Saturday, August 14
On a misty summer twilight, over three hundred people thronged the uneven old sidewalks of  South Court Street, Medina’s grand historic neighborhood. The occasion was “A Twilight Stroll Home Tour” sponsored by the South Court Street Historic Neighborhood Association. Six homes were open to visitors.  The oldest was an 1838 Federal style structure, [...]

The time — July 2, 1863.  The place — the small, rural village of Medina, population 800.
At dawn, the bell at the Baptist Church on West Liberty rang the fire alarm.  Someone had seen black smoke coming from Shubal Coy’s home on 227 South Elmwood Street and had sounded the alarm. As fire-fighting volunteers broke [...]

Serene and tree-shaded East Liberty is one of the oldest streets in the village of Medina. It is a supremely walkable neighborhood, and it is looking its best on this late summer morning. A lush canopy of leaves creates a cool tunnel over the narrow sidewalks,  and a sense of history seems to linger in [...]

Twenty two years after the 1848 fire, the unthinkable happened.
On the night of April 14th, 1870, according the the “1881 History of Medina County and Ohio”,  “The alarm sounded…calling the people unceremoniously from their virtuous couches and in a few short hours, almost the entire business district of Medina was in ashes, much of it [...]

The story goes like this:  On the evening of April 11, 1848, two young men — drifters, probably — were playing cards in the back room of Barney Prentiss’s shoe store.  One of them blew out a candle and tossed it into a pile of trash in the corner. But he was careless — the [...]

The month of April is associated with three significant events in Medina’s history — the 1945 world premiere of a Hollywood movie (actually a 30 minute short subject) describing the village as the quintessential American small town, and two devastating fires: the first on April 11, 1848 and the second on April 14, 1870.
We’ll [...]

Tom Doyle is in his element this Saturday afternoon.  People keep drifting into his private fire museum, Little Wiz,  singly and and in groups, eager to see his amazing display of antique fire fighting equipment — an organized chaos of antique fire wagons and chemical tanks, of 19th century smoke helmets and early 20th century [...]

Medina may have achieved iconic status in preservation circles after its nationally lauded restoration of  Public Square in the late 1960’s — but these efforts came too late to save three landmarks which were once important in the life of the village.  The 1872 Lincoln School, the 1891 Medina Primary School and the 1840 Rose [...]

The Munsons were a prominent but quirky family who lived in Medina from 1877 until 1956 when the last member passed away.  The patriarch was Albert Munson, Probate Judge, state legislator and political activist. He was also a devout spiritualist and regularly held seances in his home — although he never acted as a medium.
Munson, [...]

This is a wintry view of North Court Street in the early 1900’s.  The tracks in the snow were for the Interurban Electric, part of the Cleveland, Southwestern and Columbus Railway which carried passengers to nearby cities and towns. A Medinian with a bad case of cabin fever induced by the perpetual snows of February [...]