the Kent State University Regional Academic Center were constructed in the mid-twentieth century, a time rampant with civil unrest and racial tensions. For those who attended area schools during this time, race relations were present, though subdued in comparison to other areas of the country. As is the case with most things though, time’s passage washed away much of the tension, as new students, new initiatives, and new administration came and went. As our world grows increasing diverse, so too does the student body. Individuals from all corners of the world converge amid the lockers and lunch tables, mirroring the melding of ethnicities, nationalities, ideologies, and opinions that occurs on the web on a daily basis. Today, most school-age students from the three communities attend school in one of five facilities:

Wilcox Primary (kindergarten through first grade)
Samuel Bissell (second and third grade)
George G. Dodge (fourth through sixth grade)
R. B. Chamberlin (seventh and eighth grade)
Twinsburg High (ninth through twelfth grade)

The newest addition to Twinsburg’s educational landscape is Kent State’s Regional Academic Center. It offers a less expensive alternative for college students from both Twinsburg and neighboring cities such as Oakwood and Bedford. The building is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified as a “green” building. Kent State University has had a presence in Twinsburg since 1991, when it began offering training and education to employees at the Chrysler stamping plant.

Twinsburg residents vote to purchase Twinsburg Ledges

Audio: Katherine Procop on Liberty Park

Former Twinsburg Mayor, Katherine Procop, discusses the formation of Liberty Park, acquisition of the property, and the park’s relationship with Summit Metroparks.

http://www.summitmetroparks.org/liberty-park.aspx

Twinsburg 200: Celebrating 200 Years of Twinsburg History

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