Web Design in Barberton, OH

Barberton, Ohio

Barberton is in Summit County.

About Barberton, Ohio

History of Barberton

• Barberton was founded in 1891 by industrialist O. C. Barber, who laid out the town in the valley running parallel to the Tuscarawas River and the Ohio and Erie Canal, with factories, residential neighborhoods and a compact commercial downtown around a central lake. In 1894 he moved the manufacturing operations of the Diamond Match Company, formed from a merger of eleven companies, from Akron to Barberton. The nickname the Magic City comes from the speed of that growth: at incorporation in 1891 the scattered farms had become a city of 1,800, and an Akron Beacon Journal reporter revisiting in 1893 wrote that it appeared to have grown by magic. Industrial jobs drew immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. In 1908 Barber began an experimental estate on a hill east of town, the Anna-Dean Farm, intending it to become the basis of an agricultural college; he did not complete the financing before his death and willed it to Western Reserve University, now Case Western Reserve University, which later sold much of the property. In May 1939 a temporary school in the town exploded and forty students were injured, with firefighters at the time suspecting an accidental gas leak, as reported by the New York Times. Industrial restructuring reshaped the economic base during the 1980s, and in 1985 business and government leaders formed the Barberton Community Development Corporation in response.

Landmarks and Places in Barberton

• Lake Anna, a 10-acre glacial kettle spring lake at the center of the original village, named for O. C. Barber's only daughter Anna Laura Barber, and the 21-acre Lake Anna Park around it
• Anna-Dean Farm, a historic farm listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with several of its structures separately listed

The Barberton Economy

• The founding industry was match manufacturing. The Diamond Match Company operations Barber moved from Akron in 1894 were soon producing 250 million matches a day. Heavy industry dominated until restructuring in the 1980s changed the base: Unemployment in a Working-Class Community, published by Cornell University Press in 1989. Barn No. 1 of the Anna-Dean Farm, the former dairy barn restored in 1985, is now the world headquarters of the horticultural firm Yoder Brothers Corporation.

Local reference: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org