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Cantonology, 306 4th Street NW, Canton, OH (2026)

05/29/2026

Day 156 - Middlebranch High School

We’ve talked about Glenwood and Oakwood high schools… but what came before them?

Middlebranch High School
was actually Plain Township’s first high school. In the very beginning, in 1926, it was two portable buildings and some of the elementary school classrooms.

Fun fact: A portable building later became the Plain Township Grange #2.

The first class consisted of five sophomore students, making them the first Middlebranch High School graduates in 1929.

With the number of students growing, by 1931 the Plain Township’s Board of Education made the decision to build a new high school.

The architectural firm of Firestone and Christman designed the new three story brick and stone school and separate gymnasium, which was fitting, because Charles Essig Firestone and Lowell Christman both had ties to Plain Township.

The township’s 1935 administrative handbook said of the school:

“Middlebranch has one of the most beautifully built and equipped high school buildings in this section of the state. It was erected in 1931, is modern in character, and has 15 rooms. Boiler rooms are located on the basement floor. On the first floor is found the 6th and 7th grade rooms, home economics, and manual training rooms. The library, general study hall, offices and class rooms are located on the second floor. The science room, commercial rooms, music rooms, and rest room for the teachers are located on the third floor. Each floor is provided with student lockers and lavatories. A combination gymnasium and auditorium constitute a part of the high school building equipment.”

Students came from the eastern part of Plain Township and westward to the boundary of the North Canton School District. Other students in the district continued to attend McKinley High School.

The high school became a member of North Central Association of Accredited Schools and Colleges in 1940.

In 1951 class sizes were increasing, so plans to add onto the school were made. Additions included a new Home Ec department, an expansion of Industrial Arts, art and drafting, cafeteria kitchen and eating space (which was also utilized for the band,) more library space and a new gymnasium.

Middlebranch ceased to be utilized as a high school with the graduation of the class of 1956-57, and then all undergraduate students went to the newly built Glenwood High School.

Today, the school building still lives on… the current Middlebranch Elementary building is anchored by a section of the Middlebranch High School that was constructed in 1931.

The Middlebranch High School school colors were black and red and they were known as the “Middlebranch Diamonds,” after the area’s largest employer, Diamond Portland Cement, which was established in 1892.

05/27/2026

Day 155 - Oakwood High School

Yesterday we talked about Glenwood High School, which was built during the 1950s to accommodate Plain Local’s rapidly increasing population and student count.

As we discussed, even the number of students that the future planning took into account was then exceeded, as the township was rapidly growing.

Additionally, vocational program offerings were starting to be required of schools by the state of Ohio. This of course only made the lack of space and need for the expansion of classrooms even more urgent.

As a result, Plain Local needed to expand their school system once again. Oakwood High School was built to accommodate the township’s growing student population, as well as to provide vocational programs.

The school operated as a high school only from 1968 until 1975, at which point Glenwood and Oakwood High Schools were merged into one school, resulting in GlenOak High School.

The design of Oakwood High School was innovative and modern, reflective of both the time period as well as the district’s needs. Classroom areas incorporated both large instruction areas as well as smaller discussion rooms and smaller study spaces. There was also a wing built for the new vocational program offerings.

The school building is still in use today, serving as the Oakwood Middle School for 7th and 8th grade students.

Oakwood’s school colors were green and gold, and the mascot was the Golden Raiders.

The Alma Mater was:

Of fondest memories, those of Oakwood will last thru the years.
To thee our loyalty forever and ever endures.
May all the days that follow bring back the mem'ries of old.
Of Oakwood High School the home of the green and gold.
The home of the green and gold.

05/26/2026

Day 154 - Glenwood High School

Today let’s take a look at Glenwood High School. Today, the building still stands and still serves as a school… Glenwood Intermediate School. In fact, today GlenOak High School represents the combining of Glenwood and Oakwood high schools in 1975. But back in the mid-1950s, Glenwood High School was being planned.

Prior to 1931, the township only operated schools for grades 1 through 8, with the exception of 9th being added at Middlebranch school (and then progressing upward in grades yearly) in 1925. Before the addition of Middlebranch, students had generally attended high school in Canton, North Canton and Jackson on a tuition basis.

But by 1940 schools were becoming crowded. The district tried to pass a school levy in 1945 but it was defeated. After even more severe crowding, in 1948 a Citizens Committee was formed to study the district’s overall school needs, and bond issue was passed in 1950. Then the Korean War caused price increases, necessitating an additional bond issue to be placed on the ballot in 1951 to fulfill the identified school needs, which was passed.

Students numbers continued to climb, necessitating more long-range planning and another bond issue in 1954. By this time, schools were so crowded that classes were being held in the gymnasium.

By 1956, elementary schools were becoming very crowded, necessitating another bond issue to add classrooms at Plain Center Elementary.

Ironically, when the Citizens Committee first projected its 1960 student enrollment numbers in 1952, many doubted that the enrollment would even climb that high, or at least so soon… but it actually ended up exceeding that number two years early.

From what I read, there was quite a bit of planning involved with the design, layout and construction of Glenwood High School. It was designed to be expandable and flexible, with areas that could be built onto and interior walls that could be removed. The layout of the classrooms was even designed to place “quiet” learning areas and “noisy” learning areas in separate sections of the building.

Contracts were awarded in early 1956 and the school started to be used in late 1957. It was dedicated in April 1958.

When planned, the thinking was that with periodic remodels, the new school building should be able to be used for at least 100 years. So far it seems to be doing pretty good towards that goal.

The school colors were red and blue, and the school mascot was “Ernie Eagle. And the Alma Mater was…

Glenwood, our Alma Mater dear,
Where e'er we go, thy loyal praise we hear.
Sportsmanship scholarship, both are of thy fame.
Glenwood, greatly loved and honored by thy name.
Glenwood, the mighty red and blue,
Glad are all our thoughts of you.
Sportsmanship, scholarship, both are of thy fame.
Glenwood, greatly loved and honored by thy name.

05/25/2026

Day 153 - Charles E. Dougherty

Sometimes I wonder what my “mark on the world” is going to be. The older I get, the more I wonder that. There are some days when I feel like nothing I do can make much of a difference at all in the big picture of things.

But as I’ve been working on The Freeda Project this year, I’ve realized that many of the people whose names come up time and time again in these stories were just regular people, just like you and I. Yeah, some went on to amass great wealth, but largely, they started out with not very much at all, often as a new immigrant or someone that moved to Canton with not much of anything.

Today I wanted to talk about Charles Dougherty… a name that I honestly had never thought about or even heard about before.

He was actually born in Greentown, Ohio in 1850. When he was nineteen years old, with just $2 to his name, he walked to Canton. At the time, Canton was the place to be, because of its access to the railroads.

Now, I used to work in Green. It’s a pretty good hike even by car when I was commuting there every day. But Charles walked.

He had a dream of going to dental school, and his plan was to work until he had saved up enough money to do so. It took him ten years, but he finally was able to go to Philadelphia to go to school to learn oral surgery. After he graduated, he returned to Canton and set up his oral surgery practice, which he worked at for the next three years.

Then, as sometimes happens in life, he had a personal setback. He had a nervous breakdown, after which he was told by a doctor in 1882 that he was only expected to live another year, maybe less.

But did he give up and accept that fate? Nope. He did, however, leave the field of dentistry, which had been his “dream job” from the time he was young, and made a drastic career change to real estate and insurance.

He ended up bypassing that “one year to live” by decades. While his career in oral surgery was short, his second career spanned over sixty years. And during that time, he brought major factories and industries to Canton, which contributed to the population of the city increasing from 30,000 to 130,000 during his lifetime.

He served as president of Canton's Board of Trade, organized in 1885 (which was the predecessor to the Chamber of Commerce,) working to bring new industry to the city. He used his own money to travel around the country, meeting with business leaders with the goal of convincing them to relocate to Canton.

He personally worked to raise the $100,000 required to bring the Dueber-Hampden watchworks factory to Canton.

He negotiated the deal with Henry Timken that brought the Timken Company here.

He convinced John Carnahan to build a rolling mill in Canton, which was ultimately purchased by the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, and also to build a tin plate mill and the Canton Stamping and Enameling Company.

He personally contacted William W. Irwin, who as a result became an important industrialist in Canton, bringing a rolling mill to Canton and largely contributing to the city's iron and steel industry. William Irving helped found the United Steel Company in Canton, later becoming superintendent at Berger Manufacturing.

In 1906, Charles Dougherty launched a campaign to raise $20,000 to purchase three manufacturing plants to donate to new businesses.

He passed away on January 23, 1944… over 60 years after being told in 1882 that he had a year or less to live.

From walking to Canton with $2 in his pocket to being the driving force that brought companies and industries to Canton… companies that have touched all of us, and probably employed many of our family members.

He was quoted once as saying, "I bid you welcome to this, the best city on the American continent."

So when we think “I don’t have enough money or importance to make a difference in my community”… let’s remember Charles Dougherty. If he could start out with $2, devote over a decade to his dream career only to have to abandon it, have a mental breakdown, be given the news of only a year to live and still he kept going and still considered Canton to be “the best city”… well, then so can we.

05/24/2026

Day 152 - School Safety Patrol

The other day when I was taking a photo to post of my “School Years” book that my mom kept for me, it made me remember something I haven’t thought about in a long time… the School Safety Patrol program in elementary school. So, today we are going to go down “elementary school memory lane a little bit, and remember our little careers as School Safety Patrol officers lol.

How many of you were a School Safety Patrol at any time in school?

When I was in elementary school, I think it was a program that 5th and 6th graders could be in. It involved wearing a neon orange “Sam Browne” style belt that had a shiny silver badge on it. It had “AAA” on the badge because it was a program that was sponsored by the “Triple A” American Auto Association.

At my elementary school, kids took turns being the School Safety Patrol. Basically the older kids shepherded the younger kids, as well as any 5th or 6th graders kids in the group that it wasn’t their turn that week. I seem to recall that there were two kids assigned weekly, although that was a long time ago and I might be remembering wrong.

I went to the Canton Local school district which was more rural than Canton City. At Prairie College Elementary, one of the safety patrol tasks was making sure kids walked safely from the school building to the buses. Another task was walking the “home walkers” across the school’s front driveway and helping them cross the street, or getting the kids that lived on the same side of the street as the school safely on their way home.

Which was a little bit of a conflict of interest for me, because I WAS a “home walker” that lived on the other side of the street. So after watching the other home walkers cross safely, I had to take the orange belt and badge back to the school office and then walk myself back across the street.

I can’t remember exactly what else we did. Maybe tell kids not to run in the halls or to be safe on the playground? Either way, we had a week of wearing that bright orange belt and badge.

I think we got a certificate at the end of the year, probably at the end of school year awards assembly, and maybe even a dollar bill for our “service” lol.

If you were a School Safety Patrol in Canton City schools or another less rural school than mine… what were your duties like? Did you have the same orange belt and badge?

I did a little reading on the program. It was actually started by the Chicago Motor Club and the St. Paul Police in 1920, when automobiles were starting to be a safety concern for school kids walking to and from school, and was referred to as the Junior Safety Patrol.

But it really took off in the 1930s when the AAA began its sponsorship of the program. Apparently from what I read, when the program first started it was only for boys… but I can attest to the fact that in the 1960s we girls were also donning the neon orange belt and badge and serving as School Safety Patrols along with the boys.

I checked, and the program is still active! Somewhere along the line it has become the “AAA School Safety Patrol” program and I feel like our shiny silver badge of the 1960s was more probably impressive than today’s badge lol. There are programs in other countries now too, and statistically, these programs do help decrease traffic accidents involving kids in school surroundings.

So yay for the School Safety Patrol of our youth… and yay for the kids of today, over 100 years after the program’s inception, still helping their younger classmates stay safe.

05/22/2026

Day 151 - Memorial Day Parade

Growing up, we went to Canton’s Memorial Day parade without fail. My mom was very into parades. Even when we were a bit older and really didn’t get too excited about the thought of getting up early, parking the car quite a distance away, and trudging to the parade route to stand in the blazing sun or rain or whatever weather Ohio was serving up that day… it was hard to resist mom’s enthusiasm and so off we’d go, cameras in hand.

I don’t think we ever went to the McKinley Monument concluding ceremony even once though, because that would have been quite a lot more walking. But my cousins, who were in their high school marching bands, would be there. We would look for them in the band every year and Mom would spot them and say “there’s Linda! There’s Susan! There’s Paula!” as she’d spot them marching by us.

I’m not sure when Canton held its first Memorial Day parade, but I found mention of a holiday parade in 1882.

In 1907, while not on Memorial Day itself, there was a McKinley Memorial Day parade held on September 30th that President Theodore Roosevelt attended.

I hadn’t realized that within my lifetime, Memorial Day wasn’t actually even always a Federal holiday. That didn’t happen until 1971. Before that, it was known as “Decoration Day,” which honored Civil War soldiers.

I’m not sure if Canton has had a parade every year since the one held in 1882, but Ironton, Ohio has held their parade annually since 1868, making it the longest-running Decoration Day/Memorial Day parade in Ohio, and appears to be tied with Alton, Illinois for the longest running one in the U.S.

Here’s a YouTube video of portions of the parade from a few years ago for you to enjoy:

https://youtu.be/K2VmblsRdwY?si=WVJD4UbiuFWPoAoJ

If you are planning to attend this year’s Memorial Day parade in Canton, here’s the schedule:

10:00 am - Parade Start
McKinley Ave NW & Tuscarawas St NW (outside the McKinley Early College High School (formerly Timken High School)

Parade Route:
The 1.2-mile procession travels west on Tuscarawas Street, north on Elgin Avenue NW, then follows Seventh Street and McKinley Monument Drive.

11:00am - Parade End
McKinley Presidential Library and Museum

11:30am - Memorial Day Ceremony
Guest Speakers (Canton mayor and Plain Township Trustee Brook Harless,) Commemorations, Music, Food at the McKinley Memorial Lawn

And here’s the all-important road closures and detours so that you can get to the parade easily:

McKinley Ave NW south of 5th St to W. Tuscarawas
Dewalt Ave NW south of 4th St to W. Tuscarawas
W. Tuscarawas from Cleveland Ave to Elgin Ave in both directions
Fulton Road from 2nd NW to W. Tuscarawas
Elgin Ave from Tusc to 7th St NW
7th St NW from Kennet to Monument
Monument Park from 7th to 12th to include the McKinley Monument
Waterworks Park

DETOURS:
If you need to get east of the parade on the south, please take Dueber Ave to 6th St SW then east to Cleveland Ave.
Going west is 6th St SW to Deuber Ave SW
If you need to get east of the parade on the north, please use 12th St NW.
Going west into the neighborhoods the only change is using Fulton Rd to go south.

In typical Ohio weather fashion, it looks like we might have rain in the forecast all holiday weekend, but hopefully it won’t rain on our parade. 🙂

05/21/2026

Cantonology is closed today. We will be open again tomorrow and Saturday as usual. Sorry for any inconvenience.

05/21/2026

Day 150 - Congrats to McKinley 2026 grads! (and of course grads from all schools)

Tonight the McKinley Class of 2026 graduates. What a world they are graduating into! So many uncertainties, and yet so many challenges. Here’s to wishing every graduate success as they leave the halls of high school and join the rest of us on the other side.

Today, I’d like to hear from all of you, on this, the class of 2026’s graduation day. Think back to the year you graduated. What was going through your mind? What were you excited about? What were you nervous or concerned about? Has “life after graduation” been anything like what you thought it would be? Do you have some words of wisdom for this year’s graduates as they go forth?

You don’t have to have been a McKinley graduate. Any school any year. Just some of your thoughts.

I remember thinking that I was going to work for a year, and then go to art school. I wanted to become either a commercial artist, or even more so… an art teacher. I did neither, except my “year of working” turned into almost 50 years of working at this point, and still counting. 30 of those years, including currently, have been in the field of I.T.

But we do have our art studio in downtown Canton. I do illustrate Freeda’s Footsteps, who graces the pages of a couple area newspapers. So the art part did happen… along with so many other different twists and turns along the years.

05/20/2026

Day 149 - Bear Creek

Last night I was reading about an upcoming high school reunion for an area school, and it reminded me of all of my own class reunions.

In the beginning, our class of 1978 was very diligent about planning these… in fact, we even had a 5-year reunion… at Bear Creek.

As a Canton South high school graduate, Bear Creek was an obvious choice, as it was down in our “neck of the woods” in East Sparta.

If you ever went there, you’ll probably recall what a fun, casual place it was. The ceiling was filled with cut-off neckties as they were legendary for their rule of not serving anyone in a necktie and they would cut them off and add them to their ceiling necktie collection. It was kind of a fun thing that people would often purposely do as to get their own necktie up there. I had read that they had more than 10,000 ties, from most of the states and even from other countries. Of course, if the person didn’t want their tie cut and tacked to the ceiling, the restaurant would just ask them to remove it.

They served steaks, of course… but also the “Home of the World's Largest Steak” challenge… Bear Creek would pick up the $29.95 tab for any customer who could down a 6-pound steak dinner with baked potato and salad in 90 minutes. Over the years, I read that they did have a couple hundred people beat the challenge.

The idea of a 6-pound steak dinner for $29.95 sounds incredulous in 2026 prices lol but this was back in the 1970s and 1980s prices. And a regular steak dinner was in the $3-$4 price range, with specials costing even less. Mind boggling.

The building that housed the restaurant was actually a 100-year-old former church building. There was often live music in the evenings. There was swimming. There were toboggan runs and horseback riding. It was a fun place year-round.

There was also a big carved wooden bear. Until recently, I think this was the same bear that stood in a yard on Dueber Ext. not far from my house… he has recently been moved somewhere though. I suspect he’s gone back to live somewhere at the Bear Creek Ranch KOA, but I don’t know his whereabouts for sure. Hopefully wherever he is he’s living his best giant wooden carved bear life.

The ads I’ve seen said there was also a Bear Creek up towards Akron, but I was never at that one.

Sadly, Bear Creek had a fire in the restaurant, I believe in late 1988, which closed the restaurant itself.

But you can still go have fun if you enjoy ATV and motocross! The Bear Creek Amphitheatre has about 26 miles of trails for ATVs and dirt bikes. There are trails for various skill levels, including a motocross track. And the Bear Creek Ranch KOA is still there to enjoy camping. But still, I’ll always miss the Bear Creek restaurant with all the clipped off ties tacked to the ceiling of my younger days.

05/19/2026

Day 148 - Canton City Hall (then and now)

Yesterday’s story had to wait until this morning, because I was actually at Canton City Hall last night, attending the city council meeting.

But I digress…

Canton’s original City Hall was built in 1883. Like most of the buildings from that era, it was a towering structure that by today’s standards, does not look like a government building. It stood where our current City Hall stands.

In 1959 this structure was demolished, to make way for the new modern design City Hall that was up be built on the same spot. I don’t remember any of this, as I wasn’t born yet lol… the only City Hall I know is the current one. But as you might imagine, the construction of our current glass tower building was a huge big deal in Canton.

It’s important to remember that back in the late 1950s/early 1960s, cities wanted to feel and look more like “big cities.” More modern, less “old fashioned.” We may look at the old buildings now as historic buildings that we wish still stood, but back then this was celebrated as progress and helping Canton “grow up.”

I’ve actually always liked the current building. Especially the distinctive brickwork. I always wonder about that much glass in a tower designed back in the day when high energy costs weren’t even a blip on anyone’s radar, but I hope that tower is made from glass with a good insulation rating.

Once the new building was completed, it was put into service in 1961, undoubtedly with great fanfare. There’s even a cornerstone that contains a time capsule, containing historical items from the time, dedicated in 1961. I wonder what’s inside?

And why, you might ask, was I at a city council meeting last night instead of writing my daily story?

It’s because last night, in a unanimous vote, city council passed their support of the 30 year, 75% tax abatement for the hyperscale data center that’s being built within two miles of my home.

I had hoped that wouldn’t be the vote, but honestly, I knew before going to the meeting that would be the outcome. Still, I didn’t think it would be unanimous.

For those of us living nearby with well water and property values about to plummet because of this thing (because who wants to live next door to one of these things?!?)… well let’s just say that I’m glad my dad and mom (the “Freeda” my local history project has been undertaken in honor of,) aren’t around to see what’s happening to the nice, quiet, rural property they carefully chose onto which to build their home back in 1965. It’s being built on fertile farmland. Awesome (not) and there’s two or three more of them in the works as well, in and around Canton. And one in Massillon too, a bitcoin mining data center based out of China. They are popping up everywhere. Maybe next, who knows, in YOUR neighborhood.

I wonder what the city council folks of 1961 would think if they could have seen into the future to last night when the way was further paved for this hyperscale data center? And that a little baby (me), who would have been one year old in 1961 when that time capsule was placed, was going to be sitting in that 2026 city council meeting watching it get unanimously approved.

But then, as we will all recall from a previous story, it was Canton City Council in 1897 that also voted to lay the tombstones flat and bury the entire Plum Street Cemetery under 130+ wagon loads of dirt too, and then plant grass and trees. (Yeah I’m clearly never going to get over that story lol.) Here’s the link to the wild story if you missed it lol…

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CqZxAhtf1/?mibextid=wwXIfr

As you all know, my goal with this history project is to hopefully bring us all together more closely with more appreciation for community. I did NOT want my Freeda Project to take any political slant or be the source of online squabbling. I have to thank EVERYONE for the great community unity spirit there’s been in the comment section on all my posts. In today’s volatile social media climate, I almost was afraid to do the Freeda Project, because I knew my heart, soul and spirit would be crushed if it turned into arguments and mean spiritedness in the comment section. But my faith in the goodness of community spirit has been uplifted by all of you and for that, I thank you all.

But I think it’s important to realize that all these data centers being built in Ohio isn’t a one single political party thing. It’s both. It’s all. If we as citizens are not in favor… now is the time to leave your political affiliations at the door, and make your wishes known LOUDLY, because we have to fight this fight together.

And if you are in favor of Ohio becoming a center for data centers… and want to see Ohio end up like Virginia (who currently has the most, I think)… well it’s still a free country. Vote in favor of them if that’s what you believe.

But like that 1961 time capsule in the cornerstone of the City Hall building, what we do now and the decisions we make as to what we allow to be built in our cities, counties and state is basically a time capsule… or perhaps “time bomb” is a more accurate term… for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

It’s all up to us now. What do we want to put in our 2026 “time capsule” for future Ohio generations? The decision is ours, and history will surely judge us for that decision.

Cantonology

05/29/2026

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